La bouffe vietnamienne.
On nêm où on nêm pas.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
I love it when a plan comes together
When I first moved into my co-op I had big plans to redo the kitchen and bathroom, build a platform in the office so my desk would sit up at window height, put a stained glass window in the wall between the office and bedroom and I don't know what else.At first I was going to have all the work done before I moved in or right after I moved in while I was in China, figuring that it would be good to get it done quickly, but was working on my impulsiveness in 2008, so I decided to just move in and wait. Plus my mom, who has a lot of experience in home construction and remodeling jobs, told me to.
I'm not sure whether it was the chaos of moving in or my first mortgage bill that did it, but I decided that she was right and that I would just settle in to my new home for a while before making any big decisions.
I moved in at the end of June and by the 4th of July was happily sipping a glass chardonnay on my roof, chez moi, watching fireworks light up the Brooklyn skyline. I loved my new home. Even today, I often wake up each thinking that I'm on vacation and that I'm going to have to leave soon or something. Then I realize that I'm home and that I don't have to leave. It's so wonderful!One funny thing about going from a renter to a homeowner is how it suddenly makes you really feel old and responsible, like an adult or something. It does, it changes you. One of the first few times I had the boys over to hang out and jam, I found myself worrying if we were making too much noise for the neighbors on a weeknight. I had always been a respectful renter, paid my rent on time, kept things clean and maintained. In fact, I think that is part of why I felt I had the right to have people over and make some noise from time to time, even on a weeknight.
And now here I was, an owner, worrying about whether we were being too loud. What's great is that it should have been the exact opposite, right? It's not like I can lose my lease if someone makes a noise complaint. I can understand wanting to take better care of the place, and I do, but this. I felt betrayed by my own feelings of guilt and responsibility. Finally, I suggested we keep the playing down to a mature mezzo piano...
Regarding my big plans to redo the kitchen and get rid of the crazy orange counters from the 70's and modernize the bathroom to bring in more light and better fixtures (though it does have a bath already), I finally decided if ain't broke don't fix it. The one idea I followed through with was to open up the wall between the office and bedroom. It took me a while, but some friends of mine recommended that I check out this store called Olde Good Things in Chelsea which recovers things like stained glass windows from churches or old mansions, and doors, and fixtures and tables and, well, old good things...After a few visits, I found a piece I liked. Then I waited a few weeks for winter and the economic crises to really start setting in and I made my move. Finding and booking a carpenter was actually a bit more complicated. When you ask and call around, you quickly realize that carpenters, plumbers and electricians, at least ones that are being recommended, all have more work than they can handle and are doing small jobs on weekends and evenings. The one I found said he could probably install the stained glass window in two or three days but wouldn't be available until early next year. It reminds me of the joke about the cardiologist whose plumbing backs up. When the plumber gives him the bill he can't believe how expensive it is. He tells the plumber, "This bill is unbelievable. I'm a doctor and even I don't make this much money!" And the plumber responds, "Neither did I when I was a doctor."
Well, it's early next year and we, as in the royal 'we', we've just finished installing the window. The carpenter was great, he even came in exactly on estimate (feel free to contact me for his number). I did sort of a timelapse slideshow of the installation process which you can see in the video box to the right (if it's not visible, you can select 'stained glass' with the pull down menu bar button or watch it in high definitions directly on YouTube.
Hope you enjoy. If you are in the neighborhood of Prospect Heights, stop by for a tour and a cup of coffee, I make the best esspresso in the tri-state, but that's for another blog...
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
Obama Inauguration Weekend
Some of you may have already heard about what NPR, facebook groups and Youtube are calling the “Purple Tunnel of Doom” or “Purplegate”. Some-odd thousand people like myself have traveled from around the country with tickets to the inauguration (I have mine through a friend who was crunching data at an undisclosed campaign location in Missouri) only to find ourselves squashed into several square blocks unable to get through the Purple security gate to see the inauguration of our 44th president.
But let me rewind a few days, because this is really part of a big weekend and beyond that a bigger socio-eco-political movement that has been sweeping America off it’s barka-loungers…
Our journey began on Saturday when Kate, David, baby Alice, Johnny, Debbie and I drove out of town in a Budget mini-van, destination Camelback, PA. We arrived in time to check in to our local ski lodge-cum-hotel, before heading to a Japanese restaurant called Shiro, a huge hibachi and sushi house with like 50 tables, a dance floor, a magician/animal balloon specialist and more. Kind of crazy in the middle of Pennsylvania, but it was packed and quite good. If you build it, right? And if there is one thing that I can eat a lot of, it’s sushi. Now, I’m not in a Claudia French league, but if she (at her Italian 5’5” and 105 pounds) represents the NBA slam-dunk championship of sushi eating ability, then I’m probably hitting final-four levels. Allez-hop!
After stuffing our faces we returned to the hotel where we slipped under our cozy comforters for a cup of hot cocoa before bed. The
snow had already begun to fall and we woke up Sunday morning to 4" inches of “freshie” and more gently falling from the sky. After we gorged ourselves on a breakfast of scrapple (Pennsylvania's answer to Spam) and pancakes and bacon and waffles the like (Johnny even had a piece of homemade pumpkin pie), we hit the hill. I mean this, the hill, literally and metaphorically. Camelback has something like 400' of verticalish feet of skiing. There are double-black diamonds, but they’re something like blue squares for us west coast ski snobs, so I have to think of it as a ski hill and not a ski mountain.
It was Debbie's first time, which was fun, but I quickly realized how difficult, and probably pointless, it is to explain a complicated physical choreography like getting two big sticks strapped to your feet to run smoothly over snow and ice (and the occasional ski pole or thigh). I should have used the inner game of skiing approach, I guess. In the end, everybody had a good time and Debbie looked incredibly cute in her ski gear.
There was also a kind of a funny moment when we were renting our equipment, if you consider my clenched cheeks (top and bottom) combined with a sort of wheezing sound and slow head bobbing as a sign that I was finding it funny. Debbie didn’t have her purse with her so both sets of rentals went on my credit card and ID. The whole thing was computerized, with a special scanner for the driver’s license and everything, so all you had to do was give your height and weight and it automatically spit out your name, address, rental agreement and even binding settings and sugg
ested ski lengths for the kid behind the next counter. After giving them my information, it was Debbie’s turn. As if telling the girl her weight wasn’t bad enough, her information immediately popped up on the screen based on my account which the girl showed us and asked us to verify. It read DEBBORA LAPIN along with the address etc. etc. When the rental girl asked if everything was correct, we both went into the wheezing and head bobbing thing which I describe above and which the rental girl took as a yes. Camelback Mountain Resort, PA now pronounces you man and wife!
David, who is responsible for that last line, had a great fall that we wished we had caught on film. We were trying to cut across runs through a closed path and there was one of those orange mesh fences with closed signs that was on the ground across the entry. We figured we would just pop over and be on our merry way, so we pushed off and David was first to cross but he didn't realize or wasn't able to jump his skis, especially the tips, all the way over the fence. When his tips got caught in the fence and quickly decelerated to a stop, David was flung forward into the snow in what skiers like to call a yard sale. It would have surely been an instant YouTube classic (more hits than Jesse Long falling off a camel guaranteed!), if only we had perfected the 24/7 inner-eye recording device that I'm sure will make future generations all stars of their own reality shows. When I stopped laughing and offered to film it, David was not gracious enough to replay the event.
