The Bauer Confidential

Until two years ago I lived a small town/suburban life.  More years than I care to count were spent in “College Town, USA.”  To find two positions in the same town, Matthew and I knew that an urban center would be our best bet.  In the end our choices were limited, and Berkeley beckoned as a place we could be together and continue on our professional paths in our areas of interest.

I want to go on the record as saying that there are many things I really like about the bay area.  I love the weather (though I do sometimes tire of the rainy season), public transit system, convenience of restaurants, shops, theaters, museums and other entertainment.  Somedays, however, I wonder if all that convenience comes at too high of a price.

Today I had a strange experience on BART, I was transporting a canning pot full of glass jars into the city for to make some jam and applesauce with a friend.  The pot was very heavy so I picked a bench that was unoccupied and set the pot on the seat next to me, this wasn’t hard to find since the train was practically empty.  About 30 seconds later, an older lady came up to me, pointed to the pot and told me, quite rudely, that she wanted that seat.  I was perplexed, as there were many open seats, some closer to the doors, but placed the pot on the floor and gave her the seat.  I assumed the woman must have some sort of physical reason to be so particular about her seat, but I was wrong, there was nothing physically amiss with this woman (except a compulsion to wear plastic gloves on public transit, but maybe that’s mental not physical).  After changing trains, I felt quite guilty for not giving up my seat to a different older woman while I was boxed into a seat with my hands full as teenagers and young men made no move to give her their space.  These two experiences got me thinking about the mentality of urban residents.

Does being one of so many make it easier to give less consideration to others?  You know it is highly unlikely that you will encounter the people you meet on the train in other aspects of your life, so how you treat them makes no difference.  Be rude, be considerate, it doesn’t matter because there are no reprecussions for your actions.  Cars packed on the freeway, people jostling lines at the grocery store, there’s no reason to be kind to those around you because it doesn’t affect your life.  Still I can’t help but think that if we were more considerate of others, and they returned the favor in sort of a pay it forward scenario, in the end life would be easier for all of us.

I think this self-importance translates to other aspects of people’s lives.  It manifests as city councils, like those of Berkeley, that won’t fix pot holes or public safety issues, but have plenty of time to pass resolutions for Impeaching the US President and VP or trying to muscle out Army recruiters.  The activist tradition of the bay area is tarnished by people who choose to devote their efforts and waste public resources for poorly reasoned causes, often endangering themselves or others.  The self-righteousness of people quoted in papers and featured on the news is ridiculous, and makes it unsurprising that it takes forever to accomplish even the smallest things around here.

I’m not saying you won’t find inconsiderate and/or self-righteous people in small towns, but I think those people feel the effects of their actions.  When people know you and your deeds/words, they’re more likely to hold you accountable.  This probably explains why most people would prefer to live in a small town if given the chance.  I don’t know what to do about this predicament.  We have to live here for a few more years at the least, but when the chance comes, I really hope we can go to a place that is not so anonymous; I miss “College Town, USA.”

I was looking at all the different sports on-line yesterday, and I know the more popular ones which are in the Olympics: Basketball, baseball, gymnastics, swimming (Michael Phelps to be precise since he is the sport to many Americans), and beach volleyball.  I saw the sport of shooting, and my first thought was “Americans should kick ass in the sport!”  Team USA isn’t doing bad, but they’re not kicking ass and I don’t understand why?  America has more guns per person than probably any developed nation, and with a high populations of hunters and rednecks, we should be kicking some serious tail.  If all else fails, we have the urban gangs.  I know aiming isn’t one of their strong suits, but I’m sure there has got to be a diamond in the rough out there somewhere.

Also, I was talking with April the other day and was wondering if there are any sports that are not in the Olympics but should be.  For example, should Golf or Bowling or maybe even Billards be included?  I know they’re popular in America, but are they popular in enough countries to be included?  Any thoughts about this out there?

Point Isabel, Albany, CA.  August, 2008.

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My family is pretty big into sports.  My dad is a wrestling coach, my brothers have played just about every sport that is played in middle america.  Growing up, at least one TV in that house seemed to be perpetually tuned to ESPN.  Even my grandparents are big into football, my 84 year old grandmother loves the Huskers (is there any other team? Go Cornhuskers, woot!).  I’m not as interested in sports, most of the time.  I loved playing volleyball in high school, and was a pretty good thrower in track and field.  I really enjoyed playing co-ed softball in grad school and like to go out and play a friendly game of just about anything.  Watching sports on TV is a different story, as a general rule, I just don’t enjoy it.  I’ll happily go to any live sporting even and have a great time, but somehow it looses something in the broadcasting.

