Uncle Allan
My Uncle Allan as a child, on the left in this photo. My grandma's pregnant with my mom here.
One of my favorite uncles, Allan Greist, died January 6th. There's an informal service at his home on Sunday, and I can't go because my husband's dad, who lives in Las Vegas, is going into hospice and we have to travel there to be with him. Ugh. Too much emotional stuff to come back to (we found all this out on a layover trying to get home from Europe). Plus I'm all hopped up on fertility hormones, which doesn't help.
I cried yesterday, for my uncle and for me, but mostly for my dear aunt and cousin, who have to go through the grief left in the wake of this death. I wish they didn't have to go through it. I wish no one had to go through it.
My cousin asked me to write something that she could read at the service. I thought I'd share what I wrote here:
"My Uncle Allan was my mom’s oldest brother, and I can’t remember a time when he wasn’t in my life. We lived two hours apart: us in the Colorado mountains, he and his family in Colorado Springs, in my mind the big city. Our families got together frequently, took turns spending weekends at each other’s houses. And always, always, always: Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas.
"Uncle Allan: such an upbeat, calming, serene presence. I never saw him get angry or frustrated. He took an interest in me—in all us kids. He taught me how to spit watermelon seeds, so I’d have a chance at winning the contest he hosted each summer. He showed me the sunflowers five times bigger than me that he grew in his lush backyard. He taught me how to develop film in his basement dark room, let me loose in there when I was still young enough to do some serious damage. He said, “Of course! Read anything you want,” when I asked him about the wall of books in his living room, and I subsequently spent many happy afternoons curled up in the swivel chair beside them.
"He carved turkeys with finesse and flair all those holidays, all the while telling puns that were over my head as a child, but that made the adults groan. He made me laugh by just acting like he was going to tickle me; he never actually had to do it. And the railroad—he let my brothers run his model railroad trains, a whole portion of the basement with life-like buildings set up on a platform that you could duck under to get into the open middle. I liked being in the center of that world, a place where everything was in order, nothing ever went wrong.
"One of my clearest and best memories happened on a camping trip, a family reunion, a place called Cottonwood. I was six, plus or minus. We went for a hike, a half-dozen of us. We came to a river, a thick, felled evergreen the bridge across. The tree probably wasn’t as high above the water as I remember, and the river probably wasn’t as huge or as swift, but regardless: none of us kids were traversing on our own. My uncle scooped me up, swung me onto his shoulders, walked steadily across, not looking down, footing sure even though the tree was rounded and barky and a fall could have had dire consequences. He set me down safe, where the dirt path started again.
"We all need people to help us across the rivers in our lives, both real and metaphorical. My Uncle Allan helped me. I am so very lucky to have had such a kind, caring, gentle, wise, and loving presence in my life. My dear uncle: Godspeed and God bless.
Love,
Kristen"
"Up in the Air"
Great movie, watched it for the second time last night and there are a couple of lines in it that I think are really profound.
First:
The movie's about a guy who flies around the country and fires people for a living, and he has the following exchange with someone he's firing, trying to show the guy he's firing that being let go from a boring corporate job is not necessarily the worst thing in the world (this is the rough exchange, not a direct quote):
Fire-er: Do you know why kids love athletes?
Fire-ee: No.
Fire-er: Because they followed their dreams. How much did they pay you to first come to work here and give up your dream?
I think it's so sad and so common...so many, many people give up their dreams to go into a respectable corporate career, me included. For me personally, I don't think it makes sense today to totally give up my corporate job, but I can work a lot less hours, and spend a lot more time focused on things I love.
Second:
Same guy is home for his sister's wedding. The groom has cold feet and the brother goes in to talk to him. The thing that he says that makes the groom realize it's going to be OK to get married is something along the lines of:
"Think back to your best memories, the days and times that you really treasure. Were you alone in those memories, or were you with other people?"
The answer of course is, other people, or at least it is unreservedly with me.