After skiing, we headed off to Hagerstown, Maryland, home of the Hennebergers. David had called ahead and they were preparing a big après-ski fajita feast for our arrival. David warned us not to ask his dad about his days as a swinging disco owner, but told us that he used to be in the hotel industry and his step-mom had a side business with her daughter “Dobbie” as bar-tenders for private parties and the like. Let me say that the Hennebergers lived up to their reputations as hospitality industry professionals. We ate and drank and talked ourselves silly until the wee hours in the morning, only stopping to bathe our bloated bodies in the Jacuzzi.
We got back in our mini-van Monday morning and headed off to the sweet sounds of xylophone U2 lullabies which we often had to play for hours at a time in the hope that it would drive baby Alice to nap before the rest of us to pushed long sharp metal objects deep into our eardrums.
Nevertheless, we arrived in one peace at the Rope’s residence, in the heart of DC, a few blocks from the National Cathedral (everything in DC is the National something), St Albans and The Sidwell Friends School where Kate’s Mom will soon be helping little Malia memorize the names of all the presidents and other such oh-so-sixth grade activities--she’s already 1/44th of the way there without even opening a book, right? After a light lunch of tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, Kate-n-David took us on a little tour of the capital. Although it was the day before the inauguration and you could sort of sense the excitement hiding behind every faux ionic column, the streets remained fairly crowd and closure free.
Fast forward through dinner, another early night to bed and a veritable monastic morning of Odwalla Superfood (the perfect balance of juice puree, artichoke dust and thistle, with a little prairie grass thrown in for flavor that would get me through the big day without needing a restroom. I mean, hey, it's called super food, what could be better than that?) and you are now in the same gastrointestinal-psychological-spiritual state as I was on Tuesday morning, January 20, 2009, aka O-day.
We left the Rope’s house at about 8 am and jumped on an already crowded DC metro to Judiciary Square. The atmosphere was charged with excitement. Complete strangers were making room for each other on the subway cars, smiling, talking and sharing stories. Some of them even New Yorkers!
After getting out of the metro, Debbie and I parted ways with Kate-n-David and Johnny. Our tickets directing us to where we needed to pass through the Purple security gate which was scheduled to open at 9am.
We walked up E street and turned the corner onto First St. NW to discover that there was nothing between us and the security gate except about four blocks of completely packed human bodies. Well, I thought, the security gate hasn’t opened yet.
Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock…
It’s now about 10:30 am and we have only moved 100 feet, I think to myself that they must be really screening people carefully or maybe they don’t have enough screeners. This is making the TSA look like the Mossad, right? Pretty soon though, rumors start to circulate that the street is barricaded and the security gate a block or so after that isn’t even open. People are saying that it is closed because people have sneaked in over night and they are trying to clear them out. Later the story is that people with other ticket colors have broken through a barrier and gotten into our section.
As time passes and people’s begin losing patience and feeling in their extremities, attrition sets in as people decide to leave and look for a warm room with a television or maybe just another crowded area that at least has a view of a JumboTron. Some come from the front of the crowd reporting that they have been there since 5:00 am. They can’t take it anymore, “abort, abort.” Others explain that they have gotten stuck in the crowd and don’t even have tickets, but are just trying to get to the Mall or to the other side of the street. The stream of people leaving allows us to periodically move forward, giving us the illusion of progress, and then the progress is lost as someone in the crowd passes out or calls for medical attention and the ambulance parked half a block back turns on its lights and tries to plow its way to the rescue. Most of the time it doesn’t make it and the EMTS settle for passing a medical bag across the crowd to a waiting doctor or good Samaritan.
At about 11:15, 15 minutes before the ceremonies are scheduled to begin, the barricade at 1st and C is removed (or shoved aside?) and the crowd surges forward. Finally we think, our patience has been rewarded. We feel sorry for the people who were there before us and have given up, but we understand that they were about 4 hours more cold and hungry than us.
As the crowd moves ahead, we are happy to be making real progress, but it is also scary to think what would happen if, god forbid, we were to fall or faint. As it is, landscaping, flowers beds and even whole sections of shrubbery are being trampled without remorse. A big black woman who is bushwhacking her way in front of us yells for anyone who cares to listen, “I ain’t holdin’ no bushes for nobody, I ain’t holding no more bushes. I tell you I’ve been holding bushes for 8 years and I’ve had it!” It’s a good line.
The crowd has been pretty friendly up till now, with different groups of people joking amongst themselves or trading ironic observations about the lack of organization, the stupidity of crowds, the cold and so on, but people are starting to get frustrated. Most people just want to know what the heck is going on, so we continually ask people pushing their way out of the pack what they have seen, did they have tickets, have they seen the gate?
Once again the crowd is stopped and I have the idea of starting an information tree. I ask the people in front of us to pass the
message along to the people in front of them and so on to the front of the crowd asking them to send information back down about just what the heck is going on. The people in front of us ask the person in front of them to find out what was going and she says over her shoulder, “I can’t see anything.” And that is it. It’s too many instructions for a big crowd. I consider explaining the system again, but realize it probably won’t make it half a block. Another foliage casualty to add to the list; the information tree has just died on the vine in front of our eyes.
As the minutes pass, my bladder and ankles begin to swell and it doesn’t look like we are going to make it in time. People are giving up hope and courtesy and begin shoving rather than sliding their way out bringing with them word that the security gates are still not open. Nobody is being let in. Some people are saying that the CIA hasn’t given the word to start the screening process and that it is just a miscommunication. Others say that people have snuck in to our section so they have it closed it in order to clear them out. Whatever the explanation, we are clearly in the process of experiencing a cluster-fuck.
At about 11:30, Debbie and I have made it to the front of the crowd to see that, indeed, nobody is getting into the purple section. By this time, my bladder is really pressing in on me and Debbie's toes are numb. We make the decision to give up, figuring that we have experienced the crowd, though not the happy, inaugural party crowd we had pictured. We figure we might as well get somewhere where we can see and hear the ceremonies and speech rather than just the frustrated chants of “no second term” and “let us in” that are starting up around us.
Before we head off to find Kate-n-David and Johnny who are sitting with glasses of champagne and roast beef sandwiches in front of a plasma TV on the 12th floor of a swanky, but more importantly warm condo overlooking Pennsylvania avenue, I find an un-trampled shrub behind which to relieve myself.
We arrive at Kate's aunt and uncle's place just as Obama is taking the oath and giving his speech. It is great. We all stand with pride for the National Anthem, some of us for the first time in 8 years. We watch every second, even the c-span coverage of the coat-check before and after the luncheon. We drink the moment down with cups of French onion soup until the juice runs down our chins. From the roof, we even have a direct view of the parade, right where the Obamas get out of the car to walk.
In the end, our inauguration isn’t quite the popular, of the people and with the people type of celebration and experience that we have imagined, but hot toddy's and plasma screens have their appeal as well.
O, O, O-bama!
From far and wide,
from around the world,
from states north and south
of colors red and white and blue,
we stand with pride and sally forth
saying thank you, thank you, Thank You!
And we pray, “Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead man, and when white will embrace what is right.”
Amen.
Read More...
