OLIM

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One of the best parts of living in the Bay Area is a thing called Casual Carpool. Here’s how it works: in various parts of the East Bay (Berkeley, Oakland, etc.), there are designated Casual Carpool pick-up spots. You wait in line at the spot, and pretty soon a car will show up. You get in, wait for a third passenger, and head to San Francisco, where you’ll be dropped off at a designated spot in SOMA (South of Market, for non-Bay Area folk).

Before you start imagining serial killers picking up innocent victims, let me assure you that this is an entrenched culture here. People have been doing it for years. There’s even a strict etiquette.

The first few times I was a little giddy, stifling my giggles as I got into a complete stranger’s car, said “Good morning,” and looked out the window. It was pretty much everything I had been taught NOT to do. After the first few times, I was a pro.

The reason why people use Casual Carpool is, of course, convenience: it’s convenient for the driver, who gets to use the carpool lane on the Bay Bridge, avoiding upwards of an hour of traffic, and it’s convenient for the rider, who gets a fast, cheap ride across the Bay.

Before July 1, 2010, it was convenient for the driver for another way, too: people who used the carpool lane on the bridge didn’t have to pay the toll. Starting July 1, 2010, however, carpool drivers were charged $2.50 for the ride (compared to the normal $6).

The change definitely posed a quandary. Before drivers were charged for the toll, riders didn’t feel the need to pay the driver anything. Hey, he was driving across the Bridge anyway, right? I’m saving him the toll money and time!

After the change, it was a free for all. Some riders offered drivers $1 for the toll (my preferred method), and some didn’t. Some drivers refuse to even think about taking the toll, pretty much thinking that the saved time is worth more than the $1 payment (my favorite drivers).

Some people attach a passive-aggressive note on the seat with a cup, pretty much asking for a contribution, but not enforcing.

Then there’s the Old Lady in the Mercedes (I’ll call her OLIM for short). The first time I got in her car, she asked for a $1.25 contribution before my butt-cheeks hit the seat. Thankfully, I had exact change.

She ended up being a regular at my stop, and I ended up riding in her car three or four times. She changed the enforced payment to a $1, probably because people were fishing around for pennies at the bottom of their bags to get the needed 25 cents.

The last time I rode with OLIM was the most memorable. I got into the backseat (the first passenger can choose the front or back, and I generally ride in the back because I carry my computer and a gym bag), and we waited for the third passenger.

A pleasant young man got into the front seat after a few minutes, and said hello.

OLIM: “That will be a dollar.”

PYM (Pleasant Young Man): “Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry, I only have a $100 bill.”

Me in the back (MITB), thinking to myself, “OH SNAP!” as my jaw dropped.

OLIM: “That’s no problem. I have change. When we stop I’ll give it to you.”

PYM: “Um…OK.”

MITB: Jaw practically dragging on the beautiful Mercedes leather seats.

The drive across the Bay Bridge was long, silent, and awkward.

We got to the designated stop, and OLIM hopped out of the driver’s seat, went back to the trunk, and brought back $99 in change.

I guess there’s a reason she’s driving a Mercedes and I’m in a Honda.

