Expatriate Games

Facebook Win!

2010-08-18T22:21:00.003-04:00

Sunday night, I went to a casino for the first time in my life, where Stride and I miraculously won $250 playing $5 blackjack. I posted a facebook status to that effect and today, this ad showed up on my homepage:

O facebook, you kill me!

Guest Blogging

2010-08-17T14:23:00.004-04:00

Look for my guest blog about Tahquamenon Falls to appear on onetravel.com (offering cheap tickets and other travel info) next Thursday, August 26th! My article can be found on the onetravel blog.

The Pleasant Penninsula: Drummond Island

2010-07-27T11:47:00.003-04:00

The last day of our northerly vacation coincided with the first day that my parents were going to be in the UP for their annual getaway, so we decided to crash their party on Drummond Island.

It was Mom's idea to go the the Fossil Ledges on the northeast edge of the island. The ledges are precisely what they sound like -- a coastline of layered stone eaten slowly away by Lake Huron. The result of this slow-motion shattering is a series of rocky terraces stretching out into the water, blurring the border between the island and the lake in a truly entrancing way.

Of course, like most places worth going to, the Fossil Ledges are on what we might call the path less traveled. You have to make your way through Maxton Plains, a nature preserve inhabited by a rare combination of plants and animals. If you don't get eaten by any bears, you can continue north-ish on the dirt road, which gets progressively rockier and narrower.

To add to the fun of our trip, recent rain had flooded several parts of the road so that Dad had to guess how deep the water was and where the rocks were. The good news is that the road is basically limestone, not mud, so (as we were reassured several times) "you won't sink." However, that didn't do much to relieve our concerns about flooding the engine, popping a tire, or eviscerating the car on the large, frequently submerged, rocks.

If you ever attempt this drive, we recommend doing so in a high-riding vehicle like a Jeep or a truck. Our research shows that with some ingenious navigating a Pontiac Vibe can successfully make the trip, but as we all know, not everything that can be done should be.

When we got to the final drive leading to the Fossil Ledges -- a drive which is unmarked and easy to miss unless there happen to be other cars parked near it -- we had to abandon the Vibe and go on foot because the rocks were just too imposing to risk their wrath any longer.

Once we finally got to the ledges, we discovered that it was well worth the perilous journey, and we spent quite a while wandering up and down the mile-long stretch of coast, picking through the rocks to find fossils of shells and coral and all manner of creeping little denizens of the waves.

Even despite a little rain, we spent over an hour strolling this uniquely beautiful little stretch of coast, taking photos and hunting for cool fossils and just enjoying the fresh air and the water.

For the most part, the rough drive makes the Fossil Ledges a fairly secluded spot, but Stride did make one new friend while we were out there and few people we passed on the way all stopped to exchange information and advice about navigating the road, in typical friendly Yooper style.

Times are not good in Michigan right now. The economy is rough and a lot of people are struggling, but this trip has reminded me that we still have a lot of incredible things to be proud of. Here's to you, Pleasant Peninsula!

The Pleasant Penninsula: Tahquamenon Falls

2010-07-25T11:20:00.000-04:00

On Sunday, we took on one of the crown jewels of the Upper Peninsula: Tahquamenon Falls, a series of rapids and waterfalls in the Tahquamenon River that are extraordinary not just for their size and beauty but also for their unique golden-red color. Cedar, hemlock, and spruce trees in the surrounding forest and swamps infuse the water with tannin (or tannic acid), the same astringent found in grapes that makes your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth a little bit after a sip of good wine. The acid has two important effects on the water -- it softens it so that the falls produce prolific amounts of foam and it gives it this incredible coloring. While the intensity of the color varies throughout the year, at its richest, the whole river looks like a flow of liquid amber.

The Lower Falls are a series of several rapids that flank a small island. For the best view, you have to rent a rowboat from the park and heave-ho your way to the island, which has a little hiking path to follow and allows you to get right next to the water. Fair warning: The water is very accessible from the island and we saw several people wading in it and allowing their small children to wade in it. This is a really effective way to lose a small child as the river's sandstone bed can be extremely slippery and the current, which seems harmless enough in the shallows, gets treacherously quick around the rapids. Even a grown man can easily lose his footing and end up sleepin' with the fishes, so keep to the shore and keep a close eye on your kids.

Shallow but fast-moving water through the Lower Falls. All the park signs through this area say "Beautiful but Treacherous."

This is as far into the water as we got, even though it was a hot day and the river was tempting. Safety first, boys and girls!

Disclaimer: Stride is a professional adventurer. Do not attempt this at home.

There's about a four-mile hike from the Lower Falls to the Upper Falls. This path starts out as a well-maintained boardwalk along the river but quickly becomes a rugged, often overgrown, trek through the woods with several steep inclines. There are a few gorgeous vistas and some beautiful stretches along the river that make it worthwhile, but be prepared with some good hiking shoes, bug spray, water, and snacks, and keep in mind that once you get to the Upper Falls, you've got to get back.

Along the way to the Upper Falls, we spotted the work of one Michigan's original lumberjacks. He apparently got distracted and couldn't be bothered to finish off this poor tree.

The Upper Tahquamenon Falls is one of the largest waterfalls east of the Mississippi, second only to Niagara. Obviously, the fifty-foot drop makes this waterfall a bit more formidable than the rapids downstream, so you can only approach it by standing on a lookout platform.

After we had taken in the view and the foam and the incredible amber water, we got an anticlimactic bite to eat at the nearby lodge and then started the four mile hike back to our campsite at the Lower Falls.

The main strip of Paradise, MI, the town closest to Tahquamenon Falls State Park, is quite the booming metropolis, sporting approximately two greasy spoon diners, one chainsaw art gallery, and this root-beer-stand-turned-trailer-lot. We settled on breakfast at a blueberry-bedecked diner called the Berry Patch. Imagine, then, our dismay when we discovered they didn't have any blueberry pancakes. Not my idea of Paradise. :(

But it didn't matter anyway because Monday morning we were off to our next adventure at Drummond Island

The Pleasant Penninsula: Whitefish Bay

2010-07-23T11:05:00.002-04:00

With near 3300 miles of coastline, the state of Michigan is home to over 115 lighthouses, each of which is a unique and beautiful spot to stop and enjoy the water and the view. Point Iroquois Lighthouse, located on the southern rim of Whitefish Bay, is no longer operating, but part of the original structure has been converted into a small museum and the rest into a private residence. The grounds and the building are extremely well-kept, and both the museum and the lighthouse tower are open to the public, so you can hike up the 72-step spiral staircase for a fantastic panorama of the American and Canadian coastlines and any freighters passing through from the Soo Locks into Lake Superior.

