Famous J Takes Detroit

So apparently a nutrition professor at Kansas State ate nothing but Twinkies and assorted other junk food for two months straight and lost 27 lbs.  What’s more, his cholesterol and triglycerides improved improved substantially.

As someone who once lost a crap pile of weight, I find these stories interesting. His thesis, which I think he demonstrated fairly dramatically, is that ultimately it’s the calories that matter.  If you want to lose weight, consume fewer calories than you burn.  Your body will have to get it from somewhere.

On the other hand, this is a lot like saying that the key to being rich is to earn more money than you spend.  Totally true, but not all that useful as advice.  The key is to find a way to eat that makes it easy to maintain portion control.  Or at least more feasible.

I drive a black hatchback, and every time Charlie sees a small black car, he says “Daddy car!” Sherry has a silver sedan, and every time Charlie sees one of those, he’ll say “Mom car!”

Well, as you’ll recall when I we took the road trip to Cincinnati, I availed myself of the loaner program for the extremely large automaker I work for, and got ourselves a Cadillac SRX.

Well, when Charlie sees an SRX, he’ll point to that and say “Charee car!” In fact, one time I was parked next to one at the grocery store, and when we came out, Charlie ran up to it and started trying to open the doors. “Charee car! Charee car!”

I had to pry his hands away and take him sobbing to my considerably-less-impressive hatchback. He was not a happy little man.

But you can’t say he doesn’t have taste. Since the Cadillac SRX is a fine piece of automotive machinery, if I do say so. Drop by your local Cadillac dealer and go for a test drive!

*****

One of my favorite things about parenthood so far is watching kids learn how to talk and seeing how they use language to make sense of the world they’re living in. It’s always surprising the words and phrases they come up with.

For instance, Charlie calls milk “New Milk”. He does this because for a few days, he kept finding old, grotty sippy cups with chunky three-day-old milk under the couch and then trying to drink out of them.

“Ack!”, I’d say. “That milk is gross! Let me get you some new milk.”

To which, in typical Charlie fashion, he’d repeat the last two words.

“New milk! New milk!”

So now he doesn’t ask for “milk”, he asks for “new milk”.

That one sounds reasonable enough. The one we’re still puzzling over is that he only calls fries “cold fry”.

He knows they’re usually served with a cheeseburger, so whenever we pass a Big Boy and he sees the eponymous mascot in front holding the double-decker cheeseburger, there’s Charlie in the back seat saying, “Cheebur! Cold fry! Cheebur! Cold fry!”

Why cold? Nobody knows. Somehow, he got the idea that that’s what fries are called, and there’s no talking him out of it. Although it certainly doesn’t help that Sherry and I have started calling them “cold fries” ourselves.

*****

Gus is quickly coming upon his first birthday. I’m excited about that, and I’ll have a much longer post to recap the year. The exciting things to report on him are that he’s now able to pull himself up using the couch. He’s even taken a few halting steps while holding on. So basically he can now walk about as well as Sherry can ice skate.

And he’s got two teeth, one upper and one lower. This makes him look completely ridiculous when he smiles, and he smiles all the time.

Yesterday, Mrs. J, the boys and I were at an extremely generic chain restaurant. (Hint: It’s Mike Birbiglia‘s dad’s favorite restaurant.) As we were waiting our table, Sherry scanned the crowd as they were waiting or eating.

“Man, everyone in here is miserable!” she said. “Nobody is smiling at all! Not even those folks over there by the fireplace, which you’d think would be primo seating.”

A quick glance proved that was true, although such verification was unnecessary. “You know why everyone here is depressed?” I replied. “Because we’re in Warren, MI, the most depressing place in America.”

We’d had a conversation in the last few months about the least favorite place I’ve visited and Warren topped my list. On this particular evening, I had been driving and Sherry had apparently lost track of where in town we were, so she didn’t realize we were in Warren. So I consider this independent confirmation of my assessment.

The technology center for the very large automaker I work for is located in Warren, so there’s a decent chance they’ll want me to work out there. I’m trying to decide if it’s worth it.

People around here seem to take it as an article of faith that the city is going to come back. Some day. No particular course of action is ever discussed as to how the city is going to get from where it is now, i.e. an open sewer, to something better. A covered sewer maybe.

But people from Metro Detroit are like most Americans. They’ve never really seen a city do anything but grow. Rural America emptied out at some point, but with cities, any setback is temporary.