Adventures in Single Parenthood

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Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are both good and fine, but I am a staunch believer that there should be another dedicated parent holiday: Single Parents’ Day. On this proposed holiday, all the parents who are in a couple will be forced to separate for a day, with one parent taking care of his/her own kids, while another parent will take care of a single parent’s kids for the day. And when I say day, I mean from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m., none of that I’ll-watch-your-kids-for-three-hours bit.
I am happy to say that I’m part of a happily-married couple with child, but recently I had to live the single parent lifestyle. My husband ended up going across the country for four months for work, leaving me with our then one-year old.
A disclaimer: I’m also lucky in that I have my parents nearby. At least I didn’t have to shuttle the wee one off to daycare before heading to work—I was fortunate that the daycare came to me. So really, my only single parenting came after work and on the weekends.
After work, the routine involved frantically making dinner for P, feeding her, Skyping with the husband so P wouldn’t forget his smiling face, giving her a bath, putting her to bed, eating, showering, and sleeping. I just got exhausted writing that sentence.
The weekends, though, oh the weekends. Talk about no down time: Up at the crack of dawn, running errands, laundry, grocery shopping, cleaning the house while P slept, cooking, etc. You get the idea. One day P was bouncing off the walls with energy, and I was so exhausted I just put her in her crib for ten minutes while I collapsed on the bed. It was a sweet, sweet ten minutes. I love my daughter, but going to work on Monday morning was like going on vacation.
The worse, though, was how I figured out that she could open the front door by herself. We live on the second floor of a duplex, so there is a precipitous flight of stairs right outside our front door. One Saturday morning, I was running around as usual, trying to get out of the house. I slipped into the bathroom for a second to brush my teeth while P was playing with my keys in the living room.
I spit out the last bit of toothpaste and rinsed, and was finally ready to head out. P looked up at me angelically…and the keys were nowhere to be found. Toy box? Check. Behind the couch? Check. In the trash? Check. Nope, no keys, nada.
I figured that I would just find them later, and grabbed an extra pair. I opened the front door and had a mild heart attack: The keys were sitting outside the door.
That’s how I figured that my little precocious P could open the front door. She opened it, threw the keys out, and closed the door. I don’t even want to think about the what ifs in that situation, and needless to say, I was up until ten that night installing a safety gate—while cursing the state of the California economy that had sent the hubs 3000 miles away.
Thinking back, I probably should have taken up my wonderful friends’ offers of looking after P a little more often, at least so I could use the bathroom in peace. At the same time, I felt guilty about the fact that she couldn’t spend time with one of her parents, and that spending all her time with me would somehow make that better. Silly, I know, but sometimes there’s no logical explanation for the way we think and react to situations.
Now that the four months are up, I am so grateful that my husband is back and that he washes the dishes while I give P a bath, and picks up the toys while I put her to bed. And watches her as I brush my teeth.
And if you know single parents, don’t wait for them to ask you for help. They need it. They want it, but may be too shy to ask. Show up with some food. If no one answers the door, leave on the front steps. Go hang out on a Saturday and let them enjoy some adult conversation. Go hang out on a Sunday and let them take a nap. Whatever you do, don’t take no for an answer. And until the Single Parents’ Day is instated, your friend can have five minutes to herself.

The Stakeout

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A few years back, a friend told me that one of her good friends had just bought a house in a gated community in my parents’ hometown in SoCal, Thousand Oaks. My haughty, incredulous response, “Why?” My friend, whose daughter was a toddler at the time, responded that the town is really safe and has great schools (all true).

You see, I was cool and childless at the time, and living in New York. I so didn’t need to worry about stuff like that.

As I’m typing this, I’m staking out the house that I hope will be our future home. It’s in the burbs. Seriously in the burbs. But guess what: The town is pretty safe, and the schools are superb.

Why the stakeout? The house is on a busy street—not Fifth Avenue busy, but busier than your normal cul-de-sac. So I’m staking it out during commute hours to see just how busy it is, and whether we’ll be able to live with the “traffic.”

Oh, how things change. There are too many clichés to count when people talk about parenthood…how your priorities will be completely different, how you won’t recognize yourself from your pre-parenthood days, and most importantly, how you’ll do things you swore you would never do.

Like taking a job because it has excellent benefits…or moving to the burbs. My (hopefully) new hometown is the most suburban area I’ve considered living since moving off to college. But the reason that clichés about parenthood are clichés, is that they’re pretty much spot on.

I do want P to be able to play in the yard, have enough room to play hide and seek, and get a top-notch public education. Isn’t that what every parent wants?

I am, however, starting to prepare our reasoning for when P is a sullen teenager and wails, “You lived in Venice, Rome, New York, and San Francisco and chose to live here? Why?”

Dearest, because it’s safe and gave you an education that allows you to pinpoint all those places on a map.

The Trilingual Advantage?

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I just love randomly getting in touch with famous people (OK, semi-famous…and only in the nerd-o-sphere) and having them respond. Yesterday, there was a Q and A in the New York Times with a certain Professor Ellen Bialystok, who does research on the brain and how it reacts to bilingualism. In short, she was saying that research has shown that the use of two languages in everyday life has a bevy of advantages in young and old, including prolonged functionality at the onset of Alzheimer’s.

Of course, the natch question for an Iranian-Italian family with a young child living in the US of A is whether exposure to three languages is a good thing…or whether the said young child will just grow up with a jumble of sounds in her head. So what’s a girl to do? Write the expert and ask, mais oui!