There is, however, one huge exception for me:  the Olympics.  I love the Olympics.  Have since I was a kid; I still remember watching the ‘84 LA games when I was six and falling in love with gymnastics, turning porch railings into balance beams and nearly cracking my head open.  I’ll watch pretty much any Olympic event, summer or winter games.  Since the start of this year’s games on Friday, the Olympics have pretty much taken over my life.  OK, that’s an exaggeration, but my evenings anyway.

The timed sports are the easiest to watch.  It doesn’t get much better than watching the American’s kick the speedo-clad butts of the French team in the 4×100meter freestyle after the anchor of the French team had professed that they would “crush” the American’s (though it would have been better if I hadn’t forgotten that live on the NBC screen means live East Coast time, so you should not look at CNN if you want any surprises).

The judged events are a different story.  I’m sure a lot of it is training and knowledge of the sport, but I’m often left scratching my head as to why one routine scores so much higher than another.  The most difficult system to grasp is the new gymnastics way of scoring.  I hate it.  It used to be a 10 was the best you could do in anything.  Now they give a difficulty score and an execution score, these scores are combined and any deductions subtracted to give the final score.  I appreciate rewarding athletes for the more difficult routines, but there is no longer the transparency of knowing which judge gave what score.  The process is even more hidden from the viewers.  The judges can review tapes of a given performance and then go and compare them to any other routine from that competition.  And they can go back and devalue or increase a score at anytime.  This just strikes me as wrong.  And it takes forever for them to give the scores.  Supposedly this is system will ensure less bias in the judging, but I don’t see it.

So I’ll just go on holding my breath as the men and women launch themselves into the air and grasp the high bar or uneven bars at the very last instant.  I’ll try not to care too much about the scores.  It was great to see the American men’s gymnastics team, composed of Olympics newbies after the loss of the Hamm brothers, take home the bronze when they weren’t even expected to be in the running.  It’s not always about the gold.

Point Isabel, Albany Shoreline, CA.  August 2008.

I would like to add that right after Matthew took that picture the doggie came up to him and in trying to lick his face licked the lens of the camera.

More about Wordless Wednesday.

P.S.  There are two new slide shows in the photos section of some hiking we did this weekend.

Many of you probably know that I’m a bit of a foodie.  I don’t consider myself a true food snob since I still love things like Rice Krispie treats and jello salads, but I enjoy a diversity of good food.  I also enjoy preparing good food, and there’s nothing like a good breakfast.  Much to my dismay, one of my frequent food failures has been hash-browns from scratch, which also happens to be one of my favorite breakfast accoutrements.  I don’t know if I haven’t been using the right kind of potatoes or crowding the pan, but mine always come out soggy.

Sunday morning, I wanted hash-browns, the yummy, crunchy hash-browns that my Grandmother used to make with peanut oil in her electric skillet.  The closest I’ve come is the hash-browns at Saul’s in the Gourmet Ghetto of Berkeley, only a few blocks from our home.  Since a pregnant woman usually gets what a pregnant woman wants, we headed there for breakfast (don’t think Matthew went along in protest, he likes the place as much as I).  It was still early (by Berkeley standards) so we were seated promptly and our orders were expediently taken by the very nice waiter.  I ordered a Swiss-cheese omelet, which comes with toast and hash-browns according the the menu, and Matthew ordered their famous Challah french toast.  I was saddened when my plate arrived and I was served not the crunchy hash-browns that I’d had there several times before, but home-fry like chunks of potatoes with onions and peppers.  Now don’t get me wrong, the home-fries were pretty tasty, but they weren’t hash-browns, and they weren’t nearly as good as the hash-browns.  So I asked the waiter about the change and he said they had used frozen potatoes in the past, but had decided to get away from processed foods.  On the weekend the demand for hash-browns was too high to shred the potatoes by hand, but you could still get the other style of hash-browns Monday through Thursday.  The waiter seemed generally sorry and said a lot of people had protested the change.  I think if I hadn’t come there specifically because I wanted hash-browns, it probably wouldn’t have been that big of a deal, but since that had been my goal, I was pretty disappointed.  My omelet was only mediocre, a bit bland, but probably my fault for choosing Swiss.  The Challah French Toast was phenomenal, as usual.  You can’t help but love these huge thick slices of slightly sweet bread and a great batter slathered with maple syrup (though they’re a bit stingy on the syrup).

We’ve only been to Saul’s for dinner once, and though the food was OK, I didn’t think it was worth the price.  In the future, I’m sure we’ll go back.  It’s so conveniently located that I’m sure on lazy mornings we’ll get our breakfast fix there from time to time.  Now we’ll go when we’re in the mood for french toast, which they do better than anyone around.  Next time I want hash-browns, I guess I’ll be going to IHOP, or trying my hand at them once again.