But let me rewind a few days, because this is really part of a big weekend and beyond that a bigger socio-eco-political movement that has been sweeping America off it’s barka-loungers…
Our journey began on Saturday when Kate, David, baby Alice, Johnny, Debbie and I drove out of town in a Budget mini-van, destination Camelback, PA. We arrived in time to check in to our local ski lodge-cum-hotel, before heading to a Japanese restaurant called Shiro, a huge hibachi and sushi house with like 50 tables, a dance floor, a magician/animal balloon specialist and more. Kind of crazy in the middle of Pennsylvania, but it was packed and quite good. If you build it, right? And if there is one thing that I can eat a lot of, it’s sushi. Now, I’m not in a Claudia French league, but if she (at her Italian 5’5” and 105 pounds) represents the NBA slam-dunk championship of sushi eating ability, then I’m probably hitting final-four levels. Allez-hop!
After stuffing our faces we returned to the hotel where we slipped under our cozy comforters for a cup of hot cocoa before bed. The
snow had already begun to fall and we woke up Sunday morning to 4" inches of “freshie” and more gently falling from the sky. After we gorged ourselves on a breakfast of scrapple (Pennsylvania's answer to Spam) and pancakes and bacon and waffles the like (Johnny even had a piece of homemade pumpkin pie), we hit the hill. I mean this, the hill, literally and metaphorically. Camelback has something like 400' of verticalish feet of skiing. There are double-black diamonds, but they’re something like blue squares for us west coast ski snobs, so I have to think of it as a ski hill and not a ski mountain.It was Debbie's first time, which was fun, but I quickly realized how difficult, and probably pointless, it is to explain a complicated physical choreography like getting two big sticks strapped to your feet to run smoothly over snow and ice (and the occasional ski pole or thigh). I should have used the inner game of skiing approach, I guess. In the end, everybody had a good time and Debbie looked incredibly cute in her ski gear.
There was also a kind of a funny moment when we were renting our equipment, if you consider my clenched cheeks (top and bottom) combined with a sort of wheezing sound and slow head bobbing as a sign that I was finding it funny. Debbie didn’t have her purse with her so both sets of rentals went on my credit card and ID. The whole thing was computerized, with a special scanner for the driver’s license and everything, so all you had to do was give your height and weight and it automatically spit out your name, address, rental agreement and even binding settings and sugg
ested ski lengths for the kid behind the next counter. After giving them my information, it was Debbie’s turn. As if telling the girl her weight wasn’t bad enough, her information immediately popped up on the screen based on my account which the girl showed us and asked us to verify. It read DEBBORA LAPIN along with the address etc. etc. When the rental girl asked if everything was correct, we both went into the wheezing and head bobbing thing which I describe above and which the rental girl took as a yes. Camelback Mountain Resort, PA now pronounces you man and wife!David, who is responsible for that last line, had a great fall that we wished we had caught on film. We were trying to cut across runs through a closed path and there was one of those orange mesh fences with closed signs that was on the ground across the entry. We figured we would just pop over and be on our merry way, so we pushed off and David was first to cross but he didn't realize or wasn't able to jump his skis, especially the tips, all the way over the fence. When his tips got caught in the fence and quickly decelerated to a stop, David was flung forward into the snow in what skiers like to call a yard sale. It would have surely been an instant YouTube classic (more hits than Jesse Long falling off a camel guaranteed!), if only we had perfected the 24/7 inner-eye recording device that I'm sure will make future generations all stars of their own reality shows. When I stopped laughing and offered to film it, David was not gracious enough to replay the event.
After skiing, we headed off to Hagerstown, Maryland, home of the Hennebergers. David had called ahead and they were preparing a big après-ski fajita feast for our arrival. David warned us not to ask his dad about his days as a swinging disco owner, but told us that he used to be in the hotel industry and his step-mom had a side business with her daughter “Dobbie” as bar-tenders for private parties and the like. Let me say that the Hennebergers lived up to their reputations as hospitality industry professionals. We ate and drank and talked ourselves silly until the wee hours in the morning, only stopping to bathe our bloated bodies in the Jacuzzi.
We got back in our mini-van Monday morning and headed off to the sweet sounds of xylophone U2 lullabies which we often had to play for hours at a time in the hope that it would drive baby Alice to nap before the rest of us to pushed long sharp metal objects deep into our eardrums.
Nevertheless, we arrived in one peace at the Rope’s residence, in the heart of DC, a few blocks from the National Cathedral (everything in DC is the National something), St Albans and The Sidwell Friends School where Kate’s Mom will soon be helping little Malia memorize the names of all the presidents and other such oh-so-sixth grade activities--she’s already 1/44th of the way there without even opening a book, right? After a light lunch of tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, Kate-n-David took us on a little tour of the capital. Although it was the day before the inauguration and you could sort of sense the excitement hiding behind every faux ionic column, the streets remained fairly crowd and closure free.
Fast forward through dinner, another early night to bed and a veritable monastic morning of Odwalla Superfood (the perfect balance of juice puree, artichoke dust and thistle, with a little prairie grass thrown in for flavor that would get me through the big day without needing a restroom. I mean, hey, it's called super food, what could be better than that?) and you are now in the same gastrointestinal-psychological-spiritual state as I was on Tuesday morning, January 20, 2009, aka O-day.
We left the Rope’s house at about 8 am and jumped on an already crowded DC metro to Judiciary Square. The atmosphere was charged with excitement. Complete strangers were making room for each other on the subway cars, smiling, talking and sharing stories. Some of them even New Yorkers!
After getting out of the metro, Debbie and I parted ways with Kate-n-David and Johnny. Our tickets directing us to where we needed to pass through the Purple security gate which was scheduled to open at 9am.
We walked up E street and turned the corner onto First St. NW to discover that there was nothing between us and the security gate except about four blocks of completely packed human bodies. Well, I thought, the security gate hasn’t opened yet.
Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock…
It’s now about 10:30 am and we have only moved 100 feet, I think to myself that they must be really screening people carefully or maybe they don’t have enough screeners. This is making the TSA look like the Mossad, right? Pretty soon though, rumors start to circulate that the street is barricaded and the security gate a block or so after that isn’t even open. People are saying that it is closed because people have sneaked in over night and they are trying to clear them out. Later the story is that people with other ticket colors have broken through a barrier and gotten into our section.
As time passes and people’s begin losing patience and feeling in their extremities, attrition sets in as people decide to leave and look for a warm room with a television or maybe just another crowded area that at least has a view of a JumboTron. Some come from the front of the crowd reporting that they have been there since 5:00 am. They can’t take it anymore, “abort, abort.” Others explain that they have gotten stuck in the crowd and don’t even have tickets, but are just trying to get to the Mall or to the other side of the street. The stream of people leaving allows us to periodically move forward, giving us the illusion of progress, and then the progress is lost as someone in the crowd passes out or calls for medical attention and the ambulance parked half a block back turns on its lights and tries to plow its way to the rescue. Most of the time it doesn’t make it and the EMTS settle for passing a medical bag across the crowd to a waiting doctor or good Samaritan.
At about 11:15, 15 minutes before the ceremonies are scheduled to begin, the barricade at 1st and C is removed (or shoved aside?) and the crowd surges forward. Finally we think, our patience has been rewarded. We feel sorry for the people who were there before us and have given up, but we understand that they were about 4 hours more cold and hungry than us.
As the crowd moves ahead, we are happy to be making real progress, but it is also scary to think what would happen if, god forbid, we were to fall or faint. As it is, landscaping, flowers beds and even whole sections of shrubbery are being trampled without remorse. A big black woman who is bushwhacking her way in front of us yells for anyone who cares to listen, “I ain’t holdin’ no bushes for nobody, I ain’t holding no more bushes. I tell you I’ve been holding bushes for 8 years and I’ve had it!” It’s a good line.
