Year of the cats

On the evening of November 17, 2017, when I was walking into (sadly now closed) wine bar La Cave du Vin at the corner of Euclid Heights and Coventry for my first date since the traumatic ending of my previous relationship, I don't think I'd have predicted that one year later I would be celebrating the anniversary of that date.

And yet last weekend found Karyn and me in Chicago, happily commemorating our first anniversary.

The two of us have done a whole lot of traveling together in that year. The list of destinations for our trips includes: Columbus, Detroit, Washington DC, Toronto, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Pymatuning Lake, Sandusky, Steubenville (yes, Steubenville - a day trip for a concert by Typhoon's Kyle Morton, and one of my favorites of the whole bunch), Put-in-Bay, Los Angeles, and now Chicago. Quite a year of traveling, and the year was quite a journey for both of us in other ways too. This last trip was perhaps the best of all, so I decided to write about it.

Karyn likes to come up with hashtags for trips. For this trip she decided on #yearofthecats, which I quite liked. The meaning of the "year" part is obvious; as for the "cats" part, many of you are probably aware that we have a lot of cats. Eight cats, to be precise - my Eponine and Gavroche, plus Karyn's Grady, Hogan, Rupert, Martin, Rusty, and Tortellini. One big happy family!

We said goodbye to our cats and headed out to Chicago on a cold and windy Friday morning. The weather we had for the weekend was not particularly nice, but you don't go to Chicago in November for the weather. At least the high winds of Friday did not stick around for the rest of the weekend.

One of the big themes of the weekend was delicious food. This started with a brief stop at Eataly after we finished getting settled into our posh accommodations at the Loews Downtown Chicago hotel. Eataly is a massive two-story market full of Italian food for eating in, taking out, or grocery shopping. We were both in awe of the place. We didn't have much time to spend there that day so we vowed we'd return before we had to leave town. That we did on Sunday afternoon, our last excursion before departing, and I'm pretty sure that Sunday visit led to the largest grocery bill of my life, but I have no regrets!

After we grabbed a quick bite, we headed to a nearby barber shop where Karyn got a haircut. She was pleased to find a place that did not discriminate by gender on pricing.

I wanted to go eat in Chinatown at some point during the weekend, something I've greatly enjoyed doing on several previous Chicago visits, so we caught a train there early Friday evening. Before dinner, I decided I wanted to stop in at a gift shop I'd previously visited with Cara. I recalled how on that previous visit, we had bought one of Cara's numerous Chococat plushes. Chococat is another character from Sanrio, the company responsible for Hello Kitty, but Chococat is not nearly as well known. Cara adored Chococat, who she nicknamed "Boco." I honestly did not go into that shop last weekend with the intention of purchasing more Chococat merchandise, but once inside I naturally started looking for Chococats as I always had when visiting any sort of Asian gift shop either with Cara or by myself in search of a gift for Cara. And I was saddened to see that there were absolutely no Chococat plushes in the shop.

As I said, Chococat is not as popular as Hello Kitty, and there was never a great abundance of different Chococat products at any given time. But it now appears that Sanrio has almost completely stopped producing Chococat merchandise. And that makes me very sad.

Karyn has also come to like Chococat. We have a gigantic Chococat pillow on the sofa and she has said that it's seemingly impossible to lie on it and not fall asleep. Seeing my desire to find a Chococat in the gift shop, Karyn joined my search, and I have to say I was deeply moved by her great determination to find something, anything, with that familiar wide-eyed feline face on it.

Ultimately we did succeed in finding three Chococat-branded items: a phone case, a pocket-sized notebook, and, best of all (and discovered by Karyn), my new wallet!

You see, for most of this year I have been saying that I needed a new wallet because my old one (a pretty standard-looking leather wallet) is very worn out. And from time to time we'd be out somewhere and see some wallets and I'd look at them but I hadn't come across one that caught my fancy. So when Karyn presented this wallet to me in that Chinatown gift shop I instantly realized that this was exactly what I had been looking for. I think she was surprised at first at my intent to actually use a Chococat wallet as my everyday wallet. "You're a very confident man," she said. True, I suppose.

It goes without saying that it's because of how much Cara liked Chococat, but it's still hard to exactly put into words just how happy it made me to get this wallet, and I'm very grateful to Karyn for finding it. I told her that it might be one of my favorite things I've ever bought, and I really meant that.

So finding the Chococat wallet was for me one of the highlights of the trip, but it was one of many highlights. The stop at the gift shop was followed by a delicious dinner at MingHin Cuisine, and after dinner, because it was right there I could not resist getting a bubble tea from Joy Yee, as I've done on more than one previous visit to Chicago's Chinatown. We then headed back to the hotel.

Saturday was a very busy day for the two of us and it was a very wonderful day as well. It started with another great meal, breakfast at Cupitol Coffee & Eatery. After a brief stop back at the hotel, we headed out for a day spent wandering the streets of Chicago and enjoying various holiday festivities. It was a dreary day, and a light rain fell for much of the morning and early afternoon, leading us to remark that at least it wasn't windy like the day before.

We began the journey from our hotel by heading south across the river and toward Millennium Park. Now, the one unfortunate thing about our hotel's location was the skyscraper obnoxiously and aggressively emblazoned with the letters TRUMP staring across the river at us. As we crossed the river, Karyn paused to take a photo of the skyscraper, its upper levels disappearing into the misty sky. It would have been quite a pretty sight if not for those letters:

Karyn posted the image to Facebook and called it "The Tower of Kefka in real life." She had to explain to me the Final Fantasy VI reference she was making, because I knew nothing about that video game. As she told me, Kefka was the game's villain and was an evil, clownish, self-obsessed nihilist character who pretty much destroyed the world, and built a massive tower from the wreckage of all that he'd destroyed. And apparently in the early part of the game Kefka seemed like a minor threat worthy more of mockery than anything else, but then in a surprising twist he rose to power and went on to wreak enormous destruction. Good comparison, right? I really enjoyed listening to Karyn describe this as we walked.

At Millennium Park we of course enjoyed seeing "The Bean," although the weather was far less than ideal for taking in the scenery.

Fortunately our main reason for visiting Millennium Park that day, the Millennium Park Art Market, was held inside a giant tent. We went there with the intention of doing some holiday shopping and also buying something for our new apartment. We found plenty of great offerings to choose from! I really was amazed by the tremendous display of creativity and talent and effort from all the art students whose wares were displayed. I was also struck by how much of the artwork, almost all produced by people younger than Karyn and me, clearly reflected the world in which our generation and the generation after ours is growing up. The uncertain future in a society and a planet plagued by climate change and growing inequality and other ills. The technological advances that have so dramatically changed the ways in which we communicate and interface with the world. The never-ending struggle for basic human rights and dignity fought by members of various marginalized groups and the growing sense of solidarity among members of those groups and their allies in a nation where reactionary forces have seized power and are desperately and viciously trying to stem and even reverse that tide of progress.

We ended up making purchases from a number of the artists. When we checked out I remarked that the total bill was actually not bad at all for all the great stuff we were getting. And I always like to support small independent artists like those at the market. One of my favorite items we bought was this poster by a young woman named Meha Ray:

She has a series of robot illustrations and Karyn suggested that she should make a book based on her robot character.