From the light, you can stroll down the boardwalk to the beach. Michigan has almost endless stretches of pristine, sandy beaches where you can stretch out in the sunshine or build castles or bury your toes among the warm, sparkling little grains. Point Iroquois is not one of them.

Because we are tough, we braved the rocky shore to cool our heels in the bay and check out some of the beautiful (if slippery and unforgiving) stones that give it its kaleidoscope of colors. Most of the stones here are too big or too round for skipping, but it's a great spot for agate-hunting. I do recommend you bring your Crocs along though.

After picking our way gingerly back up to the car, we continued around the bay to Whitefish Point, home to a larger, less-photogenic lighthouse and a much more walkable beach.

With skipping stones a-plenty and a sweeping view of Lake Superior, Whitefish Point is an ideal place to stroll. Most times of the year, you can't stand in the water for more than a few seconds without going numb up to your ankles, but over the Fourth, it was surprisingly hot and the normally frigid Lake Superior was actually refreshing.

In addition to the lighthouse itself, Whitefish Point boasts a little complex of buildings that include the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum (with an admission cost of $12/head, which Stride declared was too much money to see "stuff that's wrecked") and a fudge shop. He doesn't look very impressed with the fudge either...

On the drive back, we stopped for a coffee at the Dancing Crane, and had one of those rare moments of truly finding a diamond in the rough.

Stride got a fruitylicious smoothie and I had my standard latte made from their home-roasted beans. While we sipped, we played with the games, toys, and other gadgets they have scattered all over the place. Stride beat me handsomely at checkers and we both struggled to master Gravitation, the greatest game of all time.

If you're in the area, I definitely recommend that you pop in here and enjoy the great service, food, and atmosphere for a bit.

The Pleasant Penninsula: Sault Ste. Marie

2010-07-22T10:52:00.001-04:00

One of the surprising perks of dating someone who's from out-of-state is that the landscapes of our childhoods are entirely different. He grew up on the Mississippi in a family that spent that summer vacations taking epic road trips across the American West. I grew up in Michigan camping on the Great Lakes. The most epic journey of my youth was hiking the dunes around Sleeping Bear. However, since we're both in the Pleasant Peninsula right now, I've been showing him around several of my childhood haunts and as he sees these places for the first time, I get the chance to rediscover some things I'd taken for granted.

Over the Fourth of July this summer, we went camping up in the UP (that's the Upper Peninsula) and visited several places I hadn't been to since I was a kid. Now the Upper Peninsula is sort of a funny place. It constitutes about a third of the state, but to be honest, I usually forget it's there. Most of it is Hiawatha National Forest, and the few cities up there are separated by vast stretches of pine-covered hills. In short, it's the sort of place people move to when they want to get away from other people.

But in the summer, if you're looking for some incredible scenery in a spot that's a bit off the beaten path, northern Michigan is the place to go.

Our first stop was the city of Sault Ste. Marie (pronounced "Soo Saint Marie"), which is located on the US/Canadian border on the canal that ships must navigate to get between Lake Huron and Lake Superior. Due to the 21-foot drop between Superior and Huron, there's a system of locks in the canal large enough to accommodate the over 10,000 vessels and 86 million tons of cargo that pass between the lakes every year.

Next to the locks is a gorgeous park where Stride and I loafed around in the sun while we watched the ships.

The downtown of Sault Ste. Marie has a few kitschy shops and a couple interesting art galleries, but other than that, there isn't much else to do, so we entertained ourselves with a rousing round of mini-golf. In spite of a few runaway balls, we did pretty well and ended up tying -- which I take as further proof of our seamless teamwork.

Whenever I travel, I like to keep my eyes open for amusing signs -- some defy logic, some are charmingly susceptible to misreading, and some, like this, reflect our culture's ever-waning common sense. I suggest this experiment: Let's get rid of all the signs like this and see what happens. If someone wants to sit on this dilapidated rail fence perched precariously over a ten-foot drop into a 200-Flushes Blue mini-golf pond, let 'em! What's the worst that could happen?

Unlike

2010-07-09T17:33:00.002-04:00

A world of "no."

Know Your Roots: The Vampire Rant

2010-07-01T16:21:00.015-04:00

In the midst of all the hype about the latest Twilight movie, my friend Kate recently wrote an article for Marie Claire that takes a look at the least sexy vampires to grace the silver screen. I think she's on to something here, but I'd like to take it one step further and give my (unsolicited) opinion about the whole vampaphile phenomenon.

While I'd like to simply rant about what horrible books the Twilight series are, they are merely a pawn in a much larger game that seeks to sexy-fy the vampire. To understand why this annoys me so, you'll have to take a look at the history of vampire lore and the very core of what exactly a vampire is.

To get to the root of the vampire, we have to discuss some pretty nasty stuff, so this is fair warning that what you're about to read might make you throw up in your mouth. If you think you can stomach it, do come along with me as I lead you through the magically un-sexy world of...

VAMPIRES 101

Virtually every human culture has myths and folklore surrounding the notion of undead human corpses, and the drinking or sucking of blood is associated with demons and monsters the world over, but the vampire as we know him originates in Eastern Europe and his classic traits arise from a charmingly medieval misunderstanding of the spread of disease and the decomposition of the human body.

In medieval Europe, as human populations began to explode and those humans became increasingly specialized in their trades, the rise of early urbanization meant that not only were there more people than ever before, but that they were also living in closer quarters than they ever had. Close proximity to each other (and each other's waste -- ew!) led to the rampant spread of disease. The most nefarious of these was, of course, The Black Death of the 14th century, but other smaller epidemics were a common cause for panic, and as we know, humans are at their most creative when they are ignorant and panicky, so this is a period rich in folklore and superstition.