The crowd has been pretty friendly up till now, with different groups of people joking amongst themselves or trading ironic observations about the lack of organization, the stupidity of crowds, the cold and so on, but people are starting to get frustrated. Most people just want to know what the heck is going on, so we continually ask people pushing their way out of the pack what they have seen, did they have tickets, have they seen the gate?Once again the crowd is stopped and I have the idea of starting an information tree. I ask the people in front of us to pass the
message along to the people in front of them and so on to the front of the crowd asking them to send information back down about just what the heck is going on. The people in front of us ask the person in front of them to find out what was going and she says over her shoulder, “I can’t see anything.” And that is it. It’s too many instructions for a big crowd. I consider explaining the system again, but realize it probably won’t make it half a block. Another foliage casualty to add to the list; the information tree has just died on the vine in front of our eyes.As the minutes pass, my bladder and ankles begin to swell and it doesn’t look like we are going to make it in time. People are giving up hope and courtesy and begin shoving rather than sliding their way out bringing with them word that the security gates are still not open. Nobody is being let in. Some people are saying that the CIA hasn’t given the word to start the screening process and that it is just a miscommunication. Others say that people have snuck in to our section so they have it closed it in order to clear them out. Whatever the explanation, we are clearly in the process of experiencing a cluster-fuck.
At about 11:30, Debbie and I have made it to the front of the crowd to see that, indeed, nobody is getting into the purple section. By this time, my bladder is really pressing in on me and Debbie's toes are numb. We make the decision to give up, figuring that we have experienced the crowd, though not the happy, inaugural party crowd we had pictured. We figure we might as well get somewhere where we can see and hear the ceremonies and speech rather than just the frustrated chants of “no second term” and “let us in” that are starting up around us.
Before we head off to find Kate-n-David and Johnny who are sitting with glasses of champagne and roast beef sandwiches in front of a plasma TV on the 12th floor of a swanky, but more importantly warm condo overlooking Pennsylvania avenue, I find an un-trampled shrub behind which to relieve myself.
We arrive at Kate's aunt and uncle's place just as Obama is taking the oath and giving his speech. It is great. We all stand with pride for the National Anthem, some of us for the first time in 8 years. We watch every second, even the c-span coverage of the coat-check before and after the luncheon. We drink the moment down with cups of French onion soup until the juice runs down our chins. From the roof, we even have a direct view of the parade, right where the Obamas get out of the car to walk.
In the end, our inauguration isn’t quite the popular, of the people and with the people type of celebration and experience that we have imagined, but hot toddy's and plasma screens have their appeal as well.
O, O, O-bama!From far and wide,
from around the world,
from states north and south
of colors red and white and blue,
we stand with pride and sally forth
saying thank you, thank you, Thank You!
And we pray, “Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead man, and when white will embrace what is right.”
Amen.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
The Man Watching
The Man Watching, by Rainer Maria Rilke
I can tell by the way the trees beat, after
so many dull days, on my worried windowpanes
that a storm is coming,
and I hear the far-off fields say things
I can't bear without a friend,
I can't love without a sister
The storm, the shifter of shapes, drives on
across the woods and across time,
and the world looks as if it had no age:
the landscape like a line in the psalm book,
is seriousness and weight and eternity.
What we choose to fight is so tiny!
What fights us is so great!
If only we would let ourselves be dominated
as things do by some immense storm,
we would become strong too, and not need names.
When we win it's with small things,
and the triumph itself makes us small.
What is extraordinary and eternal
does not want to be bent by us.
I mean the Angel who appeared
to the wrestlers of the Old Testament:
when the wrestler's sinews
grew long like metal strings,
he felt them under his fingers
like chords of deep music.
Whoever was beaten by this Angel
(who often simply declined the fight)
went away proud and strengthened
and great from that harsh hand,
that kneaded him as if to change his shape.
Winning does not tempt that man.
This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,
by constantly greater beings.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Make Art Not War
Most "civilized" countries have Ministers of Art or Culture, yet here in the "greatest country on earth" we do not. Why? We in the arts need this and the country needs this--now more than ever.
Making art is cheaper than nukes and much more effective at changing hearts and minds. Studies show that kids in school who partake in arts programs (where they haven't been canceled due to budget cuts) perform better and are happier. There is no reason to believe that this would not be true of adults too. We need more support, organization and promotion of the arts and culture on a federal level.
I know we are in a recession, but this department could probably be funded if we just dismantled and stopped paying to maintain a couple nukes. Moreover, arts and culture are great recessionary activities that will help unite red states and blue states, the rich and the poor alike.
Sign this important petition and then pass it on to your friends and colleagues.
http://www.petitiononline.com/esnyc/petition.html
Read More...
Making art is cheaper than nukes and much more effective at changing hearts and minds. Studies show that kids in school who partake in arts programs (where they haven't been canceled due to budget cuts) perform better and are happier. There is no reason to believe that this would not be true of adults too. We need more support, organization and promotion of the arts and culture on a federal level.
I know we are in a recession, but this department could probably be funded if we just dismantled and stopped paying to maintain a couple nukes. Moreover, arts and culture are great recessionary activities that will help unite red states and blue states, the rich and the poor alike.
Sign this important petition and then pass it on to your friends and colleagues.
http://www.petitiononline.com/esnyc/petition.html
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Purplegate Superfood
Dear Friends,
Those of you who have had the opportunity to attend a Dave Matthews/Bazan/Harper/Makana/insert-crunchy-white-college-dude-guitar-player’s-name-here concert with Jesse are probably familiar with his technique of dehydrating in preparation for the big event to be sure that he doesn't have to leave the front row and make his way through throngs of L.L. Bean clad guys and girls who are also rocking out just to go to the bathroom and thereby risk losing his place and more importantly his slow head bopping groove.
Well, I realized that attending the inauguration of our 44th president in D.C., aka O-day, would represent a similar biological challenge (20 port-a-potties at a distance of 3 security checks across one and a half million people and multiplied by a small bladder, you do the math). The thought of self-catheterizing myself or having a colostomy bag break open right as Obama stepped away from the motorcade to shake my hand on national TV, made not eating or drinking for 24 hours seemed like a good option. But I didn't want to pass out from the extreme cold or long hours standing on my feet and dreaming of a new and better tomorrow, did I? So I had to eat something... but what?
A quick trip to the National Safeway (I know it's bizarre but everything in DC is the national something, I swear we even passed a building that said the National Tiddlywinks Society) and I had my answer, Odwalla Superfood: the perfect balance of juice puree, artichoke dust and thistle, with a little prairie grass thrown in for flavor that would get me through the big day without needing a restroom. I mean, hey, it's called Superfood, what could be better than that?
Well, maybe it was the weekend's indulgence in sushi, scrapple, pancakes, pizza, fajitas, a bagel with oleo, tomato soup and grilled cheese, a snack of fried chicken and half a corn dog and then dinner Monday night of caesar salad, pasta and meatballs (I passed on the balls) that did it, but I like to think that it was the Superfood, because after getting stuck in a crowd for 4 hours in what NPR, facebook groups and Youtube are calling the "Purple Tunnel of Doom" or "Purplegate", I took what can only be called a post-inaugural, celebrational...
Read More...
Those of you who have had the opportunity to attend a Dave Matthews/Bazan/Harper/Makana/insert-crunchy-white-college-dude-guitar-player’s-name-here concert with Jesse are probably familiar with his technique of dehydrating in preparation for the big event to be sure that he doesn't have to leave the front row and make his way through throngs of L.L. Bean clad guys and girls who are also rocking out just to go to the bathroom and thereby risk losing his place and more importantly his slow head bopping groove.