I've been thinking about that line since I first saw the movie, and since last night in a slightly different context. I'm in the middle of my 4th and last IVF cycle, and my husband will not be able to be with me for the transfer as he's in college, we need him to miss as little school as possible (our clinic's out of town). My mom would be the logical second choice, but she's in Costa Rica 'til March. So I've been thinking, do I ask a friend to come be with me, or do I go through it alone? Now I know the answer. I have a lovely friend in Denver I'm going to ask...
New Year's Resolutions
I know I'm a week or so late with these, but here's where I want some change/movement this year. I want to:
1. Travel less. Way less. Things are already looking bad for this particular resolution, however. Sigh
2. Do everything I/we can to try and get a baby/child into our lives. This is probably going to be the year where it at least becomes clear how things are going to shake out
3. Actually try to publish some of what I've been writing. More specifically: submit one piece each month for publication (multiple submissions per piece)
Wish me luck! And a belated Happy New Year to all my bloggy friends. :)
Venice, Day 21
Glass blowers on Murano.
Mellow day today. Went to the nearby island of Murano, which is know for its glass. Whatched a glass-blowing demonstration that was really cool. Rested this afternoon, nice dinner tonight, home tomorrow. My next post will be from the USA! It's been a great trip, but I'm so excited to be home.
Venice, Day 20
Venice's fish market.
1. The fish market is outdoors, huge and clean, fish and other seafood of every kind you can imagine piled on ice. Smells like fish and the sea, as you would imagine
2. Wandered past some workshops where they were making masks today. There are a lot of cheap, generic masks for sale in Venice, but in places like this they're works of art. I wonder if they're busier this time of year because Carnival is coming up?
3. Peggy Guggenheim museum, for a modern art fix. What a collection! I always love seeing someone's private collection. I got postcard reproductions of three of my favorite works to put on my bulletin board at home: Pablo Picasso's On the Beach, Rene Magritte's Empire of Light, and Joseph Cornell's Setting for a Fairy Tale.
4. A lot of interesting noise in Venice today, with someone playing piano inside one of the old houses along a tiny canal we were wandering down, a soccer game at the stadium down the way from us with cheering and singing (lots of singing), an Italian family arguing loudly inside one of the buildings we passed on our walk to dinner
5. And speaking of dinner, the food here is, of course, amazing, lots of seafood prepared various ways. My favorite's with homemade pasta. Ridiculously delicious
Venice, Day 19
Mosaics are everywhere in Piazza San Marco.
The Piazza was starting to flood the day we were there...you can see the water coming in here.
1. Spent a lot of time on water taxis (eg, the bus) on the Grand Canal today, watching the buildings, boats and gondolas go by. I've heard Venice called the most beautiful city in the world, and I can't say that I disagree. Everything is crumbling and old and in some state of disrepair, but that's part of what gives Venice its charm
2. Piazza San Marco is amazing. The Basilica is incredibly intricate mosaics everywhere from floors to it's huge domed ceilings. Stunning. Also, the plaza, prone to flooding in the winter, was starting to flood. Just patches of water when we were there this morning, but they were growing and you could see the supports and boards for the walkways they use during floods at the ready. Some of the mosaics were already underwater...that can't be good for them
3. Getting off the water taxi at random stops and wandering the back alleys, getting totally lost and turned around is fun. The canals and the architectural detail are beautiful, really no matter where you go. And when you get away from the major sites there are no crowds, just me and my husband exploring, it's so, so nice
4. Venice is famous for its glass, and one of the quirkiest and coolest things I saw today was over the door of one of the weather buildings on the Grand Canal a bull's head done in red and blue glass, the bright colors and smoothness of it contrasting with the crumbling pale stucco facade of the building itself
5. Not much to see on the Grand Canal at night. Many of the buildings are totally black. Although some are lit up with spotlights, and some windows are open and lit. All those windows it seems like have incredibly ornate glass chandeliers
Prague to Venice, Day 18
Venice's Grand Canal.