Our next stop after the art market was Macy's, where Karyn suggested we go get our picture taken with Santa Claus. While waiting in line, we were amused by the fact that we were the only ones without children, but it was fun! When Santa asked what we wanted for Christmas, Karyn said a Cleveland Browns Super Bowl win and I said world peace. Santa said world peace might be easier.

We ended up spending quite a while in Macy's, where we both bought (among other things) much-needed new winter gloves. By the time we returned to the street, it had thankfully stopped raining. Our next stop was Christkindlmarket, a German-themed outdoor holiday market with plenty more artwork and plenty more delicious food. The cheese melted directly off the wheel onto a toasted baguette was a revelation.

We couldn't resist making a few more purchases, including these adorable hand-carved wooden animals, a cat and a snail:

(I picked the snail because it was the closest thing to a slug. If anyone ever comes across a wooden sea slug, please let me know.)

The main attraction that weekend in Chicago was the Magnificent Mile Lights Festival and we next made our way to the Magnificent Mile on Michigan Avenue where we joined the throngs who were waiting for the festive parade and the accompanying lighting of the trees. It really was quite cool to see all the Christmas lights on our block's worth of trees simultaneously spring to life at the command of Mickey Mouse who was passing by on a parade float. I also greatly enjoyed seeing the high school marching bands in the parade (including one from Akron) and, of course, Santa Claus and his reindeer on the final float. It was a chilly night to be standing outside for that long, but we had fun! One of my favorite parts, to be honest, was seeing the excited reactions of all the children near us.

After the parade we returned to our hotel, but our busy day was still not over. The last item on the agenda was a late night anniversary dinner at Gilt Bar, a restaurant Karyn had found. She said that she had picked it because, from the pictures, it seemed to have the most similar vibe to La Cave du Vin's dimly lit interior. It was a good choice! The roasted garlic appetizer was amazing, our salad and our pasta entrees were great, and our meal concluded with an enormous and delicious slice of carrot cake on the house. While dining, our conversation turned to everything we had been through together over the course of that year. It really is remarkable. And the trip to Chicago was a perfect way to celebrate that year.

At some point earlier in the weekend, we had walked by the original Pizzeria Uno on Ohio Street in downtown Chicago and then just up the street its sister restaurant Pizzeria Due. My thoughts instantly turned to my first visit to Chicago, for a cross country meet as a sophomore in college in the fall of 2002, and how the team had dined together at Pizzeria Due (Uno having had a longer wait). I looked up from the street and could see the room where I remembered sitting all those years ago. Karyn wondered what I was looking at and I explained it to her and how it was hard to believe all that time had passed.

In March 2011 Cara and I took a trip to Chicago and I wrote a blog post about it and one thing I wrote, regarding our visit to the park where the aforementioned cross country meet was held, was: "Going to a place that you've visited before and remember well but haven't seen in years is an interesting experience. Memories rush back at you. In a way, I'm a different person now than I was then, yet there's obviously a very strong connection with my past self." That's even more true now. I guess I've always had that keen interest in staying in touch with my own past. But it all has an extra poignancy now after all the things that have happened in my life in between that 2011 visit and today. And reading something you wrote many years ago can be a similarly interesting experience to visiting a place you haven't seen in years, one of the reasons I'm glad I've kept this blog.

My and Karyn's visit to Chicago had to end on Sunday, but the good times and good eating were not quite over when we got up that morning. For brunch we decided to try a restaurant called Beatrix and there we found what was not only perhaps the best meal of the weekend, but also almost undoubtedly the best customer service we've ever experienced. Karyn decided to order the pecan French toast special, while I opted for lemon pancakes and a side of brown sugar bacon. Before ordering, Karyn had told our waitress (named Kelsey) that she was thinking about the cauliflower grits, which Kelsey had recommended as her favorite. When our food came out, the first item was the cauliflower grits. We hadn't ordered that, we said, surprised. The rest of the order was correct, so the server returned to the kitchen with the cauliflower grits. A minute later Kelsey came back to the table with the grits and explained that she had wanted us to be able to try them, so she had added them (the full size plate) to our order, and they were on her!

And that wasn't all. We both expressed our tremendous gratitude, and after we finished eating Karyn told Kelsey how it was our anniversary weekend and this meal had been a perfect conclusion to it, and then Kelsey brought us a slice of pecan pumpkin pie to go, also on her. It really was an extra special way to cap off a very special weekend.

After brunch we made that final excursion to Eataly, and then headed to the car and made the drive back home to Cleveland, where we returned very tired but happy to our new apartment and our eight cats.

In memoriam

This past April 24, as many reading this already know, marked the third anniversary of Cara's passing. Thanks in part to some fortuitously timed concerts, April 24 and the days leading up to it brought numerous reminders of Cara. They also brought some fantastic time spent with my wonderful girlfriend Karyn.

Earlier this year it was announced that The Decemberists would be playing a show at Cleveland's Agora on April 24. The Decemberists were beloved by both Cara and me and were one of the bands we bonded over in the early stages of our friendship and relationship. In fact, just a few days after Cara and I started dating in November 2006, I saw The Decemberists play at the Agora and during the show I called Cara on the phone so that she (in Columbus) could hear one of the songs. I might have been shocked at such a significant concert occurring on such a significant date except that these sorts of things have happened so much now that my reaction is more just a bemused, Oh, again….

The Decemberists' show was not the only April 24 show in Cleveland by a band I like. Wild Ones (also, incidentally, hailing from Portland) played the Beachland Tavern that night. The significance of that band to me comes not from their music having any role in my relationship with Cara, but rather from the fact that their lead singer Danielle Sullivan is married to Kyle Morton, the lead singer of Typhoon, one of my very favorite bands and the band whose music I most associate with Cara's courageous struggle with lung cancer and with her death. I've blogged before about my experiences meeting Danielle and then later running into Danielle and Kyle at dinner before the Typhoon show I attended in Portland last fall. Oh yeah, and coming up on June 12, my and Cara's wedding anniversary, is a Typhoon show at the Beachland Ballroom. There's an odd sort of symmetry, I think, to the fact that the band whose music I associate with my wife's death is playing at the Beachland on our wedding anniversary, and the band whose lead singer is the wife of that band's lead singer played at the Beachland on the anniversary of my wife's death. (Did you follow that sentence? It was admittedly a bit convoluted.) It all seems rather strange, but as I often remind myself, evolution did cause our brains to become very good at finding patterns in randomness.

To get back to the main thread of this post, with both The Decemberists and Wild Ones playing in Cleveland on April 24, I could not go to both shows. So I decided to take a trip to Toronto to see Wild Ones there on April 22, and Karyn joined me.