Well, I realized that attending the inauguration of our 44th president in D.C., aka O-day, would represent a similar biological challenge (20 port-a-potties at a distance of 3 security checks across one and a half million people and multiplied by a small bladder, you do the math). The thought of self-catheterizing myself or having a colostomy bag break open right as Obama stepped away from the motorcade to shake my hand on national TV, made not eating or drinking for 24 hours seemed like a good option. But I didn't want to pass out from the extreme cold or long hours standing on my feet and dreaming of a new and better tomorrow, did I? So I had to eat something... but what?
A quick trip to the National Safeway (I know it's bizarre but everything in DC is the national something, I swear we even passed a building that said the National Tiddlywinks Society) and I had my answer, Odwalla Superfood: the perfect balance of juice puree, artichoke dust and thistle, with a little prairie grass thrown in for flavor that would get me through the big day without needing a restroom. I mean, hey, it's called Superfood, what could be better than that?
Well, maybe it was the weekend's indulgence in sushi, scrapple, pancakes, pizza, fajitas, a bagel with oleo, tomato soup and grilled cheese, a snack of fried chicken and half a corn dog and then dinner Monday night of caesar salad, pasta and meatballs (I passed on the balls) that did it, but I like to think that it was the Superfood, because after getting stuck in a crowd for 4 hours in what NPR, facebook groups and Youtube are calling the "Purple Tunnel of Doom" or "Purplegate", I took what can only be called a post-inaugural, celebrational...
Take care,
Kevin
--
From the Heart,
Kevin Lapin
"Appreciate beauty in all its forms."
"Get stuck in there!"
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Arithmetic, Population & Energy
Some simple and sobering arithmetic for the New Year. A great lecture (part 1 of 8 on youtube). It's time to curb our enthusiasm for drilling and energy. Conservation, reduction and renewable energy are the only answers that add up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
-K
PS I'm typing this with the lights off.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
The Path With Heart
The Path With A Heart, from 'Don Juan A Yaqui Warrior'
Anything is one of a million paths. Therefore you must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if you feel you should not follow it, you must not stay with it under any condition. To have such clarity you must lead a disciplined life. Only then will you know that any path is only a path, and there is no affront, to oneself or to others in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you to do. But your decision to keep on the path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition.
I warn you. Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself, and yourself alone, one question. This question is one that only a very old man asks. My benefactor told me about it once when I was young, and my blood was too vigorous for me to understand it. Now I do understand it. I will tell you what it is: Does this path have a heart?
All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. There are paths going through the bush, or into the bush. In my own life I could say I have traversed long, long paths, but I am not anywhere. My benefactor's question has meaning now. Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't, it is of no use.
Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn't. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you.
The trouble is that nobody asks the question; and when a man finally realizes that he has taken a path without a heart, the path is ready to kill him. At that point very few men can stop to deliberate, and leave the path.
A path without heart is never enjoyable. You have to work hard even to take it. On the other hand, a path with heart is easy; it does not make you work at liking it.
For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length.
And there I travel looking, looking breathlessly.
Friday, November 21, 2008
An open letter to my Health Care Administrator
Dear Health Care Administrator(s),
The time is now for change. You've heard the bells tolling, and I dare say that meaningful health care reform in our country means that it tolls for thee. No man or woman or CEO needs to earn millions of dollars selling a basic human need and right like health care and we all have a pre-existing condition that makes us a future health risk, it's called being human. So let us no longer be the only civilized and rich country that does not provide and guarantee basic rights such as health care to its citizens, to all of its citizens. I believe the time is now for the health care industry (including pharmaceutical companies) to become part of the solution or be prepared to look for another job.
Respectfully,
Kevin Lapin
PS Please don't try and lobby or false advertise your way out of this, I've lived in France and had a knee operation there and it was great. So I'm not buying it.
http://healthcareforamericanow.org/
Read More...
The time is now for change. You've heard the bells tolling, and I dare say that meaningful health care reform in our country means that it tolls for thee. No man or woman or CEO needs to earn millions of dollars selling a basic human need and right like health care and we all have a pre-existing condition that makes us a future health risk, it's called being human. So let us no longer be the only civilized and rich country that does not provide and guarantee basic rights such as health care to its citizens, to all of its citizens. I believe the time is now for the health care industry (including pharmaceutical companies) to become part of the solution or be prepared to look for another job.
Respectfully,
Kevin Lapin
PS Please don't try and lobby or false advertise your way out of this, I've lived in France and had a knee operation there and it was great. So I'm not buying it.
http://healthcareforameric
Monday, November 17, 2008
To the Farmer-in-Chief
Michael Pollan's open letter to president-elect (yipee!) Obama, titled "Farmer in Chief", clearly and comprehensively laying out a 21st century food agenda for our country, based on the need for healthy, safe, environmentally friendly, locally produced, distributed and heartily enjoyed food in our country. This is part of the new New Deal that we need.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy-t.html
Read More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy-t.html
Monday, November 10, 2008
Life is a page
Life is a page
And I am a word
Life is a cage
And I am a bird
Life is a field
And I am a crop
Life is a stream
And I am a drop
--Iqbal
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
One Child Left Behind
Dear Friends and Family,
I don’t know about you, but recently I find myself vacillating more and more between hope and depression, between a sense that we as families and friends, as a nation and as a people, that we have the power and compassion and drive to make things better. That maybe universal health care, nano and solar energy, recycling, sustainable growth and peaceful relations with our neighbors are right around the corner. And that maybe this next election will bring change we can believe in. But then I watch an hour too much of the CNN or read an article too many in the Times and things start to seem really gloomy. I think how we’ve gotten ourselves into a couple of wars, a colossal debt, a recession, how we’ve lost most of our allies, our direction as a nation, Ossama Bin Laden and our sense of responsibility for the tired, poor and huddled masses knocking on our doors. I think how we have an expensive and completely useless arsenal of nuclear bombs and continue to spend more on our military then any other nation in the world, in fact, then several of the most important ones put together and yet still have problems properly equipping and caring for the men and women who join it. Meanwhile the middle class is shrinking, fanaticism is up, tolerance is down, and oil companies are making record profits while teachers and artists are working part-time jobs to make ends meet. And when I think about all this, then I think there ain’t much hope and that this time the ‘you know what’ is really in the air and on it’s way towards the fan.
Now don’t get me wrong, like so many other Americans I have been inspired and engaged like never before by the presidential campaign. I’m proud that I live in a country where a minority or woman can run for the highest office. And I’m even more proud that someone who speaks intelligently, compassionately, thoughtfully and sometimes even inspirationally is once again who we are considering as the type of person we want to lead our country. But I’m scared, too. By the polls, by the reactions, by the lipstick news media, selfishness and consumerism that keeps everyone thinking they have to please a lowest common denominator which may or may not even exist, and even if it does doesn’t anyone believe in the power of pulling people up by giving them not what you think they want but what you think they need? And isn’t it foolish of me to think that anything will change after the election? Won’t these election promises turn out, as usual and once again, to be just that? Once shame on you, but twice shame on me, right?
So as we get into the nitty gritty of how we are actually going to do any of these great ideas, or just forget about them all and focus on having enough cash to buy a new widescreen plasma HDTV with a 100 channels of complete crap, I steel myself for a post-election let down, the slump after the bump, the purge after the surge.
