It would be funny if I didn't feel like cryin'

No, not about my own uterus (which I *will* have taken out this November), but about the political climate. It is what makes me avoid talking to my mother and stepfather, who are not even nominally Republicans, because I find myself stepping in it all the time.

I see Romney and Ryan and I think about the rich kids I served while working in college - the kids who waved their parents' credit cards in my face with the "don't you know who I am?" smirks. I see the Obamas and I think about the smart kids I worked with - the ones who were going on to grad school on their own merits. I know who I want to represent me and that little hapa son of mine.

Conniving, as always

it’s advisable to check in advance to confirm engagements.

From "The New Yorker"

ROCK AND POP

Musicians and night-club proprietors live complicated lives; it’s advisable to check in advance to confirm engagements.

You can say that again. A poor band from New Zealand didn't make their appointed date in our living room - twice. The first time, their newly minted old van sprung an oil leak and the second, there was a catastrophic implosion between the band members. It left them all traumatized, so very far from home, and at a loss for how to move on. We're in the midst of a heatwave, and I had to urge the members with the van not to try their maiden voyage up US395. 

In some way, the cancellation was a great way to have a wee gathering. I got the chance to dance with dear Karen and Betsey and some new lovely folks moving to town. The first set of songs - led by "How Soon is Now" kicked off what I affectionately call "Emo Hour."

Stephen took to calling me Yoko - because I got involved with a band, and they broke up. Hey, he's Brazillian and isn't saddled with all the PC stuff and for that, I can roll with the name. 

It's bliss.

What is wrong with me when I find 2 hours in the MRI tube a mini vacation? I didn't even get to bring  music! I turned all the clunking and thunking into some Germantechno lullaby and fell asleep.

Turns out, my angry lady bits are getting the better of me this year. I now have license to act like a crazy middle aged woman because all the bits are going haywire. (There is a reason they named the hysterectomy the hysterectomy. Turns out, I don't need one - yet). There's a good, very methodical new doctor in town and we are slowly, slowly figuring it all out.

With all the change happening in folks' lives (change without trauma like last year - mind, when it felt like all the relationships we knew - ours included-  imploded, exploded, and everything in-between), I am grateful that I still like this life, have insurance, have goals. Most importantly, the other day, I was able to tell Matt that if I dropped dead tomorrow, the ONLY thing I would regret would be not seeing Babbo grow up. Otherwise, I could die a happy (mostly) and content person.

In a related note re: change - wishing the Gaggias well in their new careers and lives in Ventura. It's rare that folks make the foray back into the "big city" - but being realistic - it's hard to make a living here in Bishop.

From yesterday's New York Times

I try to remain mindful and grateful, but some days I really fail. I stuck Wyatt like a pig the other day trying out a new kind of infusion needle. Instead of being compassionate, I was angry because things didn't go as we hoped.

I have been lucky that my few bouts of depression have been very short-lived and not frequent. I realize, though, that anxiety and anger and depression are close relations.

I think seeing this article makes me feel better about spending some hard earned cash on a family adventure this year. A change of scenery and a change of routine will do us good.

Parents’ Depression Linked to Problems in Children

By PERRI KLASS, M.D.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/07/parents-depression-linked-to-problems-in-children/?pagemode=print

Like many other primary care doctors, I sometimes sense the shadow of depression hovering at the edges of the exam room. I am haunted by one mother with severe postnatal depression. Years ago, I took proper care of the baby, but I missed the mother’s distress, as did everyone else.

Nowadays it’s increasingly clear that pediatricians, obstetrician-gynecologists and internists must be more alert. Research into postnatal depression in particular has underscored the importance of checking up on parents’mental health in the first months of a baby’s life.

But a parent’s depression, it turns out, can be linked to all kinds of problems, even in the lives of older children.

“Depression is an illness that feeds upon itself,” said Dr. William Beardslee, professor of child psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, who has spent his career studying depression in children and developing family interventions. “Very often people who are depressed don’t seek the care they need.”

In 2009, the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council issued a report, “Depression in Parents, Parenting, and Children,” that summarized a large and growing body of research on the ways that parental depression can affect how people take care of their children, and how those children fare.

One in five Americans will suffer from depression at some point, noted Dr. Beardslee, who was on the committee that issued the report. “Untreated, unrecognized parental depression can lead to negative consequences for kids,” he said, ranging from poor school performance to increased visits to the emergency room to poorer peer relationships and adolescent depression.

Moreover, there is plenty of evidence that when depressed parents get treatment and help with their parenting, families are much better off.

Depression is certainly treatable, said Dr. Mary Jane England, a psychiatrist and professor of health policy and management at Boston University School of Public Health, who led the Institute of Medicine committee.

But, she added, “because of stigma and lack of training of some of our primary care practitioners, we don’t pick it up.”

Depression damages the interactions between parents and children, and disrupts family routines and rituals. Children with a depressed parent are themselves more likely to manifest symptoms of depression, research shows, along with other psychiatric problems and behavior issues. They are more likely to make visits to the emergency room and more likely to be injured.

A depressed parent may have trouble following a plan of preventive care if a child has a medical problem like asthma. But higher rates of depression in parents whose children have chronic medical problems may also reflect the stress of dealing with those problems, especially for psychologically vulnerable parents.