Toronto

After a long and cold winter, Karyn and I were thrilled by the sunny skies and mild temperatures that greeted us in Ontario's capital. We arrived on a Saturday afternoon, and with the concert on Sunday night, we made great use of our opportunity to explore a city where I'd previously spent very little time. We found a nice deal online for the Fairmont Royal York (Queen Elizabeth II's choice for accommodations in Toronto) and we both declared it probably the nicest hotel in which we'd ever stayed. The main lobby was stunning:

We found many things to enjoy in Toronto, from delicious poutine to a gigantic Sephora store to scrumptious vegan treats at a bakery owned by a friend of Karyn's to a fabulous public transit system (we marveled at the fact that on the weekend the two of us, in addition to up to four youths for those traveling with families, could ride the subways, street cars, and buses all over the city on a single day pass costing just $12.50 Canadian - currently $9.65 U.S.). One of the highlights of the trip was a visit to Spadina House, an old house-turned-museum showcasing what life was like for a well-to-do family in 1920s Toronto. The fascinating glimpse into the past was made even more enjoyable by the family in our tour group with three young girls, the older two of whom provided numerous adorable and insightful questions and observations that our tour guide, a lanky young Canadian man, handled wonderfully. I highly recommend Spadina House as a site to visit during a trip to Toronto.

The concert was at The Baby G, a neat little venue that we had no trouble accessing via public transit. Before the first band went on I went to the restroom - and was stunned by the sight that greeted me amongst the graffiti on the wall.

The symbol pictured here, a muted post horn symbol from Thomas Pynchon's novel The Crying of Lot 49, is the same symbol that Cara had tattooed in the middle of her upper back. ("W.A.S.T.E." stands for "We Await Silent Tristero's Empire" and is from the same book; the muted post horn is the symbol of the shadowy W.A.S.T.E. organization in the book.) Cara got the tattoo, her first, near the beginning of our friendship and I remember her showing it to me when we went to a movie together in the summer of 2006, and me saying that it was cool but I didn't think I'd ever get a tattoo myself (wrong!). On that weekend when thoughts of Cara were already so much with me I was astonished and shaken by that familiar symbol showing up on that wall.

The concert was quite good. I enjoy Wild Ones' music a lot, but probably not enough that I would have traveled to Toronto to see them on the basis of their music alone. My having become friends with Danielle (and Kyle, although he wasn't there) was a larger part of my motivation for making the trip. Somehow their story has, to me, threaded its way into my own life story and it's something I find very special. I got to talk to Danielle after the show and she was very glad to see me again and we had a nice little chat.

Another odd coincidence occurred to me as I was in the middle of writing this post. The first time that I talked to Danielle at a show was on September 29, 2015, five months and five days after Cara's death. This most recent time was on April 22, 2018, five months and five days after another significant date - November 17, 2017, or my and Karyn's first date. Well, I'm certainly in a very different place in my life now than I was in the fall of 2015. It also occurs to me with my huge list of weird coincidences that I'm a scientist and a big part of what has brought me success in my research is that I am good at looking at data and noticing patterns. When you look at enough data (i.e., all the events that make up a life) and you have a tendency to look for patterns, patterns are going to emerge from randomness and a lot of them won't actually mean anything. But I enjoy noticing those patterns!
 
Nanaimo Bars

The day after the concert, Karyn and I left Toronto, but before returning to the States there was a stop I wanted to make near Hamilton, Ontario. It was a stop linked to significant memories from my past in more than one way. In the summer of 2008, Cara and I traveled to Hamilton to attend the farewell show of one of our favorite bands, A Northern Chorus. I blogged about the show at the time and I still consider it my favorite show I've ever attended. The day after the show we visited a local landmark called the Devil's Punch Bowl, an interesting waterfall and rock formation, and on the way to the Punch Bowl we happened upon a neat little market (Punch Bowl Market and Bakery). Among the baked goods there were several varieties of Nanaimo bars, a Canadian dessert specialty. Upon seeing the Nanaimo bars I was instantly reminded of a social studies project in sixth grade called the International Fair for which each member of the class presented on a different country, and part of the project was making a food from that country, and my mom and I made Nanaimo bars for my presentation about Canada. On that day in 2008 I bought a Nanaimo bar and then took it to the Devil's Punch Bowl and enjoyed snacking on it at the overlook. That trip was a very special memory for me and for years I had wanted to go there again, so I could hardly pass up the opportunity. And I was glad to have Karyn join me. The two of us stopped at the market and I bought the same type of Nanaimo bar and then Karyn indulged me in my request to recreate a series of photos of me eating a Nanaimo bar at the Devil's Punch Bowl.

After this recent trip to the Punch Bowl, I asked my mom if she had the recipe we had used, and she did still have it, and sent me a copy as well as a little story about how she had gotten the recipe at a cooking class she attended with a neighbor. I greatly enjoyed reading my mom's hand-written notes on the recipe page and imagining her writing those notes so many years ago.

And just as the flavor of that Nanaimo bar I ate almost ten years ago was familiar in a very nostalgic way, the flavor of the Nanaimo bar I ate last month was doubly familiar and even more nostalgia-inducing.

April 24

Various people have said that they know April 24 must be a hard day for me. I actually don't think it's an exceptionally hard day. I think people might think it would be because for most people who knew Cara, they would be thinking about her a lot more on the anniversary of her death than they would on most other days. And they would therefore be missing her a lot more than normal. But I think about Cara a lot every day, so while April 24 does carry some extra emotions, the extent to which that's true is likely smaller for me than for a lot of other people.

The day got off to a very moving start when, at just about midnight, Karyn posted an eloquent and heartfelt tribute to Cara on Facebook. All the ways that Karyn goes above and beyond to honor Cara, who Karyn never knew in person, really say a lot about the sort of person Karyn is. I'm lucky to have found someone like that.

The evening of April 24 found us going to the Agora and meeting up with some friends who were also greatly anticipating the chance to see the Decemberists live. (Three good friends of mine were there - one had never seen the Decemberists in concert; the other two had, like me, been at that November 2006 Agora show - but long, long before I knew them.) I've blogged about Decemberists shows on multiple occasions in the past and I won't extensively recap the concert, but it was another outstanding show. I had such a fun time. And I was very grateful for my being able to have such a fun time, not only because the concert fell on April 24, but also because for quite a while going back to last October it had been difficult for me to simply "have such a fun time" doing something.

Opening band Tennis provided a retro vibe with their groove-heavy and very danceable songs. I love dancing to music at concerts and it was nice to have someone to do that with!

The Decemberists' set was heavy with songs from their most recent album, I'll Be Your Girl, but also included a good selection from the rest of their catalog. I was stunned and thrilled when they broke out "Grace Cathedral Hill" from their very first album, 2002's Castaways and Cutouts. The new album is "depressing" according to Karyn after I played it for her in the car a couple of months ago. The songs on it are heavily influenced by current events (including the very aptly titled for the Trump presidency "Everything Is Awful") so it's not surprising that it's something of a downer. One selection from the album is "We All Die Young" (actually a very boisterous sounding song) and it did make an appearance in the setlist, and I recall Karyn glancing at me as if she was wondering whether hearing that song on that date would bother me. Nah. You have to have a sense of humor about these things. I chuckled at the appropriateness and gleefully sang along to the chorus with the rest of the crowd. We do all die young, if you think about the timescale of a human life relative to all of history. Some of us die younger than others. That's life.