In the moments when my mood and emotions aren’t screaming in my ears at the extremes of hope or depression, I do take solace in one thing. One thing that I can count on. One great relief. And that is that no matter what happens, we will no longer have a ridiculous monkey-child leading our country. So, today I raise a glass to you my dear friends and family, pointed to an uncertain future with a mixture of hope and fear, but with a loud and long sigh of relief for the thought that on November 5th, 2008 we will be a nation with “One Child Left Behind”…
-Kevin
From the Heart,
Kevin Lapin
"Appreciate beauty in all its forms."
"Get stuck in there!"
Read More...
I don’t know about you, but recently I find myself vacillating more and more between hope and depression, between a sense that we as families and friends, as a nation and as a people, that we have the power and compassion and drive to make things better. That maybe universal health care, nano and solar energy, recycling, sustainable growth and peaceful relations with our neighbors are right around the corner. And that maybe this next election will bring change we can believe in. But then I watch an hour too much of the CNN or read an article too many in the Times and things start to seem really gloomy. I think how we’ve gotten ourselves into a couple of wars, a colossal debt, a recession, how we’ve lost most of our allies, our direction as a nation, Ossama Bin Laden and our sense of responsibility for the tired, poor and huddled masses knocking on our doors. I think how we have an expensive and completely useless arsenal of nuclear bombs and continue to spend more on our military then any other nation in the world, in fact, then several of the most important ones put together and yet still have problems properly equipping and caring for the men and women who join it. Meanwhile the middle class is shrinking, fanaticism is up, tolerance is down, and oil companies are making record profits while teachers and artists are working part-time jobs to make ends meet. And when I think about all this, then I think there ain’t much hope and that this time the ‘you know what’ is really in the air and on it’s way towards the fan.
Now don’t get me wrong, like so many other Americans I have been inspired and engaged like never before by the presidential campaign. I’m proud that I live in a country where a minority or woman can run for the highest office. And I’m even more proud that someone who speaks intelligently, compassionately, thoughtfully and sometimes even inspirationally is once again who we are considering as the type of person we want to lead our country. But I’m scared, too. By the polls, by the reactions, by the lipstick news media, selfishness and consumerism that keeps everyone thinking they have to please a lowest common denominator which may or may not even exist, and even if it does doesn’t anyone believe in the power of pulling people up by giving them not what you think they want but what you think they need? And isn’t it foolish of me to think that anything will change after the election? Won’t these election promises turn out, as usual and once again, to be just that? Once shame on you, but twice shame on me, right?
So as we get into the nitty gritty of how we are actually going to do any of these great ideas, or just forget about them all and focus on having enough cash to buy a new widescreen plasma HDTV with a 100 channels of complete crap, I steel myself for a post-election let down, the slump after the bump, the purge after the surge.
In the moments when my mood and emotions aren’t screaming in my ears at the extremes of hope or depression, I do take solace in one thing. One thing that I can count on. One great relief. And that is that no matter what happens, we will no longer have a ridiculous monkey-child leading our country. So, today I raise a glass to you my dear friends and family, pointed to an uncertain future with a mixture of hope and fear, but with a loud and long sigh of relief for the thought that on November 5th, 2008 we will be a nation with “One Child Left Behind”…
-Kevin
From the Heart,
Kevin Lapin
"Appreciate beauty in all its forms."
"Get stuck in there!"
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Front Page News, Shanghai SAS
Jesse Long is taking pictures, lots of pictures, at Shanghai American School. In fact, he just finished up at Pudong, and is now on the Puxi campus where he and his helper friend, Kevin Lapin, will remain until next Friday, the 19th. I asked Kevin what it was exactly that he did. “It’s like in the Wizard of Oz,” he said. “I’m the guy behind the curtain. I help Jesse try to get smiles out of the kids, and I look at how they’re coming out on the computer and try to pick the best shot. Sometimes I will open the photo in Photoshop to do some color corrections. I’m a master of keyboard shortcuts on the Mac. I could never do this job if I wasn’t.” Jesse is behind the camera. With 3,000 students and over 400 faculty, plus some staff pictures, and, considering that he takes 2-4 shots per subject, he figures by the time he leaves Shanghai American School on the 19th, he will have taken more than 10,000 shots—easily! Probably more.From SAS, Jesse, who owns his business known as International Photos, will be headed for the International School of Beijing, and from there to the Middle East. He goes to these schools, including ours, at his own expense and has been doing this for six years. He says that he’s beginning to run into teachers in different locations. He may meet a former SAS teacher in Dubai, and he’s met some teachers at SAS he photographed at other schools in previous years. Jesse became an international school photographer almost accidentally. He had been in Africa taking photos, and returned to Seattle where, one evening, he was showing them to an old high school friend, Shane Oprescu. Her father, Warren Carlson, dropped by and saw his photos. He had been shooting school photos at international schools for over 30 years. He said, “I’m thinking of retiring. Want to take over my business?” Today, Shane works in a Seattle office handling the details and getting the photos to the lab and then back to the school. Jesse and Kevin will soon head north to ISB. “Yi, er, san!” They’ve got thousands of snaps before they’ll see home again.
By Timothy Merrill, Editor, ParentTalk
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Personal Statement
(for application to the Columbia ETP program)
I believe everyone should have access to a good education and good healthcare. Our happiness, as individuals and as communities, depends on being healthy, both physically, mentally and spiritually. Indeed, one of the reasons I want to become a nurse practitioner is because of its holistic approach to patient care; it combines the excitement and challenge of diagnosing and curing illness with the reward and contentment of educating and caring for patients as unique individuals. Attending Columbia represents the perfect step in achieving this goal of being able to care for the wellbeing of others as well as teach them to care for themselves, as the ETP program combines an intensive hands-on approach with the highest standards of education.
Although I didn’t always want to be an NP when I grew up, when I look back now it seems a natural decision. My dad, one of my greatest role models, always said that aside from his family, being a cardiologist has been the most rewarding experience of his life. I have also experienced first hand how medicine can change someone’s life, for when I was 12 years old I was diagnosed and treated for a pituitary tumor. I feel lucky and grateful to have benefited from the highest quality of health care, which ultimately helped me avoid brain surgery, avoid going blind and, most significantly at the time, break the 5’ barrier before the 10th grade. And all of that thanks to an extremely kind and understanding team of doctors and nurses.
In college, I majored in French and Education with the idea that I might become a teacher. After graduating, I lived in France on a post-graduate exchange scholarship and then to study translation and interpreting. Later, while working at Amazon.com and living in Seattle, I started doing plays and taking acting classes which led me back to Paris for graduate school in theater. It was then that I got a job working for a small medical translation agency and realized that I was interested in health care and medicine.
When I moved to New York, I began working as a medical interpreter which tied together my desire to help people with my background in French. The more I found myself working with patients, the more I wished I could offer them health care directly. I also work as a Standardized Patient, and this has showed me how interesting and challenging being able to interact with a person and take their history is, and how this is such an important diagnostic tool in the primary care physician’s arsenal. I always tell students I work with that patients are looking not just for someone who has the scientific knowledge to fix them, but that they are also looking for someone they can trust and who will care for them. Indeed, without trust, patients may not offer that clinically vital piece of information that will help make the diagnosis. I look forward myself to the wide range of individuals and issues that I will deal with as a family care NP.