Bruce Wayne: I knew the mob wouldn’t go down without a fight. But this is different. They crossed the line.
Alfred Pennyworth : You crossed the line first, sir. You squeezed them, you hammered them. And in their desperation they turned to a man they didn’t fully understand.

So, April and I finally went and saw The Dark Knight.  I kind of wanted to see it, but after a bazillion positive reviews, my expectations were soaring.  Did it live up to my expectations?  Well, yes.  Overall, the movie is really good to great (Note: we watched it in IMAX, and it was worth the extra dough).  It is as dark as they say, both thematically and most cases literally.  It was really difficult to appreciate the fight scenes with Batman who’s in a dark room, at night, with our protagonist wearing the trademarked black cape and cowl.

First of all the story, which plays around questions about morality, and should or would we break our own (or societies) moral code to do something we believe is good (or to save our own neck).  Would we kill someone, out of cold blood, if it meant saving ten to hundreds of people later?  The hypothetical answer will undoubtedly be different from what we would actually do if it were real.  This movie tries very hard to make those situations real, and we get to see what our protagonist does.  Will the joker succeed in pushing the good guys/gals over that moral edge?  I really liked the story, and it gave me something to ponder when the movie was over.  Because these are complicated issues and because this version of the Joker can be bit scary, I agree with this complaint about the marketing campaign.  This movie should not be advertised to kids, and maybe should have a bit more restrictive rating than PG-13.

I’ll talk about the acting in a moment (hint, I liked it), but I wanted to make it clear that this movie is far from perfect or the best film ever, as the fan boys would want you to believe (look at the artificially inflated high IMDB rating). The movie flows fast, but not extremely well.  There are some really exceptional action sequences, and the movie held me in suspense and kept me at the edge of my seat near the end.  Full bladder be damned, I wasn’t missing a beat!  The Dark Knight is a fairly dense movie, and you would think that two and half hours is plenty of time to tell their story, but it isn’t.  The movie-makers crammed a lot of plot devices and story elements into the two and half hours, so the movie has to move at a fast pace.  One (albeit small) problem I had was at about 2/3rds into the movie, the story takes a dramatic turn, divides your attention, and then the pace, which I didn’t think was possible, sped up.   The second problem is that the writer/director, in order to shove all of the necessary scenes into the movie, he kept skipping a lot of story elements.  If this happened once or twice, I might let it slide (or more likely just not notice), but it happened way to many times (hence, I noticed).  So, as the few negative reviewers pointed out, it can appear to some as a muddled mess.  Honestly, it didn’t bother me all that much, but it’s noticeable. Other negative reviewers didn’t like the dialogue so much, because in the last third, the joker gets a bit talky.  Monologuing as some may call it.  I didn’t really notice this, so I guess it didn’t bother me.

Now to the acting, which is really good.  Since Heath Ledger’s death, people were hoping that this last full movie he acted in would be great.  Expectations were unnaturally high, and his performance didn’t disappoint.  Every scene he’s in, he owns.  In fact, this could be his best performance of his short career.  As a fan of film, this is a bit sad.  If you look at just a few of his movies, lets say something silly like 10 Things I Hate About You, or A Knight’s Tale, and then look more serious films like Brokeback Mountain and now The Dark Knight, leaves plenty of evidence of both his range, his talent, and his potential to be even better. I believe that even if Ledger didn’t O.D. on prescription drugs, people would still be talking about his potential Oscar nomination.  Unfortunately, the increased focus on Ledger, distracts people from Aaron Eckhart’s superb performance as Harvey Dent.  Where as ledger had a very complicated task of transforming himself into a convincing psychopathic mad man, (pure evil through and through), Aaron Eckhart*, as Harvey Dent, had the complicated task of taking his character through a very large emotional swing, and I found him to be as convincing as anyone could be with what little time and dialogue he had to play with.  He probably will be overlooked at Oscar time, but he deserves a bit more recognition for his work here.  As for the rest of the cast, they’re good for what was given to them.  Christian Bale is a good Batman, but he didn’t have a lot to work with here.  Batman Begins sets up Batman’s back story, so in this movie, there wasn’t much of an emotion struggle, he just got to be dark and mysterious the whole time.  Bale is a great Bruce Wayne.  Gary Oldman is terrific as commissioner Gordon.  Maggie Gyllenhaal is a good actress, but isn’t given much to work with here.  Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman make the most of what they get, including some of the best lines in the movie.

Overall:  This movie is dark, thought provoking, fun to watch, and an exceptional movie.  If I gave a star rating, I would be 5/5.