1. Everything went smoothly/on time today, but it took a lot to get here! Wake-up call at 3 AM, taxi at 4, plane to Frankfurt at 6, plane to Venice area, after which it wasn't at all clear how we were going to get to our hotel. But everyone was nice/helpful, and we took the bus to Venice proper, figured out the water taxi (essentially like a bus on the water), took the water taxi to the right general area, asked a nice older Italian gentleman to point the way to the hotel, which he did with a very friendly "Welcome to Venice!" thrown in at the end. Nine hours later, here we are
2. Our hotel is an old monastery at the very southern tip of Venice, a very green, park-like and residential part of the city. We were in the very center of everything in Prague...kind of nice to get away from that a little. And church bells rang right next to our room at noon, welcoming us to the city. Love the church bells...
3. The sun is shining! And it's still a little chilly, but so much warmer than it's been (it said 4 C on the water taxi, not sure what that translates to.) There were actually people sitting at outdoor cafes today, coats on, but still...
4. For lunch we were sent to a little shop 10 minutes away, where the woman running it had a few bowls of things in the deli case in back, spooned portions onto a paper plate and heated them up for you. I had pasta with broccoli, and chicory (bitter but good) on the side. Yum
5. Back outside our hotel this afternoon after exploring a bit, there was a grey tabby cat, healthy and well fed, that came right up to me, insisted I pet it, even jumped up in my lap when I kneeled down to scratch it behind the ears. Friendliest cat ever
I think we're going to really like Venice!
Prague, Day 17
Another fairytale view...
1. There are very few cars on the back streets and alleys, so few that you can spend most of your time walking in the street, and just hop out of the way if a car happens to come by
2. Everyone smokes indoors here, it seems like everywhere and I am sick of it. Second-hand smoke is really, really bad. Everything I own just reeks of it. Will be sooooo glad to leave this part of Prague behind
3. Cab drivers are very unscrupulous here. A cab to the art museum today took about 10 minutes and cost the equivalent of $35. A cab back (same cab ride) cost $16. Luckily we've been walking everywhere except for today
4. The art museum was great. Modern art, one floor international, which was fine, and then 4 floors of CZ art, a lot of which was a really cool. My favorites were a paper-mâché dog with a head shaped like a dunce cap, very Tim Burton-esque. I also really liked a sculpture made of a wooden table and chairs, a wooden bowl, some logs, all filled with metal hooks and eyes, it looked like the wood was covers with fur. My husband liked the well manufactured belt-driven motorcycle, beautiful design. He was offended by the art that consisted of nothing but a 3 by 5 black square
5. There was a glass elevator in the middle of the museum you could ride from the ground floor up to the fifth, with all the mechanical workings exposed. A little scary to ride. You could only ride up, no one was allowed to ride down. To do that you had to get into the scary Cold War-era silver elevator that flashed random floors at you the whole time you descended
We fly to Venice tomorrow at 6 AM. Home Friday. This has been a great trip but I'm starting to miss home and puppies.
Prague, Day 16 (New Year's Day)
The Charles Street Bridge, where we rang in the New Year, can be seen on the far right in this picture.
1. Got out for a nice walk mid-day. Warmer, like in the 20s instead of the 10s. Sun was shining, which hasn't happened much this trip
2. At noon church bells rang all over town...lovely. And we passed a church at the same time with the congregation singing a hymn, you could hear it from the street, it sounded so happy and hopeful
3. There's a little bar/restaurant a few doors down from our hotel where we've been coming for Internet access. They make me mugs of hot apple cider, so yummy. Stopped in for New Years lunch and the New Years Eve party was still going on...it was like the bartender just brought all here friends to work with her. Glitter on her face, ridiculous amounts of energy (dancing around smoking a cigarette while pouring beers for people) music blaring. She was having fun. It was actually pretty cute
4. I am in love with our hotel room. The boards of the wood floor are placed in a design. It has crazy-high ceilings. And grey silk curtains with vertical gold embroidery. And a faux fur throw that's chocolate brown but turns to grey if you rub it the right way. A clear glass chandelier, not all girly, but very sleek and modern
5. Spent the evening watching soccer at O'Che's. Fun
Prague, Day 15 (New Year's Eve)
The entrance to Prague Castle. Not very welcoming in my opinion, with statues of things being bludgeoned and stabbed.