After very little sleuthing on the net, I found Prof. Bialystok’s email address, and I wrote her the following message:

 Dear Prof. Bialystok,

I’m sure you will be getting a flood of emails after the recent Q and A featured in the NY Times. Hopefully mine won’t get lost in the crowd!

I’m curious as to whether you have encountered any trilingual cases in your research. I’ll explain: I’m a first generation Iranian who married an Italian native. We currently live in the U.S. and are obviously surrounded by all-things English, so our daughter (1.5 years old) is exposed to all three languages. My parents look after her during the week and speak to her in Farsi (although my mother resists because she things P will get confused) and my husband and I speak to her in Italian. We figure that she gets enough English through exposure in things like kids’ classes and such.

What is amazing to me is that Penelope is picking up all three languages simultaneously. When she’s hungry, she says, “Apple! Acqua! Naan!” She’s pretty much covering all her bases! She seems to pick up the easiest word for things in every language, with the exception of “farfalla” (butterfly), which she just likes saying over and over again.

Anyway, I don’t mean this to be a gushing review of her language skills, but I’m just wondering if you’ve encountered the same type of thing elsewhere. And mostly I’m wondering if we should continue down this road and expose her to all three languages.

Thanks for reading!

To my utter shock, she responded a day later. Here’s what she wrote:

Your description of P’s language is exactly right for a child growing up in a rich linguistic environment. You must continue to provide her this incredible opportunity and savour her journey through these wonderful languages. Tell your mother to stop worrying and speak to her in Farsi. Some day P will thank her.

With best regards,
Ellen Bialystok

How cool is that? It’s been my experience that college professors are very nice about responding to emails from random people (my other random email led to a week-long, all-expenses trip to Italy as part of an earthquake reconnaissance team) – so here’s a bit of (unsolicited) advice. Write people. Ask them things. They’re just people, and they might find what you’re saying actually interesting. And maybe even respond.

Open Letter to Bon Appetit Editor, Adam Rapoport

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About six weeks ago, I got my issue of Bon Appetit. It was the Italy issue and I was uber excited about it. Then I actually read the issue, and it just irked me so much that I had to write a letter to the newly appointed editor, Adam Rapaport. Of course I never heard back from BA, but I had spend too much time on the letter to let my rant go to waste – I must share it with the world! And maybe – just maybe – Mr. Rapaport will see it sooner or later. So here it is in its entirety:

Dear Mr. Rapoport,

Full disclsoure: I am one of the thousands of Bon Appetit subscribers who received their subscription after Gourmet closed, and continued subscribing because few other magazines on the market seemed as good as BA (and none lived up to Gourmet).

I enjoyed the recipes and stories, although I always found myself going back to old Gourmet recipes. I was looking forward to the much-hyped transformation of the magazine, and eagerly awaited the May issue.

Sadly, I think I may let the subscription run its course and not renew. The only thought looping through my head as I read through the issue was, “Why are they TRYING so hard?” It seems as though the magazine has been taken over by 25-35 year old hipsters, although that is exactly what the magazine would make us believe has not happened. Just the number of references to hipsters, know-it-all foodie friends, and tattooed baristas makes me think that the magazine is now run by hipsters, know-it-all foodie friends, and tattooed former baristas (all fully aware that they are these things, and adamant about denying it).

Perhaps I’m taking it too much to heart because this was the Italy issue. Another full disclosure: I’m married to an Italian and lived in that wonderful country for seven years. This full immersion into the Italian culture and cuisine has made me wary of Americans trying to stamp their “expertise” onto Italian traditions. I would LOVE to meet any Italian who goes through your ludicrous method of making coffee with the moka coffee pot, especially the last step which calls for wrapping a cold, wet towel around the pot “to stop the extraction.” As my husband pointed out, another way to do this is to pour the coffee and drink it. Pretty simple.

Also, for a magazine which seems to extol the authenticity that still permeates Italian cuisine (to quote page 107, “You can get a rich, crema-topped espresso just about anywhere. And it doesn’t come with a lecture from some tattooed, fedora-wearing barista.”), it’s pretty ironic that the “Moka Pot Manual” was written not by an Italian, but a New York City barista, perhaps one with tattoos (or sporting a fedora).

Or even worse: Maybe the irony was intended, fully putting the hipster stench on Bon Appetit forever.

I know this email will never get a response, but I just feel better knowing that I sent it.