Before making the decision to go back to school, I felt it was important to spend more time in the hospital and with patients—to see if nursing was truly the right path for me. So for the past few months I have been volunteering on a step-down and neurology ward at Beth Israel and in the ED and cardiac units at Columbia Presbyterian. What I have learned is that RNs work really hard and play a very important role in the quality of a patient’s stay in the hospital and that I like working in the hospital. I’ve also learned that I want more than hard work; I want the responsibility that comes with being an NP, that is to say, taking part in the diagnostic, prescriptive and educational aspects of care.
From what I can tell I would make a good nurse practitioner. I love working with people and health care connects with something in me. I have a lot of patience, energy, compassion and intelligence to offer patients. I even know what it’s like to be hospitalized in a foreign country. This type of cultural understanding as well as my language skills in French and Spanish should come in handy, as immigrant patients so often make up the underserved populations that I hope to care for.
Ten to 15 years from now, I hope to have gained enough experience and confidence to be an important member of a clinic or practice, while still spending time in a hospital setting (to stay connected). I’m also interested in teaching, and could foresee pursuing a doctoral program towards that end—as well as to gain more training and knowledge. I think that teaching is one of the best ways to really find out if you have learned or know something; as the saying goes, ‘learn one, do one, teach one.’
My rabbi, another role model in my life, once told me something when we were studying together for my bar-mitzvah. He said to me, “Kevin, you’re a smart boy, but that’s not what makes you special. You’ve got a lot of energy and a good sense of humor, but these are also not what make you special. You have a big heart, that’s what makes you special.” I’ve never forgotten that. And I believe that it’s true that the only way you can lead people is by walking the path with them, and that the only paths worth walking in life are paths with heart. These are the paths that I hope to walk as a nurse practitioner.
Read More...
I believe everyone should have access to a good education and good healthcare. Our happiness, as individuals and as communities, depends on being healthy, both physically, mentally and spiritually. Indeed, one of the reasons I want to become a nurse practitioner is because of its holistic approach to patient care; it combines the excitement and challenge of diagnosing and curing illness with the reward and contentment of educating and caring for patients as unique individuals. Attending Columbia represents the perfect step in achieving this goal of being able to care for the wellbeing of others as well as teach them to care for themselves, as the ETP program combines an intensive hands-on approach with the highest standards of education.
Although I didn’t always want to be an NP when I grew up, when I look back now it seems a natural decision. My dad, one of my greatest role models, always said that aside from his family, being a cardiologist has been the most rewarding experience of his life. I have also experienced first hand how medicine can change someone’s life, for when I was 12 years old I was diagnosed and treated for a pituitary tumor. I feel lucky and grateful to have benefited from the highest quality of health care, which ultimately helped me avoid brain surgery, avoid going blind and, most significantly at the time, break the 5’ barrier before the 10th grade. And all of that thanks to an extremely kind and understanding team of doctors and nurses.
In college, I majored in French and Education with the idea that I might become a teacher. After graduating, I lived in France on a post-graduate exchange scholarship and then to study translation and interpreting. Later, while working at Amazon.com and living in Seattle, I started doing plays and taking acting classes which led me back to Paris for graduate school in theater. It was then that I got a job working for a small medical translation agency and realized that I was interested in health care and medicine.
When I moved to New York, I began working as a medical interpreter which tied together my desire to help people with my background in French. The more I found myself working with patients, the more I wished I could offer them health care directly. I also work as a Standardized Patient, and this has showed me how interesting and challenging being able to interact with a person and take their history is, and how this is such an important diagnostic tool in the primary care physician’s arsenal. I always tell students I work with that patients are looking not just for someone who has the scientific knowledge to fix them, but that they are also looking for someone they can trust and who will care for them. Indeed, without trust, patients may not offer that clinically vital piece of information that will help make the diagnosis. I look forward myself to the wide range of individuals and issues that I will deal with as a family care NP.
Before making the decision to go back to school, I felt it was important to spend more time in the hospital and with patients—to see if nursing was truly the right path for me. So for the past few months I have been volunteering on a step-down and neurology ward at Beth Israel and in the ED and cardiac units at Columbia Presbyterian. What I have learned is that RNs work really hard and play a very important role in the quality of a patient’s stay in the hospital and that I like working in the hospital. I’ve also learned that I want more than hard work; I want the responsibility that comes with being an NP, that is to say, taking part in the diagnostic, prescriptive and educational aspects of care.
From what I can tell I would make a good nurse practitioner. I love working with people and health care connects with something in me. I have a lot of patience, energy, compassion and intelligence to offer patients. I even know what it’s like to be hospitalized in a foreign country. This type of cultural understanding as well as my language skills in French and Spanish should come in handy, as immigrant patients so often make up the underserved populations that I hope to care for.
Ten to 15 years from now, I hope to have gained enough experience and confidence to be an important member of a clinic or practice, while still spending time in a hospital setting (to stay connected). I’m also interested in teaching, and could foresee pursuing a doctoral program towards that end—as well as to gain more training and knowledge. I think that teaching is one of the best ways to really find out if you have learned or know something; as the saying goes, ‘learn one, do one, teach one.’
My rabbi, another role model in my life, once told me something when we were studying together for my bar-mitzvah. He said to me, “Kevin, you’re a smart boy, but that’s not what makes you special. You’ve got a lot of energy and a good sense of humor, but these are also not what make you special. You have a big heart, that’s what makes you special.” I’ve never forgotten that. And I believe that it’s true that the only way you can lead people is by walking the path with them, and that the only paths worth walking in life are paths with heart. These are the paths that I hope to walk as a nurse practitioner.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Kurt and Rebecca
From the Commitment Reading of the Pueblo Indian and a slam poem by Michael Cirelli
(arranged for Kurt and Rebecca’s wedding, July 27, 2008.)
Before we met, you and I were halves un-joined except in the wide river of our minds, where each other's distant shore, the opposite wings of a bird, the other half of a seashell, curled and stripped to fine perfection. We did not know each other then, did not know our determination to keep alive the cry of one riverbank to the other. We were apart, yet together in ignorance of one another, like two apples falling from a common tree. I knew you existed as a memory, long before you understood my desire to join my freedom to yours and yours to mine. I will remember.
Our paths collided long enough for our indecision to be swallowed up by a greater need of love. When you came to me, the sun surged towards the earth and the moon escaped from the darkness to bless the union of our two spirits, so alike that the creator designed them for life's endless dance, a circle K and R, spinning in the middle and where they join is us, because I am your Parker painter, your supplier of, and you, you are my beloved partner, keeper of my heart's odd secrets, clothed in summer blossoms so the icy hand of winter never touches us. I thank your patience. And trust our joining is like a tree to earth, a cloud to sky and even more, for richer or poor, in sickness and in health, we are the reason the world can laugh on its battlefields and rise from the ashes of its selfishness to hear me say, in this time, in this place, in this way - I loved you best of all.
From the first moment that our eyes set on each other like the dust, our hearts melted like wax that turned to vinyl and the albums turned, degrees upon degrees upon degrees. Our chests opened up like the sky playing the music of a land of showers translated into living for bread, mind became tongues as the summer melted like butter and leaves slowly roasted on trees.
Somehow we had remembered that we used to love each other, but couldn't recall where or when or why. Our hearts were like wax, and the vinyl rotated like it had never turned before till our souls spun around the sun and you became my earth. That's when we first met.