One of the delightful off-shoots of so many folks dying so quickly was the frequent use of mass graves, and because those graves were often reopened to add fresh bodies to the heap, those doing the burying were learning a lot more about decomposing human bodies than ever before. Now if we imagine ourselves to be a medieval chappy reopening a mass grave, we might expect that the bodies inside -- which haven't been eating or drinking since their deaths -- would be drying out and shriveling up and turning to bones, much the way we dry out and shrivel up if we don't eat while we're living, but that, unfortunately, is not the case. Instead, the bodies are swollen and, horridly, leaking blood and other fluids from their noses and mouths -- mouths which are gaping open to reveal hideously long teeth. Even in cases where the bodies were wrapped in burial shrouds, the fluids leaking from the mouth would have quickly decayed that portion of the shroud, leaving that blood-curdling image of the gaping black mouth and the fangs. Modern science tells us that this is not the stuff of nightmares but actually, albeit completely nauseating, the natural changes that a human body goes through as it decays. The rotting corpse swells with gases and fluids, which the pressure forces out any openings it can find, and as the gums dry and recede, the teeth appear to grow longer and sharper -- disgusting, but all totally normal, particularly when the bodies aren't treated or embalmed in any way before their burial.

However, our poor medieval chappy doesn't have the advantages of our modern education and so what he sees, understandably, is a body that is apparently engorged with blood. Mix that with the fact that around him, seemingly healthy people are quickly succumbing to some mysterious condition that is leaving them pale and sapped of life, add a dash of that ingenious human creativity, and you come up with the not-so-irrational notion that the dead bodies are rising from the ground (under the cover of night, obviously, since we never see them), feeding on the blood of the living, and then tucking themselves cozily back into their graves while their victims grow steadily more ill and eventually join them.

Everyone knows you shouldn't kiss a plague rat on the mouth, so why would you make out with a plague corpse?

Needless to say, the medieval vampire is not exactly a sex symbol, except perhaps for some rather troubled necrophiliacs...

... That was too far, wasn't it? Sorry.

Anyway, from these rather stomach-turning superstitions comes the classic image of the vampire, who first takes a tangible form in Polidori's The Vampyre and then more famously in Bram Stoker's Dracula. The character of Count Dracula, who is based not only on medieval superstition but also on the very real person of Vlad the Impaler, is the image from which all modern vampires spring, and I believe, in its move toward a vampire who is cunning and sophisticated, takes the first step toward the "Vampires are Sexy" notion.

If you are a fan of the Twilight "saga" (We'll discuss the bastardization of the word "saga" some other day) or of vampire stories in general, I absolutely insist that you read Stoker's classic tale of horror. You see, while I would not describe Stoker's count, his brides, or the hapless Lucy as sexual, I think this is where some sensuality creeps into the vampire story -- not in the sense of victims being attracted to vampires, but in the sense of vampires being attracted to their victims. Dracula doesn't entrance Lucy with his smoldering good looks or his bad-boy attitude; he has to literally entrance her (as in "put into a hypnotic trance") to get close to her. Jonathan is perhaps an even better case; he is completely repulsed by Dracula's brides who are pale, fangy, and ugly. The attraction here is completely from the vampires' side, much the way that you feel a magnetic draw to a juicy steak, but the steak, presumably, doesn't think you're that cute. Somehow modern vampire stories make the completely irrational leap to Bella the Steak thinking Edward the Carnivore is hot.

Bella the Steak says, "Ooo, I'd like to get me eaten by that carnivore!"

Another aspect of the original vampire lore that is crucial to the Dracula story but somehow conveniently disappears in modern vampire stories is that the vampire is not human. Now let's all repeat that together, boys and girls: Vampires are not human. They are soulless corpses that used to be human but are now possessed by demons. That's right: DEMONS. Count Dracula the Vampire has no connection to the late Count Dracula the Person and does not, to any degree, retain his human personality. If you'd like proof of this, consider Lucy's harrowing transition. She is clearly NOT Lucy after her transformation; while she knows Dr. Van Helsing and the others, she does not retain any of her emotional connection to them. Her fiance goes from her dearest love to a juicy steak in the blink of an eye, and she goes from our sweet little victim to the undead corpse stalking children in the park. It is the destruction of the vampire -- by staking it through the heart, stuffing its mouth with garlic, decapitating it and placing its head between its feet (all very sexy, by the way) -- that exorcises the demon and allows the deceased person to finally R.I.P.

The key to modern vampire stories, such as Twilight and Interview with a Vampire, is the sympathy the audience is supposed to feel for the vampire, based mostly on the idea that the vampire is just some poor victim who, like Louis or the Cullens, thinks killing people is wrong and either feels regret for eating people or eats rats/deer/rare steaks instead. These modern stories cast vampirism as a sort of unfortunate madness, something we shouldn't blame the vampire for and something he feels just awful about and wishes he could escape. But Dracula feels as much regret about eating Lucy as you do about that steak. Possibly less.

To Anne Rice's credit, Lestat is at least nasty and ruthless enough to repulse us, but she still misses the mark here because even Lestat has way too much personality for a vampire. He's riddled with all kinds of human emotion and desperately desires companionship, which he gets by way of transforming Louis (with a lot of gay overtones). Even in his absolutely most terrifying moment when he returns from the swamp looking decidedly un-sexy, he still plays the frickin' piano.

"Yes, Mom, Louis is my eternal companion, but I like to eat chicks -- I swear!"

So when we take the vampire and 1) make him good-looking so he can seduce us, 2) grant him a human personality and soul so that we can forgive him for all that neck-biting and life-force robbing, and 3) give him a conscience so he doesn't bite necks and rob life forces in the first place, what are we left with?

Well, let's see: we now have a regular guy who's not only going to look hot for eternity but is also going to live for eternity, which makes him... O! NOT A F'ING VAMPIRE. Now he's just a hot guy who's never gonna die -- who wouldn't want to hook up with that? And why would Bella not want him to suck on her neck so she can be hot and never die too? Sounds like a deal to me. Meyer even eliminates all the classic drawbacks to being a vampire -- like not being able to go out in the sun or eat garlic or look at crosses or be around holy water -- simply by having Edward "poo-poo" them. The only downside seems to be that you occasionally make a fool of yourself at birthday parties and leave everyone feeling awkward, but come on, that's not a vampire issue, Jasper -- we all do that! And on top of that, Meyer's vampires have superspeed and superstrength and other special powers. They are Superman sans the kryptonite. And somehow we're supposed to believe that these are poor, tortured souls who just wish so much that they weren't vampires. What a stupid fricking premise for ~~a movie~~ a whole mother'lovin' series of movies.