The cathedral behind the castle. Spectacular.
Changing of the guard.
1. Feeling 10,000 times better today
2. Walked across the Charles Bridge, through the Little Quarter with its hilly windy cobblestone streets, up to the Prague Castle on the top of the hill. So old and beautiful...so much history here. There are violent statues at the front gates, people about to be clubbed and stabbed. I guess they want to send the message that you don't want to mess with this castle
3. Noon everyday at the castle they have the changing of the guards, with maybe 50 guards and a band, quite a lengthy ceremony. The uniforms are cool, gray pants with a darker grey stripe down the side, long dark blue jacket with gold buttons, silverly fur collars and big silver fur hats
4. Hordes and hordes and hordes of tourists in Prague. It's a little overwhelming
5. New Year's Eve in Prague: pretty unbelievable. First, a yummy, quite fancy meal at a restaurant called Phenix, right next to our hotel. There's a cool old silver metal spiral staircase in the back with a four leaf clover pattern stamped into it, so cool. Then we had drinks at a little bar with wood and arched ceilings called the Hemmingway Bar. Eleven thirty we started to make our way to the Charles Street Bridge, and then we were on the bridge just packed with people, everyone so close that it's not even cold. At midnight the boats on the water blew their horns and everyone cheered and sang, some nice Italian women next to us gave us a glass of champagne and the fireworks...people everywhere in the crowd setting them off and then the city fireworks right above us, like you were in the middle of them, they weren't safely off in the distance like in the US, the smell of the gunpowder strong. What a great, great night. We had the best time...
Prague, Day 14
Red roofs looking out to Prague's big central park.
1. Broke down and went to the pharmacy today, acted out my symptoms for the pharmacist who spoke little English and got some pills that are (hopefully) going to help with my cold
2. Bought a hand-knit blue-and-green hat in a tiny little side street shop with all sorts of cute hand-made stuff
3. Went to the Museum of Communism today, which details the communist occupation (is that the right word?) of this country. Amazing that that was in effect up until 1989
4. And right next door to the museum, a casino, where there is a somewhat lengthy registration process and they take your picture before they let you in. Won 3,300 Crowns, which translates to $165 (approximate) on the slots. I never, ever win gambling, so that was kind of exciting
5. Again early to bed. Again can't sleep...
Prague, Day 13
Apparently they didn't use to have street numbers in Prague, but symbols such as this on the houses instead.
1. Wandered around town in the cold, exploring the little streets and back alleys
2. Dogs are all over the city, in restaurants and bars as well as out on the street. We were in a little wine bar and the was the cutest little fluffy white dog with a plaid coat with a fur collar. Too cute
3. String quartet this evening. In a lovely old monastery. The music was beyond beautiful
4. Home to bed early. Losing the battle with this cold/flu, and have the worst insomnia imaginable ( or is it still jet lag?) not falling asleep until four or five in the morning, but generally napping a little each day...
Berlin to Prague, Day 12
The fairytale castle we saw our first night.
Yay, we're in Prague! Here's what's been happening:
1. Eastern European train was late and missing cars, so crowded, but we got seats in a compartment with a super cute little kid...it all worked out just fine
2. Castles through the countryside and canyons with sheer black cliffs, the geography changed greatly from the rolling farmland we saw between Amsterdam and Berlin. The train went along a major river for some distance...beautiful
3. Disney-wonderland castle with a huge Christmas tree in front with white lights streaming down. Except it's real, not Disneyland
4. Cobblestone streets, a maze of them, tiny little restaurants and bars, they feel like little speak-easys. Salad and beef goulash and a pilsner for dinner. Yum
5. O'Che's is a Prague institution, apparently, an Irish/Cuban bar...sounds weird but it works. And we've gone from ubiquitous "baby beers" in Western Europe (they serve beer in such small glasses, there, which I love because I can never drink much), to half-liters here. And they have Kilkenny on tap...my husband's still grinning...