Looking outside America, there are plenty of examples of cities that lost that spark and never got it again. When was the last time you heard anything from Troy? Or Sparta? Or Carthage?

My belief is that there will always be a city here. At some point this city will stop shrinking as quickly as it has been. If people are willing to live in Nome, AK, they’ll live here. But I doubt it will return to its peak size any time in the next 20 or 30 years.

For instance, I read this story, which contained the following quote as sent in an email:

If you saw Sunday’s Free Press that shown Robert Bobb the emergency financial manager for Detroit Public Schools, move Mark Twain to Boynton which have three times the number seats then students and was one of the reason’s he gave for closing school to many empty seats.

And this one:

Do DPS control the Foundation or outside group? If an outside group control the foundation, then what is DPS Board row with selection of is director? Our we mixing DPS and None DPS row’s, and who is the watch dog?

Who is this latter-day Shakespeare? It’s Otis Mathis, the president of the Detroit school board. Clearly the people of Detroit have entrusted their children’s education to top men.

The thing that’s going to turn the city around is people who care about the future. People who care about the future also care about giving their kids a good education. They aren’t going to put up with people like Mr. Mathis running the school board.

It wouldn’t hurt to have people who care about the past, but they aren’t much in evidence either.

Right now the place is full of people who care about nothing but the present. The inhabitants, the municipal government, such as it is. The current mayor might be a decent enough guy, but he’s just one person. There’s no way he can even start to fix things without upsetting the trough that too many people are feeding on.

But this is just the city of Detroit. It’s not like, as the place continues to swirl down the toilet, that all that mess will spill over into the nearby suburbs. Will it?

This summer has been a whirlwind tour of the Rust Belt. The stop this weekend was Cincinnati. I only had to type that word about 70 times before I figured out how to spell it: one n, then two n’s, then one t.

I found out this summer that the Sooners were playing U of Cincinnati. A quick check revealed that it was only five hours from Detroit. Another quick check revealed that my dad had tickets to the game. So off we went, the family and I, to the Queen City.

As you all know, I work for an extremely large automaker based in downtown Detroit. Which shall remain nameless. One of the really cool perks this company has is the Ambassador program, where they let us borrow one of the higher-end models to drive around and lord over the common folk.

Behold our ride for the weekend, the Cadillac SRX.

Am I willing to say that the American engineering is back? You bet I am!

This car was amazingly awesome. It was like driving a barcalounger. A barcalounger with a massive, powerful engine. And all the cool stuff the car came with: the center console with the LCD touchscreen, the magic RF key that knew when you were close and automatically unlocked the doors.

Sherry said that she kind of felt like a fraud riding around in a Cadillac crossover. I can see how she might feel that way, you know, since it totally isn’t our car. For me, it was like that time I was in the overbooked flight and they ran out of seats in coach and upgraded me to first class. It was so utterly fraudulent that it crossed over into the absurd. And I love absurdity.

As the passengers were boaridng, I stoped one of thee stewardesses flight attendants, and said, “Excuse me, miss. When are you going to close the curtains? I’m tired of looking at those… common folk in the back.” The flight attendant’s eyes got wide and before she could stammer out her apologies for having to subject me to the hoi poloi, I told her I was kidding, that I got bumped and that I am those common folk in the back, just a bit luckier.

Anyway, using OnStar-powered navigation, we glided down western Ohio, through Toledo, Lima, and Dayton. Western Ohio looks a lot like southern Illinois. Or central Indiana. Or eastern Missouri. Flat and uninteresting.

Cincinnati, however, is a pretty cool city. It would seem to be one of the less rusty parts of the Rust Belt, quite a bit more white collar than where I live now. Size-wise it’s not much bigger than Kansas City, but despite that, its downtown seemed to have more going on than downtown Detroit, St. Louis, and Dallas combined. Fountain Square was expecially nice.

I met up with my friend and fellow Sooner, Dave from Cleveland and his friend Matt, who went to Ohio U, but is always up for some major college football. We wandered from the hotel downtown to Paul Brown Stadium. Cincy has their own stadium, but they have their higher profile games at Paul Brown, where the Bengals play.

It’s a very nice stadium with lots of atmosphere. The Cincy fans were loud and enthusiastic. And for good reason, since the game was exciting.

Usually I’d prefer a good game to a dull game, except when my team is a lot better than the other team and the only reason the other team is in it is because my team keeps turning the ball over at inopportune moments. Which would pretty much describe that game. Ultimately, I just want a win, and we got one. An unsatisfying win, but I’ll take that result over the one UT got*.