Meyer and the other proponents of the "vampires are sexy" myth seem to think they're a bit ingenious for turning centuries of lore on its head but I, like the venerable Miss Prism, "am not in favour of this modern mania of turning bad people into good people at a moment's notice" (The Importance of Being Ernest). Where are Arthur and Jonathan and Dr. Van Helsing while we're mooning over Dracula? Are our heroes now so few and so far between that we have to fall in love with the monster?

Well, have fun making out with your plague corpse, Bella, but I for one am going to stick with humans, however mortal they may be.

Shaw's Garden, St. Louis

2010-06-27T21:46:00.005-04:00

Well, my first visit to St. Louis must have gone well because the next time my boyfriend went home to see his folks, I got invited to tag along. This time, on top of some great family festivities, we also went to the beautiful Shaw's Garden and got some cool photos. In addition to just being a fabulous botanical garden, Shaw's Garden (or The Missouri Botanical Gardens, officially) is exceptional because it is divided into several small gardens, all with very different atmospheres, as you can see from the photos below.

The Japanese Garden -- much larger and more open than most gardens in Japan, but still, they captured the spirit well.

The sundial's off from the watch by an hour because of DST, but otherwise, remarkably accurate.

One of about a half-dozen couples we saw either getting married or having their photos done in the gardens that day.

Meeting Famous People

2010-06-22T11:06:00.008-04:00

If you've read this blog before, you've probably come across a story or two about my near-encounters with famous people. Like my knack for missing wild animals in their natural habitat (refer to the Moose Sighting Expedition of '07), I also have a knack for not seeing celebrities even when they are right under my nose. Once, in Rome, I was standing in St. Peter's, gazing transfixedly on Michelangelo's Pieta and did not at all notice that Tom Hanks was standing directly beside me also gazing at the same. It was only after he walked away and was lost in the crowd that my friends informed me thus, and sure enough, when we got back home the following week People Magazine's front page story was: "Hanks and Springstein Visit Rome" with a photo of the two of them grinning in front of the basilica.

Similarly, when I was in Hawai'i two years ago, I was underwater playing with the dolphins when Don Cheadle paddled up in a canoe, hopped in our boat, and threw back a few brewskies with the boys. By the time I got back on board, he was a little speck on the other side of the bay.

Well, in the process of some writing projects of my own, I decided to re-read The End, the thirteenth and final book in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, which reminded me that I do, in fact, have one good story about actually meeting a famous person. I met Lemony Snicket. I met him at his book-signing, so it wasn't at all by chance (which I guess equates it to seeing a moose in a zoo), but the story is funny anyway.

My sister and I had went to the book-signing, which was on Halloween, 2006. The line to get to the author was massive, so in order to move people through quickly, they gave everyone a sticky note. On it, you were supposed to write your name so that he wouldn't have to ask "How do you spell that?" seven hundred times. Now in the Series, there's sort of a running gag about initials -- lots of notes and letters and journals and such are just signed with the character's initials so you can't really be sure who wrote what or knows what, etc. So in an attempt to be clever, I wrote "LG" on my sticky note.

When I got to the front of the line, I was all ready for him to appreciate my little joke, but instead the conversation went like this:

LS: "What's this? 'LG'? Don't you want me to know what your name is?"

me: "Wha? No, I..."

LS: *sigh* "No, no, you're right. It's better this way. Because if I found out your name, we'd get to talking, and soon I'd ask for your number, and I'd call you up and take you out for a coffee, and I'd be witty and you'd be charming and it would all go really wonderfully, but eight months from now we'd be just like every other couple arguing down on the street, so yes, it's better like this."

And in my book he wrote: "To LG, 31.X.06, with A.D.R."*

Nice.

*"A.D.R." in case you're not a Lemony Snicket person, is "all due respect," the way he ends all his notes to the reader.

Update: The Fam

2010-05-27T21:20:00.004-04:00

Just some photos of the little ones -- they're growing so fast!

My sister-in-law loves being a mommy :)

Aaron meeting cousin Mady for the first time. He wonders when she'll be big enough to play ball.

One of Aaron's new favorite things is playing with Grandpa in the workshop.

Grandpa shows him all kinds of cool things, like magnifying glasses.

Hello, Blue Eyes! What a pretty little girl my niece is!

And who's her favorite auntie? I am, of course.

St. Louis "Marathon" Weekend

2010-04-15T17:42:00.002-04:00

Here are a few more photos from my first weekend in St. Louis...

We went to the Arch, of course, and I got a history lesson on its construction as well as a few cool photos.

Touching the Arch is supposed to be good luck, so we gave it a whirl.

I also got to sample some St. Louie cuisine, including the famous Imo's pizza and toasted ravioli! Yum!

Art Hill and the museum in Forest Park on a gloriously sunny day.

This was the first time I'd been to one of Stretch's races, but I think grabbing a cup of coffee while I wait for him to get to the finish line will work nicely as my regular race day routine.

St. Louis City Museum: Recapture Your Childhood for Just $12

2010-04-14T20:04:00.010-04:00

I was a scrawny, decidedly unathletic wisp of a child -- all sharp angles and toothpicky limbs. No matter what sport the other kids were playing, my attempts to join in typically ended quickly and unceremoniously with a nose bleed or an asthma attack. Just watching a game of dodgeball gave me bruises.

Despite my somewhat fragile constitution, I eventually discovered that I was reasonably coordinated and found a blissful sanctuary on the playground: the monkey bars.

Twenty years later, I'm still avoiding dodgeball games, but sadly, my friends and I have outgrown the monkey bars...

Until this weekend.

As part of our move from "dating" to "seriously dating," Stretch took me to St. Louis to "watch him run in the St. Louis Marathon" (read: "meet his parents and tour his hometown"). On my little tour, he took me to St. Louis City Museum, which is basically a ginormous indoor/outdoor jungle gym for grown-ups.

Here are some photos, but you really need to see this place to believe it.

Stretch squeezing through a giant slinky to get from one floor to the next. Being skinny and flexible has never been more convenient.

Slides!! Woo hoo!!!

Outside, the giant slinky madness continues as we hover three stories above the ground with only some twisted re-bar keeping us from a grisly death.

Stretch likes the chains in the castle, though it occurs to me that this might be the most dangerous part of the whole ordeal.

Luckily, neither of us fell down this staircase, and we left City Museum feeling fulling twenty years younger.

