And Don’t Even Get Me Started on Hannah Montana

The other night while we were sleeping, a man shot his wife dead while she cowered in a closet in their home in Alexandria. Then he took his weapon for an erratic drive. When he was pulled over, he shot an Alexandria police officer in the chest. He then led some other officers on a high-speed chase before killing himself.

This past Saturday while we were apple-picking, a man had a domestic issue with his girlfriend, who lives within sight of our house. When the police, their helicopters, and the SWAT team responded to the hostage situation, he shot at them. He was eventually taken into custody by a man with twigs on his hat without anyone getting physically hurt.

I’d like to say these are isolated incidents, but it would be more accurate if I called them the latest incidents. Since we moved into our house in May of 2001, there have been two gang-style murders within spitting distance, an errant drive-by shooting (which means only that the bullets missed their intended targets), and numerous assaults along the roads leading to and from the metro. Oh yeah, we also were rammed twice from behind by another car as we waited in our car at a traffic light. The guy wanted to move us out of the way so he could continue his flight from the police in his stolen car.

All these incidents occurred within 100 yards in any direction of our house. I don’t even have to put pen to paper to illustrate that this condition permeates our larger society as well. Everyone knows that all they have to do for the latest fix of local violence and tragedy is to turn on the five o’clock news.

Before we left for Quito, the one question that everyone posed was, “Is it safe?” I even blogged about it, if you can believe that. My answer was and is, “It’s at least as safe as it is here.”

In many ways I think it’s a legitimate question, but my instinct is that it is mainly derived from this culture of fear that is instilled by our televisions and newspapers. The perception is that the world is fucked up and the only place we are safe is in our homes (so long as we’ve shut and locked the windows, installed a bolt-lock and maybe a chain lock on the door, and pay for a home-security system). But the reality is that we aren’t even safe in our own homes. I mean, it wouldn’t be that hard for some fucked-up, self-important asshole with a gun to get in if he really wanted to.

One of the reasons that Rebecca and I have doubts about living permanently in Ecuador is the poverty. Not the fact that it exists, because it exists here as well (we just cover it up better), but that it exists so obviously.

The fact that children work in the streets selling gum or polishing shoes is heart-wrenching at first. But after you see it day after day, it becomes routine. Sometimes it even becomes a nuisance.

The other concern we have is the obvious disparity among the classes. If you transplanted the Eichlerino’s to Ecuador, you would be transplanting us from the ranks of the middle-class to the privileged world of the upper-class. Yes, in Ecuador we would be able to afford household employees, could easily visit Volcano Park two or three times a month, and might even be able to own a septic system that can handle flushed toilet paper.

If Maya and Jonah grew up in that environment, how long would it take the street children to become invisible? How long would it take Maya and Jonah to feel entitled to having someone to pick up after them and drive them here and there? Yes, I know that they are already accustomed to these things, but dang, eventually Maya is going to put her own clean underwear in her drawer, right? She doesn’t need the hired help to do it for her until she’s eighteen.

But the flip side is, by remaining here, how long will it take them to become accustomed to and accept the random violence that Americans endure? And will that errant drive-by bullet find them one day?

Rebecca's Neurosis

Here's an email that Rebecca sent to some friends of hers. As Dave Barry says, "I am not making this up." For her birthday, I was going to take her skiing in Montana, but I'm reconsidering and thinking of donating honeybees on her behalf instead.


I have a question for you collectively as a group of mommies, and individually with different styles of doing things.

Jonah's been invited to a b-day party this weekend. A little boy in his pre-school class is turning 3 and they've invited the whole class plus many others to go to a farm/park for a party. It looks like it'll be a cool thing and so far there are 52 people who will be there (17 families or so , according to the evite guest list.) So a lot of people.

As always, I'm stuck on the gift. Having just returned from our trip, I'm on a total anti-consumer roll - even more so than before, if you can believe it. Personally, I don't want more STUFF in my house and my kids have more things than they will ever need. I could get rid of half their things and I know they wouldn't notice. As some of you know, we've always requested no gifts for our kids' parties, which suits us quite nicely.