The show ended, as Decemberists shows usually do, with "The Mariner's Revenge Song," providing all of us in the audience the opportunity to scream in unison as if we were all being swallowed by a gigantic whale. It's always great fun. I thought about all the other times I'd seen the song live, from last August in Montana, to the summer of 2011 when I was with Cara and a huge cargo ship passed on the Cuyahoga River behind the Jacobs Pavilion stage in unbelievably perfect synchronization to the epic nautical song, to the show at the Agora just after I started dating Cara, to my very first time seeing the Decemberists in 2005 at the Odeon when I had just very recently gotten into the whole concert-going thing. The song is usually accompanied by the appearance of some sort of giant whale prop on stage. At this most recent show, for the first time, the prop was a three dimensional, inflatable whale that soared through the air above the audience. We all gawked and laughed in disbelief. It was a perfect way to close the show and a perfect way to mark the passing of another April 24.

Concert review/trip report: Okkervil River in DC

Okkervil River is my favorite band and has been for many years. I had already seen the Will Sheff-led folk-rock outfit seven times in concert when they announced earlier this year that, for the tenth anniversary of their most acclaimed album Black Sheep Boy, they'd be playing a very brief run of shows in which they'd perform both Black Sheep Boy and the companion EP Black Sheep Boy Appendix in their entirety. Instantly I knew, since this was likely a once in a lifetime opportunity, that I had to go. So last Friday, November 20, I headed out with a couple friends to Washington DC and the Black Cat music venue for the first of the anniversary shows.

The music of Okkervil River was very significant to my relationship with my (deceased from lung cancer in April) wife Cara. Of the seven previous times I had seen them, she had joined me for six. I was naturally reminded of all those great shows - most of all, of the very first time Cara and I saw Okkervil River, on October 11, 2006 at the since-closed venue Little Brother's in Columbus. Cara and I were not yet dating at the time, but had become best friends over the course of that year. I drove down from Cleveland for the show despite it being on a Wednesday, because I had recently become a huge Okkervil River fan and I had never seen them in concert before. Any trip to Columbus was also an opportunity to see Cara, so naturally I asked her if she'd join me at the concert. Although she herself was not yet that familiar with Okkervil River's music, I can imagine how excited she was to go to the show with me. I was very excited to see her as well.

My friends and I ended up standing near the back of the room at the Black Cat, as Cara and I had also done at Little Brother's (the room at Little Brother's was smaller, though). And so I imagined Cara was next to me at this show as well. On occasion, I spoke to her, in my mind. "Isn't this great, Cara? Isn't it so cool that Jonathan Meiburg is here?"

(One of the best aspects of this anniversary show was the fact that Jonathan Meiburg, a member of the band from the earlier days who left years ago to focus on his own band Shearwater, joined Okkervil River to perform all their old songs. Meiburg, who has a stunning voice that wonderfully complements Sheff's rawer vocals, was with the band the first two times Cara and I saw them, which were probably the two best shows of all the Okkervil River concerts I've attended. Up on stage at the Black Cat, Meiburg looked so happy to be performing with his old band. It was a wonderful thing to see!)

Despite my having seen Okkervil River so many times in the past, the majority of the songs performed at this show were ones I'd never seen live before. I imagine many of them had rarely if ever showed up on setlists. Before the whole band came out, Sheff opened the show with a solo acoustic performance of the Sleep and Wake-Up Songs EP that preceded Black Sheep Boy in Okkervil River's discography. It was a great way to open the set. Sheff made an amusing and insightful comment before the last song, "No Hidden Track," about how the "hidden track" reference was very of its time and already very dated, referring to a concept that was only a thing during the CD era.

The Black Sheep Boy album was next. It opens with a gentle-sounding cover of the Tim Hardin tune of the same name, before going immediately into the visceral "For Real." I have a vivid memory of the first time I listened to the album. I got it for Christmas in 2005 after asking for it simply because I had read some good reviews online. My first listen to the CD was in fact my introduction to the band's music. I remember sitting at my computer at night, next to the window in the bedroom of my fourth-floor apartment. When that second track came on I was just blown away. And looking at my old last.fm logs, I see that after my first listen to the album, I listened to "For Real" three more times in the subsequent hour. It's a spectacular song. On the album, you can practically hear Will Sheff's spittle hitting the mic as he belts out the lyrics. Which reminds me of how, at two of the Okkervil River shows we attended, Cara commented that she got hit with some of Will's saliva while he was singing. She wasn't annoyed by this; rather, it was an indication of how close to the action she was (in both cases, I was standing behind her). The first time this happened was the second time we saw them, at the Pepper Jack Cafe (which, like Little Brother's, is apparently closed now) in Hamilton, Ontario on Cara's birthday in 2007. The other time was Cara's final Okkervil River show, on September 29, 2013 at the Beachland Ballroom here in Cleveland. On that occasion, Cara had recently had surgery to drain three liters of fluid from around her lungs. She didn't have the strength to stand through a whole concert so we had her in a wheelchair for the show so that she could be front and center by the stage. Here's a picture she took at that show:

Seeing the whole Black Sheep Boy album performed at the Black Cat was quite an experience. It's definitely a classic album. Hard to believe, of course, that it's more than ten years old now. The years really do go by. For the first time at any Okkervil River show I've attended, there was a female vocalist to duet with Sheff on the several tracks that have female vocals on the album. This was a really nice addition. Besides "For Real," another definite highlight was the much slower burning but equally intense "So Come Back, I Am Waiting." I have fond memories of this song both from that first time seeing the band back in 2006 and from the time we saw them the night before our wedding in Columbus, in June 2011.

(An aside about "So Come Back...": I've always thought it was just a bit odd that during the highly emotional climax of the song, there is what seems to me like a really cheesy pun: "Come back to your life on the lam." Get it, "lam," like "lamb," like "sheep" as in "Black Sheep Boy." Not a slight, just something that always stuck out to me. Moving on!)

The closing track of the album, "A Glow," is another song I've always loved but one I had never seen performed live. It's one of those songs with a really pretty male/female vocal duet. Great stuff.

After a short break, the band came right back for the last portion of the show, the Appendix. I've always thought Black Sheep Boy Appendix was fantastic (heck, everything the band has done is pretty fantastic), but never held it in quite the same regard as the album proper. Live, though? The Appendix might have been the very best portion of the night's proceedings. "No Key, No Plan," "Another Radio Song," and "Last Love Song For Now" were all spectacular, with the band rocking out at full intensity. One of my favorite moments, though, was the comment Sheff made before "The Next Four Months." Something about how he didn't want to "George Lucas things up too much," but he had to fix the lyrics in the song, which is about taking pills. Apparently he had gotten the dosage wrong, so "2000 milligrams" in the original version was changed to "100 milligrams" in this live performance. I just thought that was so great; I could imagine that little mistake eating away at him over all those years and I could imagine myself feeling the exact same way if I had done something like that. One of the wonderful things about live music, especially with certain performers such as Will Sheff, is seeing in person the humanity of the people whose music you've listened to so many times on your speakers or headphones. Which takes me back to that very first Okkervil River show in 2006. Sheff was sick, and apologized for it, but it didn't stop him from delivering a powerful performance. Because he was sick, he was drinking a lot of water during the show. He made a remark about being in the "hydration scene" that Cara and I remembered and referenced for years to come.

Another memory of that show is standing with Cara at the merch table near the entrance to the venue, looking at the shirts, and her asking me if I was going to buy one. I said I would wait to decide until after the show, and it would depend on whether the show was good enough to warrant making such a purchase. It most definitely was. I bought another shirt at the Black Cat last week. And here's the whole collection. Left-to-right: my shirt from 2006, my shirt and then Cara's shirt from 2013, and my shirt from 2015.