Happy St. Patty's

2010-03-21T14:40:00.006-04:00

The weekend before St. Patty's day, the new boyfriend and I took one of those awesome relationship steps when he started dropping the "L-word." I was on Cloud 9 the next three days until actual St. Patrick's Day, Wednesday, when Stretch called me from the ER to tell me he that he was in an accident on his bike.

Now, when you're with an athlete -- and I suppose this is true of all athletes, but it is definitely true of Ironmen -- you have to expect the occasional accident or injury, but my boyfriend is strong and smart and I trust him to take care of himself. Of course, that doesn't do much good when he's cycling down the road, minding his own business, and a pickup truck hits him from behind.

Dear Guy in the Truck: Why are you trying to ruin everything?

He assured me that he was fine, despite a few flesh wounds; I think that was the Morphine talking because when I got there the next day, he was bandaged up like a mummy and in significant pain. We spent the rest of the weekend cleaning wounds and changing bandages. He's totally worth it, but it wasn't very much fun for either of us, so for my sake, please watch where you're driving.

Valentine's Day Dilemnas

2010-02-19T12:49:00.002-05:00

The first Valentine's Day with somebody new is always a bit of a relationship minefield. First of all, since people's reactions to the whole notion of Valentine's Day are so various, you never know whether you should go casual (and risk making your pookie feel neglected and unimportant) or go big (and convince him or her that you're needy/insecure/psycho). And even once you figure out what your plans are, something's bound to go terribly wrong and ruin them anyway.

My first boyfriend was bonkers about any excuse for a romantic occasion -- he wanted to celebrate every week for the first several months we dated and every month for the whole two years. Obviously, he made a huge to-do about Valentine's with fancy dinners and gifts he couldn't really afford. I broke up with him on Christmas Eve one year, and I think he was more upset about me ruining his romantic plans for Christmas than he was about us breaking up.

I presumed I would be spending the following Valentine's Day alone, but in fact, I met another young man just a couple of days before, and though we weren't yet dating, he happened to be at my house on February 14th when my charming ex decided to make an appearance for one of his big, romantic gestures. He was jogging up to the front door when he spotted the other guy through the living room window and changed his plans a bit -- he reached in his pocket, pulled out a watch I'd given him, smashed it against the front door, and stormed back to his car, where he sat parked at the curb for the next twenty minutes, either composing himself or waiting for me to come out and talk to him or both. Romantic, eh?

The following year, I was in Japan and my boyfriend was in the States, so for Valentine's Day, I was expecting a phone call. Apparently, he was one of those guys who doesn't like making a big deal of Valentine's because the phone call never came. When I did finally talk to him three or four days later, he told me there was some other girl who didn't live 7,000 miles away from him whom he had feelings for. Also very romantic.

So since then, I've been a little, well, cynical about Valentine's day. This year, as the 14th of February was looming on the horizon, I was trying to pick up cues from Stretch about his take on Valentine's Day. We'd only been dating a few months, and though things were going well, he had been very low-key about both my birthday and Christmas, so I was pretty sure that Valentine's Day wasn't going to be big on his list of priorities.

Luckily, I got a little help on this one from his cousin. We were down in Chicago visiting him in January, and he mentioned something about their Valentine's Day tradition, which they then explained to me -- a trip home to St. Louis and a Blues game with the boys.

So that cleared the question up for me. No romantic Valentine's Day plans this year. Whew!

But the story doesn't end there. A week or so later we were out having dinner with my sister, and I teasingly mentioned something about how I was going to be abandoned on Valentine's Day since the boyfriend was going to St. Louis.

"No, I'm not."

"You're not?"

"No, I'm staying here so I can take you out for Valentine's Day."

"... Why?"

"Because I want to."

"O."

So we left it at that for the night. This was not, after all, the first time Stretch had done something to surprise me.

I started to think about plans for the 14th, whether we should go out to dinner and where or whether I should cook or whether he'd want to cook... and while I was doing that, he was finding a ski resort and making reservations at a hotel up north. This from the guy who claims he's not romantic.

So we spent our first Valentine's Day on the snowy side of a mountain. Not everything went smoothly, of course. I took a few hard spills when Stretch convinced me to attack a black diamond, and he tragically lost his keys on the mountain, but despite the bruises and the inconvenience, I think I may have shaken the Valentine's Day curse. We spent all day skiing and got "suited up" for a nice dinner in the evening, and the following day we drove up to the bridge to see the straights all frozen over and have a hot breakfast in the UP before our long drive home. A pretty romantic Valentine's Day after all.

About Writing

2009-11-10T18:43:00.006-05:00

People torture themselves in crazy, brutal, wonderful ways. I have a friend who recently rode a bicycle over 3,800 miles -- from Virginia Beach to Oregon -- just for the adventure of it. My roommate spent the last few months drinking an obscene number of protein shakes, tempting melanoma at the tanning salon, and lifting weights every night so that he could pull off a convincing Ultimate Warrior for Halloween. I also just met this guy who does Ironman triathlons; ergo, though awesome, he is also clearly insane.

My exquisite masochism is writing. It is through writing that I become utterly vulnerable. That Walter Wellesey Smith quote -- "There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein." -- that is writing for me. Bleeding. It is painful and draining and invasive. And yet I am irresistibly drawn to it. At three o'clock in the morning, I sit in bed and type things that no one will ever read, pieces that strip me and break me open and empty me out. And at six o'clock in the morning, I delete them for fear that someone, somewhere, someday might see them. Might see me, all broken and naked like that without even a cute pair of shoes on. Yikes.

At this point in my life, I typically write ten to fifteen pages a week. Of these, maybe 98% are a combination of lesson plans, essays for my MA classes, letters of recommendation, and work-related nonsense (like emails about who's teaching The Scarlet Letter when and who's driving whom to some up-coming conference). That leaves about one page out of fifty that I actually want to write and that gives me that delicious rush of intellectual adrenaline.

I got into teaching because I thought it would be an avenue for leading young people to this same passion -- for entrancing them with the magic of words, the powerful addiction of stories. In some ways, this has been true. My job is rich and rewarding. I love it. But I have felt, more so recently, that the greatest price of teaching writing is that I rarely have time or energy anymore to write.

But I am not old enough yet to have regrets, and since my birthday is coming soon, I am giving myself a present: time. For writing. And permission to be vulnerable.