So I'm struggling with a gift for this kid's party. Well, not really struggling. I thought that a gift donation to Heifer International would be a really cool thing.

For those of you who haven't heard of this organization, their goal is to eradicate hunger and poverty by giving animals (cows, goats, chickens etc) to poor people who can raise them for food and also pledge to give some of the offspring to neighbors, thus spreading the "wealth".

My question is, is this a horrible gift to give at a 3 year old's birthday party? I'd throw something else in perhaps, like a token cow toy or rabbit, depending on what I give -You can give a flock of chicks, a share of a cow, a trio of bunnies etc. - so he'd have something tangible from the gift and it would fit in with the farm theme of the party itself. But considering he's having 17+ guests, whatever gift I end up giving him is going to get lost in the pile anyway. At least that's my thinking.

I figure this donation is something meaningful, thematically appropriate, doesn't add clutter to their house, and doesn't require me to go out and buy something stupid for a 3 year old. My biggest personal beef with birthday parties is that I don't like buying this plastic kid crap for my own kid, and so feel bad about buying it for someone else's kid, even if perhaps that's exactly what they want (or have been convinced they want by commercials).

But by giving such a gift, is it open to some bad interpretation? Could they be offended? (By the way, I don't even know these people - her kid is in my kid's pre-school class and they've been there for about 3 weeks now. So I can't speak at all to their values.)

So, do me a favor and let me know what your take on this is. Keep in mind, if you say that it's okay to do, expect a llama donated on your kids' behalf at the next party (unless you thankfully say "No Gifts Please").

Taking off the Training Wheels

In the summer of 2007, when Maya was just four years old, one of her peers was already riding a bicycle without training wheels. Her parents told us that she was able to balance on her bicycle after she had learned how to balance on her scooter.

Of course, Maya got a scooter from Santa last Christmas. We brought it with us to Ecuador this summer and as June became July, I noticed that Maya had pretty much mastered the thing.

There was a large, paved courtyard outside the apartment building in Quito where we lived and many afternoons while waiting for Rebecca to come home from work, Maya and Jonah would scoot themselves around the yard at great speed and with impeccable balance. A lot of times Maya would have only one foot on the platform while her free leg would be poised in mid-air – her flamingo pose.

Other times, I would count Mississippi’s to see how fast they could get from here to there. In those instances Maya would be hunched over her machine, her leg pushing frantically off the ground to gain the speed to beat her last time. Yes, I always feared she’d hit a pebble or something and face-plant into the ground, but she never did.

The other feat that she accomplished on her scooter this summer was to inch her way down the steep hill on the way home from her school. She would keep both of her feet on the platform and control her speed with the foot brake while steering herself around the bumps, cracks, debris and dog crap littering the sidewalk. It was pretty impressive (especially since the sidewalk is not exactly what one would call “newly poured” or “just swept”) and I suspected that balancing on her bike would be a relative breeze.

And it was. I took the training wheels off her bike a day or two after we got home, and we went into the park to see if she could ride. I held onto her bicycle seat as she pedaled across the field. I let go for an instant and she was riding her bicycle. However, Maya has to be in the mood if she is going to do a thing, and that day she was not in the mood to ride her bicycle. So, after that initial test-run, we packed things up and went back home.

About two weeks later, she went out with Opa and bang, she was off and riding. She made Opa call me at my desk at work to tell me because she was too busy riding around to stop and tell me herself.

That night when we got home we went into the park and Maya rode circles around Rebecca and me on the basketball court. There was no doubt about it – she could ride her bicycle (but no pictures or movies were allowed).

Last Sunday I asked Maya if she wanted to go for a bike ride. Now, it turns out that taking a bike ride in Old Town Alexandria with a novice bike rider is no easy feat.

The streets are laid out in your typical grid, so to set a good example, I had us ride on the sidewalk and stop at every corner to make sure we weren’t going to get creamed by a car or truck while crossing the street. At one point Maya said, Boy, we sure have to stop a lot.