I was definitely sad, knowing that Cara would have been at the show with me (and not just in spirit) had she still been alive, but I'm very glad I got to go. It was an unforgettable experience.

My friends and I also had a nice time in DC the following day. We went to the National Gallery of Art, a museum I don't think I had ever visited in all of my many previous visits to DC. That might be partly because I thought art museums were boring when I was a kid. I've since changed my opinion. There was a lot of neat stuff there!

It was a very beautiful November day.

That evening we went to the Adams Morgan neighborhood of DC and went to several cool places. We checked out a couple of neat record stores, caught some free live music at Madam's Organ Blues Bar, and then had a fantastic dinner at The Diner. Since I finally got around to getting a smartphone recently, naturally I have to take pictures of things I eat and drink:

I had the Voodoo Parish ("absinthe, sugar cube, angostura and peychaud's bitters, bulleit rye, sparkling wine" - my reaction: "a drink with both absinthe and rye? This I have to try" and it lived up to my expectations!), the Peanut's Revenge Shake ("peanut butter, chocolate sauce, vanilla ice cream," delicious!) and a very tasty blackened salmon sandwich with caramelized red onion, mixed greens, and basil aioli. Also, one of my friends got this amazing (and vegan) Jamaican Shepherd's Pie with plantains, sweet potatoes, peppers, beans, coconut milk, and yucca.

We closed out the night by checking out one more bar and happened upon a place that was playing an amazingly nostalgia-inducing assortment of '90s alt-rock, pretty much every single track a hit from my middle school days. Songs like "Creep" by Radiohead, "Champagne Supernova" by Oasis, "Enter Sandman" by Metallica, and many, many others. It got to the point where every time the next song started up we would just look at each other and start laughing. Until finally, the music abruptly stopped, and then a minute later they started playing some lame Linkin Park remix. Which was a sign that it was time to leave.

By the way, Okkervil River fans (especially Clevelanders) may enjoy this bootleg I've just been listening to of their May 12, 2004 Beachland Tavern show. Sadly, that was before I was familiar with either Okkervil River or the Beachland, but it's really cool to hear the band back at that early point in their career and to imagine being there in that wonderful, familiar room.

Memories

One year ago yesterday (May 18) I graduated with my Ph.D. in Biology from Case Western Reserve University.

Less than six months prior, Cara had undergone major surgery and in fact it had looked like she might not have much time left to live. Instead, the clinical trial she started resulted in a dramatic improvement. One year ago, I'd say she was probably in the best shape of any time post-diagnosis.

That morning, I had to go to the school early to get ready for the ceremonies. I walked to school, as I always did. Cara herself then walked the nearly one mile from our apartment to attend the commencement ceremony. (She normally rode her bike to the school, where she was employed, but on this day she was too dressed up to ride.) During the invocation at commencement, the speaker included a line about how we should appreciate being able to "breathe deep" of our surroundings. He, of course, had no clue how poignant this remark would be to Cara and me. On this day, she was able to breathe very well, after having had so much difficulty breathing not such a long time before.

In between the morning university-wide commencement and the afternoon Graduate Studies diploma ceremony, there was a lunch in the University Hospitals atrium. The food was nothing special, so Cara and I decided to head over to the Hessler Street Fair, one of our favorite annual events. It was a gorgeous day for a walk. At the fair, which is something of a hippie event, we made quite the couple - Cara in her polkadot blue swing dress and me in my fancy Ph.D. robes - and we attracted a lot of attention.

We both got the famous Hessler Street Fair lemonade and we both both pizza from Fire Truck Pizza Co. In fact, we had gone to the fair the previous day and Cara also got pizza that day - it was so good that we had to get it again!

At the diploma ceremony, Cara joined me in walking across the stage as I received my diploma. It was a very exciting moment for both of us, the culmination of a long journey we had taken together, for I was but a first year graduate student when we initially met.

That day is a very good memory.

Someone told me recently that they hoped that with each passing day, things for me were getting just a little easier.

Now don't get me wrong, I can appreciate the sentiment and am not upset with the person who said it, but I find it a little misplaced. Actually, the idea that things would start to get easier within less than a month of someone losing his wife and best friend seems fairly outlandish. The reality is I miss her more as more time passes. I hope it doesn't sound like I'm wallowing in self-pity, because I'm not, but it's a very hard thing to deal with. There will always be a void in my life. I still have a lot of really great things going for me, even without Cara, and I can be grateful for that, but I can also choose to do all I can to keep her memory and spirit alive. And that I will continue to do, and I will continue to share it with the world.

In many ways I've spent the last few days paying tribute, in my own personal way, to Cara.

Friday was National Bike To Work Day. Cara always rode her bike to work, as long as she was healthy enough. Even last year, while she was undergoing treatment for lung cancer, she rode to work many times. Me? I always walked, until we moved farther up in the Heights last summer, so now I drive. But on Friday I did ride my bike to work. It was raining in the morning, but Cara didn't let a little rain stop her from riding to work, so I didn't either. (This is despite the fact that I once fractured my pelvis in a cycling accident that happened on a wet road. This time, I was very careful!) The local ice cream shop Mitchell's (a place Cara and I enjoyed) was offering one dollar cones for cyclists, so I stopped there before going home in the evening. Fortunately, it was no longer raining.

Saturday brought the first day of this year's Hessler Street Fair. I rode my bike there as well, meeting Jessiye, a good friend of ours (especially Cara's) who Cara had actually first met on Bike To Work Day last May. I got the same lemonade and pizza (a delicious white pizza with bacon and honey) that we had enjoyed last year. Before Jessiye showed up, I also took a little walk in the surrounding neighborhood. I walked by the apartment I lived in when Cara and I started dating. I walked to the stadium at Case's North Residential Village, to the spot where we first held hands.

So many memories.

I took yet another bike ride on Sunday. I had seen that Jukebox, a fairly new bar in Ohio City, had a weekly brunch by a different local chef each week, and this week's chef was Saucisson. That's not the name of a person, it's the name of a company - actually, just two women, "lady butchers" as they like to call themselves, whose products Cara and I loved getting at the local farmer's market. I thought this sounded nice, so I set out on my bike toward the other side of town.

I rode most of the way along the Euclid Corridor, thinking of Cara the whole way. From 2008 to 2011, Cara rode to and from work (downtown at Medical Mutual) on that same bike lane. Over time, she came to despise that job - providing customer service for a health insurance company that is always looking for ways to make more money by denying its customers' claims is a demoralizing task - but that daily commute was so great for her. She found such joy and freedom in those twice-daily five mile rides. I can remember her proudly telling me how her speeds were improving as she rode more and more.

As I entered downtown, I imagined what it was like for Cara to do the same. I rode all the way to East 9th, turned left and rode past the front entrance of her old building, where I had occasionally picked her up at the end of the work day. Then I turned onto Carnegie and crossed the bridge to the West Side.

Riding across that bridge to Ohio City was something else Cara did many times. Unfortunately, due largely to a number of injuries I suffered, it was not something I often joined her in doing. So again, as I crossed the river, I imagined Cara, the wind in her face, looking out at the river and at the city she loved.