As an example for you, dear reader, here is a piece I wrote (and recently polished but have never before published) about my first night in Japan:

------------------------------

The tatami bites lightly into my skin, etching uniform red grooves across my shoulder blades, along the uneven ridge of spine, and down the meat of my out-stretched legs. I lie long and wide, a little castrated Vitruvian, watching the beads of sweat well up on my bare stomach, glisten, quiver, and slip noiselessly to the floor. My ribs heave. Around my head, a riot of dark curls twists into a damp halo and slowly soaks the clean, tight straw. I strain to listen, hoping to catch the shuffle of a foot or the click of a chopstick through the paper-thin walls, but there is only a vast silence beneath the coursing of blood through my own ears, the swishing rhythm of my own breath.

My damp t-shirt and jeans, shed the moment I was alone, are tossed over the solitary chair in the corner. I thought at first of running them through the washing machine, but a quick glance at the dials discouraged me; not a word is in English. Of course, even if I knew how to turn the machine on, I have no detergent, no soap. I could get my clothes wetter but not cleaner. Instead I had stripped them off, thrown them over the chair, and gotten in the shower. The water rinsed away the sweat and dust I’d gathered on my two-hour trudge from the train station, but it did nothing to relieve the trembling in my limbs. Chilled and dripping, I stepped gingerly out into the living room and realized I had no towel, no clean or dry clothes. That was when I decided to lie down on the floor.

I’ve been here — on the living room floor — for over an hour. Maybe two. Dying rays of gold play furtively along the blades of rice grass outside the open window. It must be about eight o’clock. Maybe later. I don’t really know what time the sun sets in Kansai.

“Kansai,” I whisper the word aloud, half under my breath. “Kan - sa - iiii,” I stretch it so it covers my whole tongue. It certainly sounds far from home. “I live in Kansai, the western half of Honshu,” I chirp to myself, trying to force nonchalance into a phrase that still sounds like something I’m making up. The island name, Honshu, curdles and clumps in my mouth. I try to chop the “u” short like the Japanese do, but it keeps coming out “Hon - shooo” and I feel like a stupid gaijin, a foreigner, an outsider.

Which is exactly what I am, I suppose.

I stare at the ceiling and do some quick calculations. The company sent a Kiwi to pick me up at the train station this afternoon and show me to this apartment. My apartment, which doesn't yet feel like mine. Before arriving here, we had dropped off another new recruit and then gotten a bit lost, which I estimate doubled the distance we had to walk. The station is perhaps an hour east of here on foot. We passed a grocery store en-route, but it’s maybe forty-five minutes away, and I have to keep in mind that whatever I buy, I will have to carry forty-five minutes back. It’s possible that there is a closer grocery west of here, but it’s getting dark and everything in that direction is still undiscovered country. The chewy airline chicken breast was the last thing I ate. That was… sixteen, maybe eighteen hours ago. I should have asked the Kiwi to stop for food.

Suddenly my musings grind to a halt. The Kiwi. What was his name? I don’t remember. I try to replay the moment when he approached me outside the train station — khaki trousers, white shirt, open collar, loosened blue neck-tie. Cropped ginger hair. Green eyes? Grey? He must have introduced himself. I'll probably never see him again, but at the moment, he’s the only person I know in Japan. And I have no idea what his name is.

I force myself up onto my elbows. The last rays of sun stretch in through the window and glow red on my shins. I wonder if leaving the curtain open will be enough to wake me in the morning. Forty-five minutes to walk tomorrow for food. A few more to the train station and the city center where I should be able to buy a watch, laundry detergent, and a towel. Maybe twenty hours before my luggage and my futon should be delivered. Two and a half days until my company orientation in Osaka. One week before I start teaching. Seven thousand miles between me and anyone whose name I know. No plane ticket home.

I lie back down and fold my hands beneath my head. In the last twenty-four hours, I have severed myself from the realities of my life. I close my eyes and let exhaustion wash over me, drowning out the gnawing ache in my stomach. For the first time in my life, I am completely alone and utterly adrift.

The Crisp Freshness of Fall

2009-10-12T19:48:00.009-04:00

(Did you miss me? Yeah. It turns out that juggling a full-time teaching career and two graduate courses whilst nursing an emaciated waif of a personal life doesn't leave much time or energy for blogging. Who knew?)

While the many perks of a three-month summer vacation cannot be exaggerated, I actually love the fall. Maybe this is true of everyone, or maybe it's just a sick, masochistic teacher thing, but in autumn when school starts back up, everything seems fresh and new and exciting to me. I don't know how people in other professions cope with having the same routine year after year. My job is a bit more like a kaleidoscope; even though many of the pieces remain the same -- the books, the room, my colleagues -- every fall we start a new year and I get a new group of students, a glorious spin of the kaleidoscope and a unique experience every time.

This year is no exception. In fact, this year's been quite surprising so far. As you may remember, last spring I boldly decided to hand off my apartment to a charmingly bohemian, tragically impoverished musician and his girlfriend (who sold sex toys) and move in with Jon and Jess -- two of the other young teachers in my building.

I find living with coworkers a fascinating and complex state of affairs; a delicate balance of the personal and the professional, of shared space and respect for privacy; a tragicomic exploration of the human experience ... kind of like college except with more disposable income. This was especially true during the summer when none of us were working and our days consisted of floating around in our friends' pools, pumping iron at the gym, watching Jon pitch, and hauling lots of empty beer bottles in for the deposit.

For the record, I consider this the perfect lifestyle.

But now that it's fall we have to earn our keep. My alarm blares at 5:15 and I'm off to another adventurous day shaping young minds.

Photo Blog: Lake Huron

2009-08-26T00:57:00.005-04:00

In honor of my grandpa, who was a professional artist, we take a week out of our summer every year to go to the lake and work on our own art projects. There's no TV, no internet, no cell phone service, not even a shower -- just the fam, the lake, and the art.

My sister-in-law dyes yarn for one of her knitting projects. This batch is a U of M stripe -- blue, yellow, and white.

Who could say "no" to this face? Not me, which is why I'm an excellent aunt.

Brother matting and framing some of his photos.

For his project this year, Dad took this dragon image that Grandpa had embroidered into the cuff of his Navy uniform in the Philippines and stitched it onto a cap.

Nephew loves when his daddy doesn't have to go to work and gets to play all week instead.

Playing bubbles on the beach

Making a cuppa tea.

Fellow World Travelers

2009-08-01T10:25:00.004-04:00

There are many great benefits to teaching English abroad that you don't realize right away. For example, you end up with very flexible ideas about English pronunciation that will allow you to understand heavy foreign accents with ease, a skill almost as valuable as actually speaking a different language.

