Archives for November 2011

Participating in “Movember” Shows Me Why It’s a Really Bad Idea for Me to Grow a Mustache

November 30, 2011 by

 

 

 

 

 

I really hate cancer.  You probably do too.  So I was delighted to take part in the annual Movember fundraiser to fight prostate cancer, which promotes the cause by encouraging people to grow mustaches (hence, “MO-Vember”) to raise awareness and visibility and all that.

I have not been as involved this year, because most of November involved going to Taiwan to pick up the kid, and I didn’t want to show up there sporting a scary mustache.  I figure he should probably get to know me as I usually look.

So I got started on my mustache late, only around Thansgiving, and I have to say that it doesn’t…..well, it doesn’t look………good.  Some people look great in mustaches, like Keith Hernandez.  Other people, like me, look like someone who drives around in a white, windowless van.

Take a look, if you dare.  And if you want to contribute, go to this link.

 

Filed Under: Humor, Living in the Suburbs, My Life in the Suburbs Tagged With: , ,

The Day I Met My Son

November 22, 2011 by

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It happened suddenly.  After years of waiting for our baby to be born, never knowing when our turn would finally come. And then, when it finally came, more months of waiting while all the paperwork was completed, torturous months where our only connection to the little boy who would be, already was, our son were the occasional pictures and short videos that we’d play over and over again. And then counting down the days while we took our last vacation in Hawaii, ultimately counting down the hours — 120 hours until we meet him, now 85, now 40, now 12 (tomorrow), now 3 (today!).

After all that waiting, it happened suddenly.

We arrived in Taiwan Sunday night, November 13, meeting up with my father-in-law, who lives right now in China and came to Taipei to meet his first grandson.  A pretty good deal for me, since now I had two Mandarin-speaking family members to help me get around in a country where I don’t speak the language.  Had dinner, tried to get some sleep, and in the morning piled into a car for the three hour drive south to where our son has been living with his foster mother for the past 10 months.

I was strangely calm.  I was expecting to be anxious, nervous about all the things that could go wrong. Maybe he would cry at the sight of us, something we’d been warned to expect. Maybe we’d suddenly realize that we had absolutely no idea what we’re doing when we actually got him back to the hotel and had to bathe him, clean him up, put him to bed.  But I wasn’t.  I was placid, relaxed, almost numb, just breathing in and out and trying to soak up the occasion.

But once we got to the town where he lived, things started to speed up as we went through a bunch of frustrating preliminaries. Go to the agency. Meet some people. Shake some hands. Accept congratulations. Fill out some more forms.  Then, for some reason, they take you out to a store to buy baby stuff.  We’d been told in our orientation meetings that this was the routine, and I guess it makes sense to do all that before you pick up the baby, but it seemed an unnecessary distraction.  I don’t need to go shopping. BRING ME MY BABY.

That’s when the movie started to really go in fast forward.  We finish shopping, and I’m expecting to go back to the car, put away our stuff, get in the car, and drive to wherever it is they are keeping my son.  Instead, we leave the store, walk down half a block, turn into a driveway, and there’s our car.  That’s the house.  We’re there.

We’re there.  This is where he lives.

What now?  I’m not ready. Totally not ready.  Months of waiting, YEARS of waiting, and it’s about to happen.  And I’m not ready.  I can see, out of the corner of my eye, a woman holding a baby about 30 feet from me, in the vestibule of his house.  That’s him. He’s right there. But I’m not ready yet. I have to savor the moment, put it in a box, store it away. And I need the camera!  We need pictures, we need to get the video.  So I don’t look at him. I look away, I focus on putting away the stuff, getting the camera. I turn to my wife. I ask her, “are you ready,” and she says yes, smiling, a nervous smile, a beautiful smile.

And so we turned to the house, and became parents.

 

Filed Under: Best of, My Life in the Suburbs, Parenting in the Suburbs Tagged With: , , , ,

Our Last Real Vacation for a While, our Last Stop on the Way to Parenthood

November 5, 2011 by

Well, this is it.  We’re heading off next week to Taiwan to pick up our little boy, having made it through the last six months of waiting.  The adoption is now final, so we’ve actually finalized the date when we’re going to meet him.  It’s really a big day.  I hear that when you adopt a baby, you get to celebrate not only the birthday, but the day you actually “became” a parent.  So good for him — more presents.