And because it was my first time riding with her, I didn’t know exactly how we should position ourselves. Should I ride behind her so I can keep my eye on her? Should I ride in front of her so I can watch for potential trouble spots? Should we ride two abreast so I can keep an eye on her and troubleshoot?

I alternated between my choices, and only nearly ran her down one time when she stopped short in front of me. I guess I’ll figure out the best way to bike ride with her as I get more practice.

We eventually made it to the post office to mail Grandma some pictures that Maya had painted at school. Then we went to Trader Joe’s to get milk and yogurt. Then we had a nice ride home in the September sunshine.

It was pretty cool experience - just a dad and his daughter out for a bike ride. I’m pretty certain that it’s one of those moments that will flash through my mind when I’m driving away from her college dorm that first time.

How Lovely Things Are

I was sitting at the bar the other night and despite my best efforts, I could not help but contrast what I was seeing with what I have become familiar with in Quito. Call it post-partum depression.

There were no kids juggling for their lives in the streets. Instead, there were a bunch of pudgy, disheveled, suit-types eating dripping mounds of red meat at 10 p.m. on a Monday night.

In addition to the indignity of having to pay $6 for a beer that is half-the size of what I could get in Quito for 80 cents, I was walled in by conversations that were seemingly derived from an Eagles of Death Metal song, without benefit of the hip-shaking punk riffs. Meaning people were talking in clichéd inanities.

There was no discussion about how well eucalyptus trees have adapted to the South American climate. But if you care to know, it took the girl wearing the print dress eight weeks to find the right stone for her engagement ring.

Thus goes our readjustment to life in the good ole U.S of A.

It didn’t take long to fall back into the old routines we’d left behind and it took about a minute longer to remember why we wanted to live overseas in the first place.

Hey, I’m not suggesting that the plight of the third world needs to be in the forefront of everyone’s consciousness, but if someone mentions NBC’s Thursday Night Must See T.V. to me one more time, I might just have to run out, buy a flat-screen, pulsar-radiated, neutron-tested, 58-inch television that is digitally-equipped for a moon-landing and tune in (or tune out, as it were). I mean, “The Office” sounds totally awesome.

On the other hand, I also walk away from the so-called intellectual conversations I’m subject to. All anyone at work wants to talk about is tax law and politics. And frankly, I’m just not that interested right now in either of those topics. The best conversation I’ve had since I’ve been back was with the new attorney hired in my office. We talked for an hour about all the bands that we like. We like the same bands.

Geez, don’t I sound like a cranky old man? This is stupid. He’s a jack-ass! Who cares? Fuck if I know!

I’m 38-years old and I think I’m entering my mid-life crisis years – which is encouraging. It means I have 38 more years to go, right? I just hope I don't go out and buy $1,000 worth of Propecia.

Despite my seeming discontent with the world at large, I like living. I like my kids. I like my wife. I'm not unhappy.

Living is just easier when you don’t have to hear everyone’s righteous opinions. I’m sure the same thing was going on in Ecuador. The difference was that everyone was talking in Spanish and I couldn’t understand all the stupid things they were actually saying.

But maybe people aren't so stupid and it's just me? I’m at a point where I’m wondering what the hell I’m supposed to do. Should I keep going to work or should I quit? Should we stay where we are or should we not? Is anyone going to read this blog if I post what’s actually going on in my head or do I need to write about how lovely things are?

I was due for this period of soul-searching. In retrospect, I feel like I was sleep-walking through the last few months before the summer and probably a few months before then as well. But our adventure in Ecuador has accelerated the arrival of my time to butt my head against the wall trying to find my happy place.

It’s a mixed blessing that we were able to do what we did. It was nice to get up and go. I'm proud of it and inspired by it. But after being reminded of how much the world has to offer, and how easy (theoretically) it is to pick up and go, waking up every morning at 6:30 so I can get on the train to sit at my desk and talk to people about making a retroactive qualified electing fund election for their passive foreign investment company just doesn’t, as they say, cut the mustard.