You also become a member of a very diverse (though admittedly not very exclusive) club.

I discovered right away, of course, that the people you meet and work with abroad become very important to you. My NOVA coworkers are practically a second family to me, and even though it's been three years since I moved home, I still keep in better touch with them than I do with my high school buddies or my college roommates. In fact, anybody who's ever worked for NOVA has a special place in my heart, but it wasn't until recently that I realized that kinship extended to people who have taught English for all kinds of companies all over the world.

Through my Master's program, which is largely done online, I've met several people who are either from foreign countries studying in the US or from the US teaching in foreign countries. I always enjoy chatting with these folks, as I find that many of their experiences are not unlike my own, particularly if they are teaching in Asia. This past spring, I met one such person who was teaching in Korea, but coincidentally, he was preparing to take another teaching position in El Salvador and in the interim, came home to Detroit for a couple of weeks.

We decided he needed a bit of America's favorite pastime between Asia and Central America, so we hit up a Tigers game in D-town then spent plenty of time exchanging teaching stories and travel adventures before he was off to the airport again. I admit that reminiscing about my time in Japan and listening to his stories and future plans made me a bit jealous, but for the time being, I'll stick with the few short trips I can afford and start planning the next time I take a group of students abroad.

Last Night in Japan with my Kids

2009-07-28T20:57:00.005-04:00

Our final night in Japan was spent in Fukuoka in a ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn. When I lived in Kyoto, it was in an older Japanese house, so slipping my shoes off and walking through sliding wooden doors and across tatami mats in my socks was rather, well, homey.

They really packed the kids in at this stop -- five or six to a room -- and because it was a ryokan, they were expected to use the public bathing area in the neighboring onsen. However, not only did my room have a private bath, I was also given access to a private room in the onsen. O baby, o baby!

Ah, hair liquid, medicated brace up lotion, and milky lotion -- all my toilet essentials.

Curtained doorway leading into my private room in the onsen, where I headed for a brief but relaxing getaway from teacher duty.

My little pool, fed by a nearby hot spring, which I got all to myself!

My only visitor

After my little soak, I headed back to the hotel and got the kids suited up in their yukata for dinner. Kawaii desu ne? (Aren't they cute?)

Part of our evening's entertainment included a "samurai" -- who pretty much just ran around the dining hall menacing people with his katana -- and a rollicking round of karaoke during which the boys and I sang *NSYNC's ever-beloved "Bye Bye Bye". And did the dance (obviously). All the students from the other groups said, "Why isn't our teacher that cool?" Or at least, that is what I presume they were whispering to each other after our show-stopping performance.

Speaking of show-stopping, the karaoke ended abruptly when the proprietor told us our time was up and hustled us out... and then proceeded to stand alone in front of the empty dining hall and continue singing by himself. Yep.

The kids, unable to cope with the fact that our trip was coming to an end (and not anxious to go back to their sardine-style sleeping arrangements), spent the rest of the night in my room playing cards and talking about how awesome Japan is.

Second Day in Nagasaki: Glover Gardens

2009-07-28T18:13:00.008-04:00

Nestled in the mountains, Nagasaki is a tremendously beautiful city. In some places, the roads are so steep that the houses are virtually built on top of, rather than next to, each other.

The steep streets in the old European district, called "Hollander Slopes" after the Dutch merchants who lived there, are lined with little shops, perfect for strolling and window-shopping.

Built in 1856, Oura Catholic Church in Nagasaki is the oldest Christian church in the Orient. It is also called The Church of the 26 Martyrs and faces Nishizaka hill, where twenty-six Christian martyrs were crucified by the local shogun in 1597. The church is known worldwide as a symbol of surviving religious persecution.

We also enjoyed Glover Garden, built on the estate of Scottish entrepreneur Thomas Glover. The house has been converted into a museum, and the surrounding gardens are exquisite.

My boys get into the macro zoom. Ah, they make me proud!

The same night, we walked around near our hotel, hit up a karaoke parlor, and got ourselves some takoyaki.

Gotta love those NOVA signs. O, how they haunt me!

The kids loved the octopus balls so much they bought a few more to have for fourth meal at the hotel.

We thought it appropriate to make one more stop in a pachinko parlor before we went home so that Ryan could blow the rest of his yen.

Mt. Inasa and the Nagasaki A-Bomb Memorial

2009-07-27T16:04:00.002-04:00

We started our first day in Nagasaki by taking the bus up to Mt. Inasa. We were assured, when we shelled out the thousands of dollars for this trip, that the view of Nagasaki from Inasa was one of the most breath-taking in Japan. We will just have to take their word for it.

The kids enjoyed a touristy photo op before we hopped on the cable car.

The photo came out well despite the fact that Ryan is approximately twice the height of this particular attraction's target demographic.

We got a fleeting glimpse of the city as the cable car took us deeper and deeper into the mist. By the time we reached the lookout on the top of the mountain, we were surprised to see that the view from Mt. Inasa looked shockingly like the view of Mt. Aso we had had a few days before.

The most thrilling part of our visit to Mt. Inasa actually came as we were hiking back down from the summit to the cable car and RJ spotted the one thing he really came to Japan to see: a dreaded mukade. Now, what you have to keep in mind is that at this point, I had literally been telling mukade stories to some of these kids for three years, so they were basically prepared for the thing to leap up at them, its jaws slung with bloody slather and eyes lit by the fires of Hades' own eternal damned kingdom.

Fortunately, as you can see from the photo (courtesy of RJ), it was not only a rather small mukade but also a decidedly dead one. Whew! Dodged a bullet there!

On our first full day in Nagasaki, we went to the atomic bomb memorial. Unlike the Hiroshima museum, which is a large building in the middle of a wide open space leveled by the bomb, the Nagasaki A-Bomb Museum is built underground. While it contains many of the same type of photographs, mementos, and exhibits that we saw at the Hiroshima museum, the difference in atmosphere between the two was incredible.

While the Hiroshima museum had been silent and virtually empty, the Nagasaki museum and the surrounding gardens were over-flowing with Japanese students of all ages. Inside the museum, many of them were on scavenger hunts, racing from exhibit to exhibit trying to find the information they needed for their assignments. Outside, older students were there with their Peace Studies classes, stopping museum visitors and having them fill out surveys about their reactions to the museum and their thoughts about the atomic bomb specifically and war in general. They were nervous and giggly about using their English to talk to us, but they were also wonderfully friendly and welcoming and I had a great time talking with them and making them laugh with my rubbish Japanese.