Jukebox is in the Hingetown neighborhood of Ohio City, which, in the summer, has a Sunday Market that Cara and I also enjoyed attending. We had never been to the bar itself, which is too bad because it's a neat little place. I got the Corned Beef Hash with Saucisson's corned beef, Cleveland Kraut (another local company that Cara and I enjoyed patronizing at the farmer's market), Montana Girl Mustard (another great local product!), potatoes, and an egg. I also got a Cleveland Mule, a drink with local whiskey, ginger beer, and lime, similar to a drink that Cara sometimes liked to make at home. Both were delicious.

Not surprisingly given the establishment's name, there is a jukebox there with a nice eclectic music selection. I played four songs. First, "I've Got Dreams to Remember" by Otis Redding. I don't think I'd ever heard the original version of this song before; however, there is an Okkervil River song called "Listening to Otis Redding at Home During Christmas" that is one of my favorite songs ever, an incredibly nostalgic and emotional tune, and it quotes the chorus of the Redding song. Second was "Home" by Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros - one of the happiest love songs ever, and a song that Cara and I sung together in the car on the way home from seeing the Magnetic Zeros play a show in Kent. Third was "That Teenage Feeling" by Neko Case, a song that Cara once put on a mix tape (we used to make mix tapes - well technically mix CDs - for each other). Last, I played "A Day in the Life" by The Beatles, which doesn't actually have a connection to Cara for me but is a very emotional song that was one of my favorites around the time I finished high school and started college. How the years go by...

Of course, I thought of Cara the whole time, but I felt happy. I rode home feeling invigorated. Cara loved riding her bike so much, and even though I didn't ride as often as her, I now appreciate even more what a great feeling it can be. Instead of going directly home, I completed Cara's old route home by riding into Little Italy and past the place we first lived together. I then rode up Mayfield and stopped for frozen yogurt at Piccadilly in Coventry, another place we loved.

It was a weekend full of bike rides. It was also a weekend in which I went to two shows at the Beachland Ballroom, both Saturday and Sunday nights. On Saturday I met our good friend Troy to see local indie rock duo Mr. Gnome (a really great band who I had somehow overlooked for many years!) and on Sunday I went by myself to see singer/songwriter William Fitzsimmons. Although Cara did not go to nearly as many shows as I did, I have many great memories of going to the Beachland with her. Foremost would have to be the annual prom that the Beachland used to hold in May, a chance for adults to dress up and pretend they were kids again (without the hefty price tag). One year, Cara and I were voted the Queen and King of the prom! This was remarkable considering we did not actually know anyone else there, but we must have stood out as an amazing couple.

We danced at prom, of course, but some of my other best memories there also involve dancing. The first dance at our wedding was to the song "Northern Lights" by Bowerbirds. On our first wedding anniversary (to the day!) we saw Bowerbirds at the Beachland, and got to dance together to a live performance of "Northern Lights." Another time, we enjoyed dancing to Snowblink's cover of Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance With Somebody."

Another fond memory comes in the fall of 2013, little more than a month after Cara was diagnosed. We saw Okkervil River, my favorite band of all and one that was very significant in our relationship. Cara, at the time, would have gotten too tired from standing for the whole show, so we brought a wheelchair and I wheeled her up to sit front and center below the stage. Although she couldn't stand, she sang her heart out along to some of the songs.

The last time we went to a show at the Beachland together was on my birthday last year. It was a stunning performance by Sharon Van Etten that we both very much enjoyed.

Spending so much time doing things that remind me of Cara is kind of a mixed bag in the emotions it brings, but I think, in the long run, it is better to do this. And it is important for me to share it with other people. I don't want anyone who knew her to ever forget what an extraordinary person she was.

Yesterday I was shocked to learn that the mother-in-law of one of my co-workers had just passed away.

From lung cancer.

Only ten days after being diagnosed.

Life is a very amazing and a very fragile thing.

Costa Rica Part 6: Vamos a la Playa

It's been quite a while since my previous entry in this series. In the time since, we've gone on another great vacation, to the Adirondack Mountains, and there has also been a lot going on back here at home. But better late than never - here's the final part of my honeymoon journal.

The guided tour portion of the trip ended after Monteverde. There was an optional two-day extension to the tour, a stay at the Tamarindo Diria Beach Resort on the Pacific Ocean. Cara and I had decided that, considering this was our honeymoon, we could use some time to relax at the beach. So we were among those in the tour group who were continuing on to Tamarindo.

On the drive out from Monteverde, we passed over the same bridge that had given us such an adventure two days before. Fortunately, there were no such troubles this time. After descending from the mountains, we headed west, toward the Pacific. Before going to Tamarindo, we made a stop at the Liberia airport, departure point for the tour, to drop off those who weren't doing the beach extension. We said our goodbyes, and then continued on.

When we reached Tamarindo, it was time to say goodbye to our tour guides. Cara and I got a picture taken with Daniel. We'll definitely never forget him!


The weather was gorgeous when we arrived in Tamarindo, a small town on Costa Rica's Pacific coast. It was definitely a different atmosphere there from the rest of the tour - very touristy, and lots of people trying to sell you things. Yet we found that we loved it there just like everywhere else we had visited. And even if there was a certain tackiness to some of the shops and the multitude of street vendors, there was no lack of beauty to be found there by the ocean. After we departed the bus and entered the hotel's open-air lobby, I heard young Sean declare, "I see heaven." This was (roughly) the view that inspired his words:


As you can see, the resort provided us with two options for swimming - the pool, and the ocean. Cara and I spent a lot of time in the water during our two-day stay; none of it was in the pool, inviting as it looked.

When we arrived at the hotel, we were told that a few of the group's rooms were not ready yet. Cara and I were among the unlucky (relatively speaking, of course!) few. We had about an hour of time to fill, so we joined a few others from the tour group at a cafe attached to the hotel. This resulted in one of the few unpleasant experiences of the trip. The food was fine (I quite liked my fish sandwich), but the service was very uneven. The drinks Cara and I ordered didn't seem to be showing up, so after waiting perhaps twenty minutes, we repeated the order (a Sprite and a Coke) to another server. When it came time to pay the bill, I saw that we were being charged for two Sprites and two Cokes (each at three dollars a pop, to boot!), despite only having received one of each. It was clear that our waiter did not realize the first drink order had never been filled, and in fact thought that I was trying to rip him off. I tried to explain his mistake, but the language barrier made the whole situation very awkward. The extra drinks were eventually taken off the bill. I don't think the waiter was convinced of my truthfulness, so I left still feeling kind of bad about the whole thing - it was undoubtedly an honest mistake on his part. I hope he eventually understood what had actually happened, and I hope he didn't get in trouble. In any case, for me, I didn't feel bad for very long, because there was lots of great fun awaiting us in Tamarindo.

We enjoy going to the Mentor Headlands Beach on Lake Erie here during the Cleveland summers. Going in the water is a great way to beat the heat, and lying out in the sun is very relaxing. It had been years since I had been to an ocean beach, though, and the same was true for Cara. Nothing against Lake Erie, but the ocean is much better. The main reason? Waves!