My one regret from the game is that I didn’t get the mettwurst.  If you’re like me, you’re probably wondering what the hell a “mettwurst” is.  Since I first heard of them this weekend.  My dad had one.  Apparently it’s like a bratwurst, only spicier and with quite a bit more flavor.  I missed out.

After the game, we went back to the hotel and I helped Sherry move the boys from the parents’ room to our room. Matt went to visit another friend of his from the Kentucky side of the river, and Dave and I went to an area brewpub and caught up and reminisced about old times.

Excellent way to spend a weekend. Sooner victory, pleasant ride, good company, life doesn’t get much better!

* As I was saying this morning, it’s always bittersweet when the Longhorns get their asses handed to them before OU/Texas. On the one hand, it’s never exactly a tragedy when they lose. But on the other hand, you’d really like their hopes and expectations to be as high as possible when they roll into the Cotton Bowl and get annihilated.

When the baby first starts talking, however much like gibberish it sounds to other people, you usually have a pretty good idea what the kid is saying. Because you were there when he learned the word, and often, you were the one who taught it to him. So he’ll say something like “Pie! Pie!” and you’ll know, “Yes, he wants his pacifier. Which reminds me that we should really get around to breaking that habit sometime.”

But then, at some point, the amount of language the little person knows reaches this critical mass and they start learning things on their own, just by listening to other people. This part is pretty cool because suddenly, you’re out somewhere and your son points at the beach and says “Sand! Sand!” Charlie did this just a few days ago. Where did he learn the word sand? Nobody has any clue.

The problem, though, is that, since he’s learning new things on his own, sometimes you have no idea what he’s talking about. We’ll be at Target and Charlie will point to something halfway across the store and say “Brar! Brar!” What is brar? No idea. And since he’s pointing at roughly 7000 things, there’s just no way to know what he’s pointing at. And it’s not enough to figure out the thing that a two year old would find interesting, like a balloon or a spider monkey. Since Charlie will point out everything he knows the word for, since he wants everyone to know, “I know the word for that thing. It’s ‘brar’. Hadn’t you heard?”

Good news: Charlie is really starting to get into football.

Bad news: for some reason, he thinks the name of the sport is “touchdown”. If we’re at a store and the TV is showing football, he’ll start yelling “Touchdown! Touchdown.” That’s easy enough to fix. Hopefully.

*****

We’re all glad to have Gus. It’s a medical miracle that he’s even still with us. We try to count our blessings on that.

But the fact is, after all the surgeries, Gus’s little tummy and associated plumbing is in pretty bad shape. It’s in bad shape when he doesn’t swallow a penny. He’s got terrible reflux and it’s a balancing act keeping food down to begin with. Consequently, Gus is still very little. He’s off the growth chart. If he were on there, he’d the -5th percentile or some such.

But he’s making progress. In fact, our pediatrician made a plan and we’re ahead of schedule.

Despite that, Gus continues to smile all the time. It’s a toothless grin which makes him look like a 70 year old man. I’m a big fan.

And despite his small stature, he’s a mighty little guy. He can do the army crawl with amazing speed and agility. One day, he crawled up two stairs from the living room into the kitchen. I didn’t see him do it, though, so I admit he might have had assistance from the dog. Even so, I’m impressed.

Also he’s able to pull himself into the sitting-up position all by himself. And just today he pulled himself into a full stand on the dishwasher. Incredible!

Despite all that, he’s so frustrated. He always wants to go further and do more. Specifically, he wants to do whatever Charlie is doing. Charlie is constantly running in circles. So why can’t he?

He’ll get there eventually. He’s got all the persistence of a bulldog with lockjaw. In spite of his slow start, I continue to foresee great things from Gus.

Charlie is slowly but hopefully getting it all sorted out.

This evening, dinner was carry-out from Panera Bread*. For dessert, I picked up the delicious toffee nut cookie for Sherry. At least I’m assuming it was delicious. It’s not on The Program, and I’ve never tried one.

Anyway, when Charlie saw Mom eating the cookie, of course he came running and asking for some cookie of his own. So Sherry gave him a very generous chunk of cookie. He ate a few bites and got bored with it, so he gave the rest to Toby the Dog.

Of course, Sherry and I were outraged at Charlie giving the delicious cookie to the least-discriminating eater in the house. So we’re all saying, “Charlie! Don’t feed the dog!”