Then I walked the streets of Japan for thirty days, six hours, five-and-a-quarter minutes, it seemed like a year with new eyes swinging low trying to pick up rhymes for you on concrete and neon bustle that reminded me of you until we met again. You said, "yes," and then we found ourselves outside under a ripe moon, our candle constructed of the excess wax from my heart, exchanging wine and optimisms, but the album turned degrees, upon degrees of romanticism, I said "I guess I'll see you next lifetime," which was ironic because my lifeline was entwined with another, I used to love her, until I met you.
So I jumped in your car with P-town plates to go skiing on mountains with the thrust of plate-tectonics, and with you. Through bumps and trees, we followed each other up and down until the snow settled on our hoods. We packed lunches of bread and cheese and drank the breeze blowing off the slopes of Mt. Hood. And there was no need for a car radio, because my heart spun the wax which was the vinyl which turned those degrees times three, and this time I thought to myself, "love me, love me, say that you love me."
We made our love ceramic. It was so fragile that our heads began to spin like clay on a wheel, scriptures flipped, pieces chipped, words fell off as the album turned, throwing degrees upon themselves like neither one of us wanted to be the first to say goodbye, so we said I do. And by degrees our does become deeds where we will sign our names with greed with the excess wax from our melted hearts now tripped and tied in a frieze, and all we need is one witness, as we sign our intentions to become anew. Will you say I do?
So we can return to the same Dalles that we said "I love you" in for forty days and thirty-nine nights and it will be fire, and we’ll melt our albums back into a new heart, forget where they came from, return our records, so they can play a new composition, like a beat.
Read More...
(arranged for Kurt and Rebecca’s wedding, July 27, 2008.)
Before we met, you and I were halves un-joined except in the wide river of our minds, where each other's distant shore, the opposite wings of a bird, the other half of a seashell, curled and stripped to fine perfection. We did not know each other then, did not know our determination to keep alive the cry of one riverbank to the other. We were apart, yet together in ignorance of one another, like two apples falling from a common tree. I knew you existed as a memory, long before you understood my desire to join my freedom to yours and yours to mine. I will remember.
Our paths collided long enough for our indecision to be swallowed up by a greater need of love. When you came to me, the sun surged towards the earth and the moon escaped from the darkness to bless the union of our two spirits, so alike that the creator designed them for life's endless dance, a circle K and R, spinning in the middle and where they join is us, because I am your Parker painter, your supplier of, and you, you are my beloved partner, keeper of my heart's odd secrets, clothed in summer blossoms so the icy hand of winter never touches us. I thank your patience. And trust our joining is like a tree to earth, a cloud to sky and even more, for richer or poor, in sickness and in health, we are the reason the world can laugh on its battlefields and rise from the ashes of its selfishness to hear me say, in this time, in this place, in this way - I loved you best of all.
From the first moment that our eyes set on each other like the dust, our hearts melted like wax that turned to vinyl and the albums turned, degrees upon degrees upon degrees. Our chests opened up like the sky playing the music of a land of showers translated into living for bread, mind became tongues as the summer melted like butter and leaves slowly roasted on trees.
Somehow we had remembered that we used to love each other, but couldn't recall where or when or why. Our hearts were like wax, and the vinyl rotated like it had never turned before till our souls spun around the sun and you became my earth. That's when we first met.
Then I walked the streets of Japan for thirty days, six hours, five-and-a-quarter minutes, it seemed like a year with new eyes swinging low trying to pick up rhymes for you on concrete and neon bustle that reminded me of you until we met again. You said, "yes," and then we found ourselves outside under a ripe moon, our candle constructed of the excess wax from my heart, exchanging wine and optimisms, but the album turned degrees, upon degrees of romanticism, I said "I guess I'll see you next lifetime," which was ironic because my lifeline was entwined with another, I used to love her, until I met you.
So I jumped in your car with P-town plates to go skiing on mountains with the thrust of plate-tectonics, and with you. Through bumps and trees, we followed each other up and down until the snow settled on our hoods. We packed lunches of bread and cheese and drank the breeze blowing off the slopes of Mt. Hood. And there was no need for a car radio, because my heart spun the wax which was the vinyl which turned those degrees times three, and this time I thought to myself, "love me, love me, say that you love me."
We made our love ceramic. It was so fragile that our heads began to spin like clay on a wheel, scriptures flipped, pieces chipped, words fell off as the album turned, throwing degrees upon themselves like neither one of us wanted to be the first to say goodbye, so we said I do. And by degrees our does become deeds where we will sign our names with greed with the excess wax from our melted hearts now tripped and tied in a frieze, and all we need is one witness, as we sign our intentions to become anew. Will you say I do?
So we can return to the same Dalles that we said "I love you" in for forty days and thirty-nine nights and it will be fire, and we’ll melt our albums back into a new heart, forget where they came from, return our records, so they can play a new composition, like a beat.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Friends Haiku
old friends play then part
like dolphins, swoosh
so long and thanks for all the fish
Monday, September 17, 2007
The Chinese "Eight is Enough"
Friends and Family,I've had a change of heart. I know I recently wrote to many of you to tell you that I was giving up acting for a steady gig with Mercedes, but an offer came up that I couldn't refuse--and I'm not alone in this one. While traveling in China doing school pictures with Jesse, we were approached by one of the local student's father who is a casting agent for a local Shanghai television station. As you may know, there is a big market and fascination for western actors and western style shows here in China, and recently they have been doing a lot of remakes.
Well, Mr. Liu-Ching offered Jesse and I lead roles on a new Chinese version of the show "Eight is Enough". It's going to be called "One is Enough" and will run on Tuesday's at 8pm opposite the popular spin-off of the game show "The Price is Right" called "The Price is Cheaper".
The money was too good to turn down, and we will only have to be in Shanghai to shoot for 6 months out of the year. The show is slated to run for several seasons, but we're just taking it step-by-step for now. We're already gotten the first script and it looks pretty good. They've also worked up a poster, which you can see enclosed as a .jpg.
We'll keep you posted and send pirated DVDs or videos as as we can...
Thanks,
Kevin and Jesse
PS You'll notice from the enclosed image that Jesse will be riding "shot gun" in this show.
--
From the Heart,
Kevin Lapin
"Appreciate beauty in all its forms."
"Get stuck in there!"
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Zen in the Art of Mercedes Maintenance
Dear Friends and Family,
I've spoken to some of you already about this, but to others this may come as a surprise. For a while now I have been contemplating making a change, a career change. It's something that has been building for a while, and finally I made the big leap. I've decided to get leave the rat race of physical theater. I've got a great new job working for Mercedes-Benz USA. They're great cars and it's a great group of people.
Take a look at the images and it will give you an idea.
Unfortunately, I can't get you any retail discounts, but in a couple of years I will probably be able to get you some deals on service and maintenance.
Anyway, I hope you are all doing well, and I'll look forward to hearing from you.
-Kevin
--
From the Heart,
Kevin Lapin
"Appreciate mags in all their forms."
"Grease is good!"
Read More...
I've spoken to some of you already about this, but to others this may come as a surprise. For a while now I have been contemplating making a change, a career change. It's something that has been building for a while, and finally I made the big leap. I've decided to get leave the rat race of physical theater. I've got a great new job working for Mercedes-Benz USA. They're great cars and it's a great group of people.Take a look at the images and it will give you an idea.
Unfortunately, I can't get you any retail discounts, but in a couple of years I will probably be able to get you some deals on service and maintenance.
Anyway, I hope you are all doing well, and I'll look forward to hearing from you.
-Kevin
--
From the Heart,
Kevin Lapin
"Appreciate mags in all their forms."
"Grease is good!"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