It's tremendous fun to wade out into the warm ocean water and then just play amongst the waves. You don't need any special equipment, although we both thought that surfing looked fun and that we might have taken lessons if we had had one more day. Still, just throwing your body against the breaking waves, or diving toward the shore as the waves pass and letting them carry you, is awesome. It took me back to my childhood, doing the same thing in North Carolina on a vacation to my aunt's. Cara and I spent large portions of both of our days in Tamarindo just frolicking in the water. We absolutely loved it.

Besides the waves, the other big differences between the ocean and the beach back home included the salt water, and the tides. Salt water is obvious, I guess, but it still took me by surprise the first time some splashed in my face. And the tides - they were very dramatic at Tamarindo, because the beach had an extremely gradual slope. It was an eerie sensation when Cara and I walked out on to the beach at night, near low tide, and we were standing in the sand where we had been in the water that afternoon, peering out into a vast darkness, unable to even see the ocean.

There are two places that, to me, sum up our stay in Tamarindo. The first is the beach. The second? Nibbana restaurant. If you're reading this, I suppose it's more likely than not that you'll never be in Tamarindo, Costa Rica, but in case you do ever have the chance - go to this restaurant!

The first night in Tamarindo, we got almost everyone from our tour group who was doing the beach extension, about twenty people in all, to go to the restaurant together for dinner. I found myself instantly taken by Nibbana's atmosphere. The dining room is open on three sides to the outdoors, and the tropical night air felt great. (I should mention that we were somewhat taken aback by the fact that smoking is permitted in restaurants, as used to be common here in the States, but we fortunately didn't have to put up with significant amounts of smoke during any of our meals.) It was great fun to hang out there in our big group, chilling out and talking about all our experiences of the past week.

Another thing to recommend Nibbana is the happy hour drink specials. Two-for-one drinks during lunch hours and from 5-7, with great cocktails that normally only cost $4.50 or $5.50 each? Hard to beat that deal!


Pictured is a Hawai, a drink with rum, curacao, pineapple, and coconut. They were fantastic.

But how about the food? Oh, it was excellent as well. Cara and I liked it so much that we ended up going there for dinner on the first night, then for both lunch and dinner the next day. My favorite dish was a pasta with vodka cream sauce, lobster and shrimp. Everything we got there was delicious, including tropical ceviche, chicken curry with coconut rice, and more mundane fare like pizza. Not to mention dessert!

Taking all that into account, Nibbana would probably be one of my favorite restaurants ever. But there's more. I mentioned that Tamarindo has lots of people trying to sell you stuff. This includes street vendors walking up to your tables in restaurants. To an American, this seemed very strange, and was kind of annoying. But in addition to the street vendors, there were also roving musicians who came into the restaurant from off the streets and played for the patrons. Amusingly, on the second night a guy played '90s rock hits on an acoustic guitar. It was rather charming. Later that night a band of young men from Argentina entertained us. The first night's music was the best, though. That was when a mariachi band performed for us - a very, very good mariachi band. Cara and I were both in awe of the trumpeter, in particular. They played some stereotypical mariachi band songs, like "La Cucaracha" and "La Bamba." Then one of our tour mates suggested we ask if they knew a traditional Costa Rican drinking song that our tour guide Fabian had performed at the lunch in Arenal. That performance had been an English translation of the song, which was clearly lacking something. Could we get the mariachi band to play the song in all its original glory? They did not speak English, but Cara came to the rescue when she asked them, in Spanish, whether they knew the "Costa Rican drunk song" - and they knew what she meant, and played it for us! Sitting in that restaurant, smiling and laughing and sharing in the moment with the friends we'd made over the course of an amazing week, I just felt really fortunate to be there and to have had such a wonderful experience. Oh, and that mariachi band got some generous tips from our table!

One more unexpected bonus capped off the Nibbana experience. With the bill, we received free shots of guaro (sugar cane liquor) mixed with coconut cream. They were great. We tried to recreate them back home with some guaro we purchased in Tamarindo, but didn't come close.

So, Nibbana was one of the highlights of the whole trip. On our second day at the beach, in between lunch at Nibbana and dinner at Nibbana, we basically spent the afternoon at the beach. This included lots of time in the water. It also included couples massages in the hotel's garden next to the beach. I'd never had a professional massage before, and it was very nice. With the ocean breeze and the sound of the waves, in fact, it's hard to imagine any future massage experience matching up.

The last morning in Tamarindo, Cara and I ate breakfast, and then walked out to the beach. I know we both had mixed emotions. We were looking forward to going home, but at the same time, we didn't want to leave. This latter feeling was augmented by the fact that that morning had the nicest weather we experienced on the entire trip. I don't have any complaints about the weather overall, but that morning was just stunning.


We definitely made a great decision by picking Costa Rica for our honeymoon. Cara and I both agreed that the trip was the most amazing experience of our lives. We hope to go again some time in the future, but until then, we will have with us a few neat souvenirs, a whole bunch of pictures, some good friends, and lots of amazing memories. ¡Pura vida!

Costa Rica - Part One

Last week, Cara and I went on a tour of Costa Rica for our honeymoon. We had a wonderful time, and I think we'd both say that we'd like to be back there. It would be a nice respite from the heat.

In Cleveland, Ohio, at 11 pm, the temperature is about 90 degrees Fahrenheit with a heat index of 100. During a week in the tropics, we didn't have to endure anything like this. In fact, I can't remember the last time I experienced weather like today. Hopefully the next such occurence will be a long time from now. But I digress; this is a post about Costa Rica.

Cara and I both agreed that our honeymoon was the best experience of our lives. We will definitely take a lot of life-long memories with us from the trip. Yet memories, even the strongest ones, inevitably fade and become distorted with the passage of time. Thus, I felt it would be useful to write down these memories while they are still relatively fresh in mind. I also figure that there are at least a few people out there who'd be interested in a detailed recounting of the trip. So, let's start from the beginning.

On Saturday, July 9, we got up bright and early and took the RTA Red Line to the airport to catch our flight, first to Houston and then to San Jose, Costa Rica. It was the first time Cara had ever flown, and she was a little nervous about it. Our flight to Houston went very smoothly. The second leg of the trip began worryingly, as we were assigned to seats on the plane far apart from each other. I was seated next to a nice man from a mission group who noticed my "Just Married" shirt. We struck up a conversation, and I mentioned that my wife was seated elsewhere on the plane, and asked if he would be willing to switch seats with her when the opportunity arose. He kindly obliged. It was a good thing he did, especially because the descent into San Jose was the most intense experience I've encountered in all my time flying.

As we were making our approach to Costa Rica's capital and flying through some clouds, there was a great deal of turbulence. Then, suddenly, the plane seemed to be dropping from the sky. This lasted several seconds, and repeated several times. It was a little freaky for me, and much more so for Cara, whose strong grip I felt on my leg. Finally we emerged from the clouds, and the actual landing was fine. We were later told that San Jose, because it is surrounded by mountains, is one of the most difficult major airports to fly into in the world. Our next stop on the trip involved a journey of several hours that could also be accomplished with a half-hour trip on a small plane going out of San Jose (in the same general direction we came in) - but that plane trip caused most people who took it to lose their lunches.