Though the outdoor memorial featured plenty of origami cranes and centered on a beautiful pool just as the Hiroshima memorial had, the atmosphere was lively and refreshing, and Nagasaki Peace Park, which includes statues about peace from artists all over the world, is much more extensive than the memorial park in Hiroshima.

Peace Statue, which is the focal point of Nagasaki Peace Park sits on top of an infinity pool. His right hand points up as a reminder of the bomb, but his left hand is extended as a symbol of peace.

A Japanese student plays with the water at the edge of the infinity pool

Peace Statue reflected in the infinity pool -- While the Hiroshima memorial is centered on the idea of remembering the tragedy of the atomic bombing, the Nagasaki memorial is focused on the notion of healing and of promoting peace around the world.

Fukuoka: Or Getting Rained on in Dazaifu Tenmangu

2009-07-26T14:29:00.003-04:00

My kids became convenie food junkies. We got them a fix and then headed up to "see" Fukuoka's famous volcano, Aso-San.

I use the term "see" rather liberally here, as it was so foggy that the view left a bit to be desired. We spent a little while in the museum, but the volcano itself was a bust.

Instead, we headed back to town for an early dinner. Along the way, we spotted this classically creepy Japanese advertisement. I never realized that pigs were that into dental hygiene...

The following day, still in the rainy mist, we visited Dazaifu Tenmangu, an enormous shrine in Fukuoka Prefecture.

Luckily, the rain didn't seem to bother the kids or the tour guide, who was the most entertaining and enthusiastic we had had so far.

According to legend, the Dazaifu shrine is built over the grave of Michizane Sugawara, a 10th century Japanese officer who is revered as the embodiment of the god of literature and calligraphy. During his funeral procession, the ox pulling his coffin is said to have stopped at this spot and refused to go any further, so Michizane was buried right here and the ox became the symbol for this shrine.

As at many of the shrines we visited, preparations for the Matsuri, the summer festival, were in full swing, so colorful decorations like this were lying around waiting to be put up.

Another gorgeous hand-washing basin outside the main shrine

In addition to the ox, the plum blossom, the flower of Fukuoka, is an important sacred symbol at this shrine, so wishes here are written on plum-colored paper.

Nearby the shrine is a small Buddhist temple, where we spotted this beautiful zen rock garden. The large stones in the center mark out the Kanjii 光　which means "light."

To duck out of the rain for a while, we went to the Kyushu National Museum.

In Japanese, this says, "There are dragons this way and that way." Or something like that.

On the walk back to the bus, my kids spotted this excellent little pottery shop and bought more tea cups than they will ever need.

Yamaguchi Prefecture -- Kintaikyo and Iwakuni-Jo

2009-07-25T11:37:00.001-04:00

On our way to Kyushu, my kids and I hit up Yamaguchi Prefecture to see one of the most famous bridges in Japan -- Kintaikyo (or "The Brocade Sash Bridge" in Eigo) -- and to hike up to Iwakuni-Jo, the only castle on our tour of Nippon. You can just see it perched charmingly on top of the mountain in this shot...

The kids really enjoyed the bridge, which is so steep that it's actually a staircase on the center arches. It rained the whole time we were there, but that just added to the misty mystique of the mountains and the river.

The kids were troopers and didn't complain about the rainy walk at all. Kat got some great shots on our way through town, and we had a pleasant, mukade-free stroll through the forest around the castle.

The main tower of Iwakuni-Jo

Sidebar about Japanese castles: Many Japanese castles and palaces employ what they call "nightingale floors" -- a special method of floor construction that produces deliberately squeaky floorboards. Why, you ask? It's a security measure; squeaky floors are very hard to sneak across. Just consider it ninja citronella.

The view from the top of the castle tower was definitely worth the soggy hike.

The rain may have soaked us to the bone, but it didn't dampen the kids' spirits -- a couple Yakults and an ice cream, and they were ready to hop back on the bus and rock on to Kyushuu.

Alison even found some Kitty-Chan gear, which kept her spraying glitter out her ears for hours! :)

Kat picked up some hair gel and took advantage of everybody's wet hair to Manga-fy the guys. Their level of awesome reached OVER NIIINE THOOOOOOUUUUSAAAAND!!!

The bridge between Honshu and Kyushu

We stopped for a quick "set-o" menu dinner that the kids then supplemented with munchies from a nearby market.

This was one of a few stops where we crossed paths with another EF group, so our bus drivers hung out and shot the breeze while the kids ate and shopped. And yes, the little stuffed animal charms belong to our bus driver. Japan may be the only country in the world where a straight, grown man can get away with this sort of thing.

Beautiful Miyajima Park and Shrine

2009-07-24T14:30:00.001-04:00

Most people go Miyajima to see the famous torii, shown here. This is one of the three most-photographed spots in Japan, along with Mt. Fuji and Amanohashidate. When the tide is in, the whole shrine seems to be floating on top of the water -- quite a beautiful effect. I, however, really enjoy touristy spots like this because of the people-watching. Here are a few winners...

Little girl playing on the shrine's enormous stone lanterns

Japanese couple stops in front of the torii to consult a map

Photo op is side-tracked by a couple of social deer

Photographer directing a crowd of uncooperative tourists

Crane posing contemplatively in front of the torii -- He was a big hit with the photo-takers around me. I estimate several hundred shots of him were taken within the four or five minutes he was strolling around out there.

Japanese boy making a wish. One of the great traditions at Shinto shrines is to write your wish on one of these papers and tie it to a tree or a fence like this.

Canal and nearby shops around the back of the shrine

Sidebar about Japanese food: Josh is absolutely my hero for munching down this tako (not "taco," but "taKo" -- Japanese for "octopus") he got from a vendor at Miyajima. Way to be a culinary adventurer, Josh!

Everybody else waited until we got back to Hiroshima and the kids got to taste their first okonomiyaki, which is Japanese for "the good shit" (or, more literally, "what you like, on a grill").

Okonimyaki, which is a very popular food in Kansai, is typically described as a "savory pancake containing cabbage, eggs, flour, pork, and a variety of other ingredients." The Hiroshima version, seen here, also features noodles and MAGIC. The kids did indeed like it, and it became their unanimous new favorite Japanese food.