And because we’ve been told that being parents means that you don’t get to have any fun in your life ever again, we’re fitting in a little stayover in Hawaii on the way to Taiwan.  Now, I don’t want you to think we’re putting off picking up our little bundle of joy so we can sit on a beach drinking mai-tais.  I’d go get him today if I could, but the date is set by the court and the adoption agency.  So since we have a few weeks between now and then, we might as well spend it enjoying our last days of childlessness.

And enjoy it we will.  One of the nice things about adopting is that we’re only a few weeks away from becoming parents, but unlike most expectant mothers, my wife can do fun stuff like drink!  And comfortably sit on a beach! And swim! And drink!

So we shall.  See you in a few weeks. We’ll let you know how it goes…..

 

Filed Under: My Life in the Suburbs, Parenting in the Suburbs Tagged With: ,

An Increase in Poverty in the Suburbs: Are the Suburbs Becoming More Like the Cities?

November 3, 2011 by

The New York Times had a piece last week about the increase in suburban poverty since 2000:

The poor population in America’s suburbs — long a symbol of a stable and prosperous American middle class — rose by more than half after 2000, forcing suburban communities across the country to re-evaluate their identities and how they serve their populations.

The increase in the suburbs was 53 percent, compared with 26 percent in cities. The recession accelerated the pace: two-thirds of the new suburban poor were added from 2007 to 2010.

“The growth has been stunning,” said Elizabeth Kneebone, a senior researcher at the Brookings Institution, who conducted the analysis of census data. “For the first time, more than half of the metropolitan poor live in suburban areas.”

As a result, suburban municipalities — once concerned with policing, putting out fires and repairing roads — are confronting a new set of issues, namely how to help poor residents without the array of social programs that cities have, and how to get those residents to services without public transportation. Many suburbs are facing these challenges with the tightest budgets in years.

“The whole political class is just getting the memo that Ozzie and Harriet don’t live here anymore,” said Edward Hill, dean of the Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University.

So why is this happening? I think it’s just because the suburbs are simply getting older. If you think about it, the very concept of the “suburbs” developed in the post-WWII era, part of the baby boom explosion in population that pushed so many people from the urban environments to the then-bucolic suburban enclaves.  But the areas that were developed at that time have started to show their age, with the children and grandchildren of those original suburbanites migrating to newer, larger, posher developments. So some of the older, less fashionable suburban areas are now affordable for people at the lower ends of the income spectrum, which is actually a good thing to the extent that it flies in the face of the typical complaint about the suburbs lacking economic and racial diversity. But it’s a bad thing insofar as most of these suburban areas are ill-equipped to provide the social services needed by the working poor.

Essentially, what I think is happening is that these original suburbs are going through the same transformation that urban areas went through in the 1950s.  The infrastructure is getting older, some of the people living there are getting older, and some of the people who traditionally lived there are choosing to move to newer, sometimes more upscale, environments. But the census isn’t going to have that granular level of detail to show how people are moving from one part of the suburbs to another, so all it’s showing is population growth in the suburbs generally, and population growth in the poorer demographics.

Arguably, then, the suburbs of today are starting to demographically reflect the outer regions of the city (think: the Bronx, or uptown Manhattan) from 50 years ago.  And they’re bringing both the same challenges that those urban areas had (poverty, crime) as well as some of the benefits of both economic and ethnic diversity.

Filed Under: News, Suburbs versus Cities Tagged With: ,

The Year of the Plagues: Snow on Halloween

November 2, 2011 by

Seriously?  It snowed on Halloween?  Two months ago, we got an earthquake, and then a hurricane, and now everyone’s costume parties got canceled because we got snow in October?  This is really a wierd year.

I’m dreading winter.  The one thing I hate about living in New York is the climate.  And I’ve lived in this climate pretty much my whole life, except for two wonderful years in northern California when I was at Stanford.  People who complain about the weather in San Francisco should just be beaten around the head and face, because it’s just the best.  Never too hot, never too cold, you can pretty much wear a light jacket all year round.  A little fog once in a while? Please.  Shut up.

I hate the climate in the northeast.  People that say they love living where they can enjoy all four seasons are talking about like five days every season. Too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter, you get like five good days of spring between the rain and then the heat, and maybe 20 good days to look at the leaves in the fall.  Otherwise, horrible. Give me one season — Sunny — and I’m fine.

I’m off to go shovel some snow in my vampire costume.

Filed Under: Humor, Living in the Suburbs, My Life in the Suburbs Tagged With: ,