We went through customs, where I was asked (in Spanish) how much Spanish I spoke. I replied, "un poco" (a little). The customs agent said something like, "How much is a little?" She proceeded to ask where I was going and how long I would be in the country in Spanish. Although it was slow-going, I did manage to respond accurately in Spanish, which seemed to surprise her. I felt somewhat proud, although as the ensuing week would reveal, Cara's skills at conversational Spanish are much, much better than mine.

We were picked up by one of our tour guides with several other members of the group to take a shuttle to our hotel. It's funny now to think about how all those people were complete strangers to us at the time, and by the end of the trip we considered many of them friends. We were quite tired from a day of travel when we arrived at our hotel, the posh Intercontinental San Jose. We needed to eat dinner, and decided to check out a mall across the street. When we headed outside, we were greeted by one of the first of many amazing experiences with animals on the trip. We heard birds - lots of them. Looking up revealed that the trees were absolutely packed with green parrots. We both got smiles, kind of like, "Yeah, we're really in Costa Rica."

The mall, on the other hand, was not so different from what one might find in the states, except that most things were written in Spanish. The food court mostly contained American fast food joints. We settled on tacos from a place not familiar to us - we didn't want to eat McDonald's or Taco Bell in Costa Rica! They were pretty good. The most interesting part of the food court was a place that served rice pudding - about twenty different flavors of rice pudding. Cara got caramel and I got coconut, and we both thought it was quite good.

We headed back to the hotel, and after relaxing in the room, went down to the large outdoor pool. However, after the sun went down the temperature had become rather cool, and it was too cold for swimming. We did enjoy the hot tub for a little while, before heading back to the room and basically collapsing. The next day would be another early rise.

You see, in Costa Rica, all year round the sun comes up at around 5:30 am and goes down by around 6:00 pm. It seems obvious when you think about it, as it's so close to the equator, but before traveling there, it might not be something you'd consider. Costa Rica is currently two hours behind Ohio, but geographically, San Jose is just two degrees longitude west of Columbus. In fact, with frequent 5:30 wakeups - which is 7:30 here - if anything, our bodies had to adjust slightly in the opposite direction for the time change. In any case, with how exhausted we were at the end of most days, getting on a regular sleep schedule was no trouble at all.

We did not stay long in San Jose - it's, let's just say, not the nice part of the country. We did, though, get to enjoy a fabulous breakfast buffet at the hotel before we departed. It was our first exposure to gallo pinto, rice and beans, the national dish of Costa Rica. Next to the rice and beans was a container of a green sauce, which I added to the gallo pinto, and found the combination to be delightful. The green sauce is called Lizano sauce, and it's the most popular condiment in Costa Rica. I fell in love with this sauce, and we bought some to take home; I'm sure it's something I'll continue to enjoy for years to come. The buffet contained far more than gallo pinto; there was a fabulous assortment of breads, meats, cheeses, eggs, tortillas, fresh fruits and fruit juices . . . this was just the beginning of a week of fabulous food experiences. More on that to come, certainly!

After eating, we loaded up on our tour buses. The tour group had 51 members, and we took two 50-seat coaches, so there was plenty of room to spread out when we felt like it. Each bus had a tour guide. Bus Two's was Fabian, who had picked us up at the airport. Cara and I were on Bus One, with Daniel, who turned out to be a remarkable guide. You will certainly hear some more about him in posts to come.

Our destination for the day was Tortuguero National Park, a remote location in the northeast of the country, on the shore of the Caribbean Sea. On the way there, we stopped for a "second breakfast" (as hobbits might put it) at a restaurant on the side of the road. It was scrumptious (including more gallo pinto, which I'm sure most people tired of by the end of the week, but I didn't - thanks to Lizano sauce!). In the back of the restaurant was a wonderful butterfly garden.


I took a lot of pictures on the trip. I'll include a few in these posts, but many more can be found on my Flickr.

Then it was more driving, much of it on a very bumpy road - the "free massage road," as Daniel put it. However, Tortuguero can not be reached by driving. We had to get off the buses and transfer to boats for an hour-plus ride through both natural and man-made waterways, during which we reached the national park. Already, on both the drive and the boat ride, the scenery on the trip was spectacular. There's just so much green.

And so we reached Tortuguero, where we stayed at the Laguna Lodge. This was just the start of our Costa Rica adventures, but I think I will leave it at here for now. The next entry will describe some awe-inspiring wildlife encounters.

Fitz and the Tantrums at the Rock Hall

If one were looking for a showcase of reasons Cleveland is an exciting place to live, this past Wednesday evening at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame would be a perfect example - nice summer weather, great food, and a rocking music scene. Rising band Fitz and the Tantrums kicked off the Rock Hall's Summer in the City series of free concerts by playing to a large crowd in front of the world-famous museum on the shores of Lake Erie.

Cara and I headed down early to grab a bite to eat from Cleveland's growing fleet of food trucks, represented that evening by Umami Moto, Jibaro, and Dim and Den Sum. Having grabbed some tasty eats from Umami quite recently, I opted for a burrito from Jibaro, which was quite good. I also got a delicious cinnamon coated, cream-filled churro. Cara went with the always excellent PBLT from Dim and Den Sum. It was a sunny day, and the heat was quite sweltering as we sat and ate, but as the sun went down it turned out to be good weather for an outdoor concert. It was great to see so many people out and enjoying the Cleveland summertime.

Local band Clovers played first, with an enjoyable set of tunes that seemed appropriate for the venue - I got a definite classic rock vibe. It was really a wonderful setting for a concert.


The crowd continued to grow throughout Clovers' set and in the break before the headliners. The turnout was impressive, but not too surprising considering that Fitz and the Tantrums sold out the Grog Shop on their previous (and first) visit to Cleveland. Before Fitz and company took the stage, a man from the Rock Hall came on to give a spiel about the band and the concert series. He remarked that Fitz and the Tantrums have been described as "neo-soul," but he felt this was not really an appropriate characterization, and "retro soul" would be more fitting. I found myself agreeing with him; the band really brings a classic Motown sound to their music.


Fitz and the Tantrums are really picking up some buzz, and their live show made it clear why. Their songs are packed with stellar male-female vocals and grooving sax, keyboard, percussion, and basslines. They played most of their original material for an adoring audience, and also threw in a pair of covers: "Steady As She Goes" by the Raconteurs and "Sweet Dreams" by Eurythmics. The latter, played near the end of the set, became an extended jam session with each instrumentalist getting a solo.

The band proceeded to bring down the house (as it were) with their last song, the absolutely infectious "MoneyGrabber." Before the song, they commented that it was great to see so many children in the audience getting to experience real live music at a young age, and then invited the children up onto the stage to dance along. This was really special to see. I'm sure it will be a great memory for those kids.


And be sure to check out the MoneyGrabber video. If you don't feel like shaking your hips to this song, you might be dead inside.

The Summer in the City series continues with three more shows coming up:

Wednesday, July 13th from 7-9 p.m.: Das Racist with Smoke Screen and Muamin Collective
Wednesday, August 3rd from 7-9 p.m.: The Joy Formidable with HotChaCha
Wednesday, August 17th from 7-9 p.m.: Murder by Death with the Buried Wires

Each one should be a good time, and did I mention they're free? It's hard to beat that deal!