Berlin, Day 11
The Holocaust Memorial looking into it...
...and down in it (note the person in the distance).
1. Snow, snow and more snow. Beautiful
2. Really? Did we really go to McDonalds? Tasty though. And very trendy decor, unlike the US
3. Building cranes all over the city, even in the dead of winter
4. Spent quite a lot of time walking through the Holocaust Memorial, which I'd only seen at a distance the day before. Slabs of dark grey granite, went at dusk and snowing as mentioned, the whole thing covered with snow, in general very somber but there we a few children playing hide and seek on occasion, which sounds disrespectful but there was actually something kind of beautiful about it, like life goes on, you know? Also in the middle the slabs are way taller than you and so when you come to the junctions between the slabs you have to look both ways to make sure you don't run into anyone. Once I came face to face with a woman who looked/was dressed like me and my first thought was that I was looking in a mirror. Surreal. Overall a lovely, peaceful, moving experience
5. Kika Lounge on late night TV starring Berndt, a manic-depressive loaf-of-bread-puppet. Will post a You Tube link when I'm back. My husband's college German kicked in...he was giggling
To check out the Kika Lounge, CLICK HERE.
Berlin, Day 10
A section of the Berlin Wall.
1. Rode all around the city today, wow is it ever big and spead out. The architecture is absoluely amazing, so much of it by famous architects of the last 50 years doing things that for their time are so new and innovative and creative. Love it
2. Went to several Christmas Markets, it seems like each neighborhood has its own and they all sell food and crafts but each is a little different. Saw some things I wish I'd bought...a hanging latern of stained glass lit from inside with a tea light, a paper mache mobile of fish and sharks, brightly colored. They were dismantling the Christmas Markets by last night, though...it's not like the US where they milk every possible retail opportunity for as long as possible
3. Spent some time at Checkpoint Charlie and the museum associated with it. Lots of stories of people trying to escape. The whole place made my husband mad--actually the part about children being allowed to drown in the river because those who could rescue them were afraid of getting shot by the border guards is the part that really made him mad. I don't understand how the regime in charge can think they are doing the right thing if so many people desperately want to leave...
4. They don't sand or salt the sidewalks here to keep you from slipping, they put down irregular black pebbles the size of peas. Have not slipped once
5. The Holocaust Memorial here is amazing and sobering, essentially a field of black rock slabs of different heights (some over head high) that you can walk in amongst. They're like gravestones for a mass grave. Makes you feel like you've been shrunk down and put beside a giant graveyard. I don't understand how something like the Holocaust could happen. Truly don't understand how people can do such things to each other
Berlin, Day 9 (Christmas)
The chocolate tree we had in our hotel room.
Merry Christmas everyone!
1. Fresh air and coffee down the street mid-morning (slept in due to last night's insomnia)
2. I gave my husband Colorado lottery tickets as a small gift...we scratched half (5) each and won $4
3. Lovely email from my mom today. Homesick
4. Spent a couple hours at the hotel's hot tub, sauna and cold, cold plunge pool this afternoon. Don't know what it is about water and heat, but it's awesome. My dream house has a hot tub and sauna
5. Yummy Christmas dinner tonight with Jeff. Love him so much. We've been having such a great time this trip...
Berlin, Day 8 (Christmas Eve)
One of our favorite Christmas markets.
1. Christmas Eve is a much bigger deal here in Germany than Christmas itself. Everything's essentially shut down today. But that's OK because my husband and I have "The Ick" as we're calling it, some sort of cold/flu that's got us laying low
2. Fruit tea and Fisherman's Friend cough drops have been lovely
3. Went for a very short and very cold walk while housekeeping did our room, came back to a six-inch-high chocolate tree with cookie ornaments that they'd left for us. So festive! Yay!