* If you want to see another movie in which Aaron Ekhardt does a fantastic job, watch Thank You For Smoking.  It’s a really good movie!

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July’s book club selection was The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani.  Set in early 1600s Iran, this novel tells the tale of a young girl and her mother, who after the unfortunate death of the girl’s father, are forced to seek out their sole relatives in a far away city, and begin a life completely different than the existence they knew in their tiny village.

The girl (about 15) and her mother are more or less slaves to the whims of their hosts, the step-brother of the girl’s father and his tempestuous and conniving wife.  Though essentially reduced to servitude, there are some bright spots in the lives of the main character and her mother.  The girl has a thirst for knowledge, particularly the art of Persian rug making, at which her uncle is an expert and employed by the Shah.  He teaches her a great deal about the aesthetics of this much beloved art form and she is a good student.  She also makes friends with a wealthy girl who teaches her to read and write, but her new friend also uses the girl causing her grief.  The mother works brewing herbal medicine for the wealthy neighbors and between her daughters rug making and her cures they hope to save money for a dowry for the girl.  Unfortunately, the girl makes some bad choices that anger the relatives, and the aunt then uses her power over the two women to pressure them to accept an unfair and damaging proposition for a sigheh, a three month marriage contract that essentially turns the young girl into a prostitute and eventually puts her at odds with everyone she holds dear.  Among all the serious things that happen, the descriptions of her time with her “husband” and all her hard work, it is easy to forget that the main character is still very young.  Her age and inexperience eventually cause her to act in ways that she believes are for the better, but whose consequences she has not contemplated fully.  These decisions lead the mother and daughter down a dark path into destitution, and difficult choices must be made to ensure their survival.

This is a well crafted novel, with vivid descriptions that allow you to almost smell and taste the world the characters inhabit.  The author uses folk tales told by the characters to make important connections and add a sense of history.  The main character is never named, an homage to all the unnamed artisans from that time (only great masters were allowed to sign their work).

In general, I enjoyed this book.  I was a bit rushed to finish it because of a mix-up at the library, which perhaps made me a bit impatient.  The beautiful descriptions that are such an intricate part of this book sometimes feel repetitive and overly flowery.  It takes a great deal of exposition before the characters get into the heart of the story, which makes getting into the book more difficult.  My least favorite thing about the book was the opening chapter, it starts off describing the girl and her mother and how far they have fallen, though it doesn’t say why.  This plot device is neither original nor compelling, I feel it seriously diminishes the tension that the author works so astutely to build.  I enjoyed the ending, but it left me feeling as if the novel itself was a long version of the folk tales peppered through its pages.  It seems cynical to say this, but given the setting and mores of the time, the finale of the book is a bit too optimistic.  All of those criticisms aside, if you have the time and patience for an author who is sometimes a tad too pleased with her own use of metaphor and simile, this is an enjoyable read.  I wouldn’t recommend this book for younger girls because it does contains some very detailed descriptions which are sexual in nature.  I think it would be a good beach or travel read; it definitely has dark themes and is very sad at times, but it is uplifting in the end, and less depressing than more modern day accounts of the women of Iran.

What we’re reading this month:  Aninmal, Mineral, Vegetable: a year of food life by Barbara Kingslover et al.

A couple of weeks ago, we went in for a long, detailed ultrasound to check all the anatomy of our baby.  We decided to find out if it was a boy or a girl.  For some reason I had it in my mind that it was a boy, but then two nights before we were to go in for the ultrasound I had a dream we were at the Dr.’s office and they told me it was a girl.  I guess I always had a 50/50 shot.

A tear rolled down my cheek when she told us it was a girl, not of saddness that it’s not a boy, or even of relief that it is a girl, but just general happiness.  Apparently I mostly blocked Matthew getting a good view of the screen because I was so eager to see everything.  The heart, the ribs, the legs, the hands, the face, all skeletal looking but still so cool to see.  She wasn’t particularly cooperative, constantly putting her thumb in her mouth when the poor technician was trying to get a good shot of the face.  If you’d like to see the newest ultrasound pics, they’re in the baby slide show in the photo-section.  Out of respect for the baby’s privacy, we didn’t put up what Matthew likes to refer to as the “R rated” photos where they point out certain parts of the anatomy.

The baby has been kicking me like crazy.  As of right now, I like it because it’s reassuring.  Nice to be aware of her there and to know she’s active and doing well.  I’m sure I’ll tire of it when it starts to become painful.  We’re starting to figure out what we need to get before the baby comes, a pretty daunting task (not to mention expensive).  We had another Dr.’s appointment yesterday where we again heard the heartbeat, and the Dr. told us how pleased she is with the way everything is going and how everything looks normal.  It’s reassuring to hear.