The wheels start turning and Charlie figures out that something went wrong, something having to do with the dog. So he starts wagging his finger at the dog. “No, Tochee! No! No!”

Once we all stop laughing we manage to explain that Tochee didn’t do anything wrong, that he shouldn’t be feeding the dog. In the end, he starts pointing at himself, saying, “No Charee! No! No!”

I’m still not sure he really knows why he’s saying No to himself, but it’s a start.

* Everyone in Detroit is all jumping around talking about supporting the hometown economy. Since St. Louis is more my home than Detroit, I do my part to support it. Thanks for the thought, folks!

So the the trip to Branson wasn’t exactly anyone’s dream vacation. It was okay, but it certainly wasn’t the sandy, oil-free beach on the Gulf Shore that was our vacation Plan A.

It was made worse by the fact that Sherry had to drive the boys back on her own. The St. Louis to Detroit leg of the trip took twelve long, miserable hours. It’s the kind of vacation that you need an even longer vacation to recover from. Alas, no vacation was forthcoming.

Anyway, we were discussing this on Wednesday and I noted that we’re actually pretty close to lots of stuff if we wanted a weekend getaway. On top of all the cool things to do in Michigan, Detroit is within five hours of Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Toronto, and Niagara Falls. That got the wheels turning, and next thing you know, we’ve got a hotel in Buffalo booked.

As it happens, Niagara Falls might be the perfect weekend getaway. You can do everything you might want to do there in two days without being rushed. And truly that place lives up to the hype. I’m not Mr. Nature or anything. My perfect vacation involves walking around a city somewhere, seeing some museums and eating questionable ethnic food. But I was really blown away by the falls.

As an added bonus, the drive there took us through Ontario. This was the first time I’d ever been to Canada. For someone who spent a good portion of his youth watching Kids in the Hall, this was exciting stuff.

The excitement wasn’t long lasting, though. When people talk about the breathtaking beauty of Canada, I don’t think they’re talking about Southern Ontario. Other than the road signs, the place looked indistinguishable from Ohio. And they don’t mow the sides of the highway. It’s all prairie. That’s somewhat interesting, but then again, it’s not iteresting at all.

We stopped off at a Tim Horton’s in Brantford. It was just far enough off the highway that everyone in there was a local. It was packed, and everyone had that harsh Canadian accent and most people either seemed very dull or totally eccentric.

Just a note about Tim Hortons: that place is, if possible, even more ubiquitous in Canada than Starbucks is in the U.S. They were everywhere!

Okay one more note about Tim Hortons: They don’t take Visa! Only MasterCard. I’d heard that nobody in Latin America takes Visa, but I didn’t realize that was also true about Canada. They did, however, take American dollars. They kind of robbed meu on the exchange rate, though. And they gave me change in Canadian dollars.

One mystery about Canada: I noticed that every town with more than 20,000 people had some kind of high rise apartments. Is this part of some kind of government program? Given the vast emptiness of the place, this seems like a total waste of money. Why build a high rise apartment when there’s empty fields a mere half mile from downtown?

As I mentioned, the falls were terrific. We did lots of looking and taking pictures. We did the Maid of the Mist, which Gus liked quite a bit more than Charlie. Gus was in Mom’s baby sling and thought that was pretty cool stuff.

Charlie loves boats, but for some reason, I don’t think he was making the connection that he was actually on a boat. He seemed more interested in the other boats than anything else. And he wasn’t a fan of the poncho they gave us. It might have been easier to just let him get wet.

There were a few things we could have done if we’d had older kids who were more sure-footed, like the Cave of the Winds. But I don’t feel deprived that we didn’t get to check those out.

Dinner on Saturday night took us to Buffalo. I’m hoping everyone was at the lake or something, because that place looked deserted. The parts of town we wandered through reminded me a lot of South City in St. Louis, another place whose best days were in the 1920′s.

Saturday night it started to rain, and it was still raining when we went home on Sunday. This pretty much threw a wrench in whatever else we might have wanted to do. In fact, we probably could have just gone home Saturday afternoon and just done a one-day trip.

The only other noteworthy bit was the border patrols. We crossed the border a few times and each time, the crossing guard was unpleasant. That might be by design. If I were up to no good, the last thing they’d want to do is put me at ease. Or it might be that the job brings out the worst in people. Or maybe the job is only attractive to people who are already lacking in the personal skills department.

So a thumbs up on the spur-of-the-moment trip.