4. We had reservations for a nice dinner and were planning to go to Midnight Mass, but both felt terrible so stayed home and in bed. I was feeling sad about missing our plans until we started singing Christmas carols in bed together in our scratchy voices ( my husband to me: "you sound like a squirrel.") We made our own little happy Christmas Eve
5. Couldn't sleep...3:30 AM sat at our window looking down amongst the modern buildings to all the fresh snow that had just fallen on the streets and sidewalks that night, Christmas trees with white lights sparking in windows across the way. All was peaceful and right with the world
Berlin, Day 7
The symphony hall, right next to the art museum. Berlin is filled with cool modern architecture.
1. Film museum this morning. Interesting exhibits on some important early German movies, that my husband learned about in film class last year (one of his required humanities). Metropolis, one of the very early science fiction movies, and Caligari (not full title), which appears to be very Tim Burton-esque, very surreal, made post-WW I, I believe, prior to sound. Learning about both was very cool
2. Gemaldegalerie, the classical art museum, after that. I really like modern (20th century) art, not always a huge fan of older, but it was really cool to be in this museum two days before Christmas, because there we many hundreds of years (help me out here, art history majors) when it seems like practically everything painted was Mary and baby Jesus. I must of seen a hundred of these paintings today, and it was really cool to see one after the other, because they all look so different. Of course there are no photographs so we have no idea what these people actually looked like, I just thought it was a so interesting to see dozens of artist's different interpretations
3. Went back to the Christmas market and each got a heart-shaped gingerbread cookie...so now our hotel room is decorated for Christmas :)
4. There is the biggest billboard I've ever seen next to our hotel. What's it got on it? An iPad
5. And, the Berlin wall used to stand right outside our hotel, it's marked by a double row of cobblestones. Pieces of the wall are on display, heavily and colorfully graffitied. Hard to imagine a wall going up in the middle of your city
Amsterdam to Berlin, Day 6
The train ride to Berlin pretty much looked like this the whole way.
Took the train from Amsterdam to Berlin today...here are some of the cool things we saw along the way, and upon our arrival:
1. Trees thick with snow, and then fields with snow and horses and cows and sheep and even a few miniature ponies, towns and cities, then trees, etc
2. Old, old, old church steeples, and very modern windmills, tall and steel, three arms
3. Fog, all day. And yesterday was the solstice so today light was very short. Dusk-like in the morning when we woke up at 8, dark at 4:30
4. My first impression of Berlin is big, and lots of modern architecture. We're staying in an area (Potsdamer Platz) that was razed to the ground at the end of WW II, and has only in the last ten years really been built up. Berlin has a much more urban feel vs Amsterdam
5. There's a little outdoor Christmas market across the street from us, and they have a pretty good sized tubing hill, steep and icy, with mats at the end to slow you down and a padded wall at the very end. We watched people slide down while eating brats (sausages) from a little stand next door. And they have ice shuffleboard. And instead of one big tree, a bunch tied together and then instead of ornaments big pieces of driftwood and dinner plate-sized pottery on metal stakes of different heights. So essentially a giant rendition of a Christmas tree. So very cool
Amsterdam, Day 5
Love this dog sculpture in the window.
1. Stained glass everywhere in this city, lots of places tiny, tiny pieces in intricate patterns. The colors, shades of blue and green mostly, are so old, and it looks like lead between the panes
2. Everyone here speaks impeccible English. Wish I were better with languages
3. The houses are so beautiful. Many are brick, with white trim. Patterns in the brick. And many have plaques centered on the building, or up high. The one across the street from our hotel room is a dancer, with a long flowing costume a la Isodora Duncan. Yesterday we saw Golden-Gate-bridge-orange stags on a creamy background
4. Our hotel, Hotel Roemer, has a 70s-reminicient couch with stripes in fall colors and leather chairs surrounding a fireplace. It's been a lovely place to sit and talk for an hour or so after a day of walking around the city and before going out at night.
5. Amsterdam is of course absolutely its own place, but it reminds me a lot of San Francisco and Boston, with the brick (Boston) and the little shops and restaurants, asethetics are clearly very important (everything everywhere is "just so") and the buildings are so close they touch
Train to Berlin tomorrow. Having such fun on vacation.