Depression may become part of a vicious cycle in these families: An overwhelmed and depressed parent is less able to follow a complex medical regimen, and a child ends up in the emergency room or the hospital, creating more pressure and more stress for the family.

“There is a high burden of maternal depression, anxiety,” among mothers bringing children to an emergency room, said Dr. Jacqueline M. Grupp-Phelan, a pediatric emergency room specialist at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. “It influences their own perception of how well they can deal with their kids’ problems.”

It’s also become clear that there may be genetic propensities to depression. Its appearance in parent and child may in part reflect inherited vulnerabilities.

And all of that reaffirms how critical it is for primary care doctors to ask the right questions and offer diagnosis without stigma.

“Moms appreciate being asked,” said Dr. Grupp-Phelan, who has done research on the acceptability of mental health screening. “It may be the only time they’ve been asked about their depression.”

I often find myself urging mothers to pay more attention to their own medical problems and mental health. Pediatric colleagues tell stories of depressed parents who break down and cry during a child’s visit, but then say they’re too busy taking care of the family to get help for themselves.

I don’t love the “do it for your child’s sake” argument; I worry it suggests that the parent isn’t important in her own right. But to be honest, I make that argument anyway, because it works.

“They are open to doing something about their own issues because it could help their kid, and that’s a very strong hook for mothers,” Dr. Grupp-Phelan said. And when the “doing something” includes a focus on the whole family, those routines and rituals and routines can be rebuilt, and there’s plenty of research to show that children are resilient.

So if parents are open to being asked, and if we know that identifying depression has important benefits for our patients and their parents, why aren’t we better at asking?

As a pediatrician, I tend to focus on the child, of course. Asking mental health questions of the parent can sometimes feel intrusive or invasive.

And there’s the worry that even if you identify a problem, there may not be good help available. When poverty and lack of access are combined with parental depression, not surprisingly, the risks are that much greater.

And in looking for parental depression, in asking about it and discussing the risks, there may be a sense that doctors are placing blame. I think we fear that parents who are struggling with these shadows will feel accused and inadequate.

“The last thing in the world we should be doing is blaming parents,” Dr. Beardslee said. “We should be reaching out and offering hope.”

RIP Sierra Phantom

Coverage from Blogging in Bishop

(Photo courtesy of Chris Morrison)
The Sierra Phantom 
BY ANDY SELTERS

KICK AROUND DOWNTOWN BISHOP and likely you’ll see a slender old man sporting a billowy white beard and pedaling a bike trimmed in faux-leopard fur. His embroidered Western regalia and his suitcase-pannier proclaim that he is: 
SIERRA PHANTOM
PRO MOUNTAINEER
FISHING GUIDE CREATOR OF WILD-TROUT GLITTER FLIES

Now Bishop collects all kinds of knockabouts, interesting and otherwise, and for years I assumed “The Phantom” was a showy curiosity. Then one day in the mountains I ran into him, miles from the trailhead. He carried his spry skeleton down the track like he was right at home, and in tow he had a palefaced young couple with fish on their stringers and smiles across their cheeks. As he acknowl-edged me with a “Howdy,” I had to wonder if this ornamented geezer might have a real Sierra legacy. Back on Main Street, John P. Glover gave me his card and invited me over to hear his story.

The Phantom lives in a small studio, the walls covered with fading photographs and mounted trout and trout flies. On a bench sits a fly-tying jig. Sitting back on his bed, he looked gaunt, and not so much at home.

He began, “I used to have a chain of camps in the High Sierra, from South Lake all the way to Mosquito Flat. I had eight of them all together.” He told how at each site he built a shelter by digging into the ground, and then laying a roof of criss-crossed pine boughs. “I had to trap, hunt, fish, gather wild greens, and utilize what was in the area. Now, I did this for 51 years.” “Fifty-one years?” I almost choked. “For most of the year?”
“All year.”
“All year, three-hundred and sixty-five days?” I pressed. “Three hundred and sixty-five days. From 1946 until 1997.”
I sat back and heard my baloney detector beeping, trying to imagine all the trials of surviving year-round in the High Sierra. But he had me hooked, I couldn’t resist hearing more. “In all that time I survived avalanches, quicksand, bogs, whiteouts, electrical storms, hypothermia...There’s nothing in the area that I don’t know about.” 
Quicksand, bogs? Those aren’t part of the High Sierra I know. But other things he said had a ring of credibility. He named off remote places accurately, like Amphitheater Lake and Blackcap Basin. And he told why he had eight camps.

“Because if I stayed in one camp too long, I’d harm the ecology of the area. I had to rotate through one camp a year, to put as little pressure on the environment as possible. And after nine years when I got back to the first camp, the area would have re-propagated, you couldn’t tell anybody’d been there. Secondly, for my own safety, if one camp got destroyed or something, then I could always go to the next.

“I quit school in the eighth grade, we got very little education back then. But if you know how nature works, you learn how to survive, you learn how to be a jack-of-all-trades. I grew up in the woods in Oregon and Washington, and I learned how to fish, hunt, trap, and make all kinds of things. I’d make my own fishing pole with a willow stick, safety pins as eyelets, and an empty thread spool.” I was having a hard time swallowing 51 years, but I also couldn’t write off my sense of a genuine essence

“I traded porcupine quills and hides with the Indians for food…You learn the tricks of nature. You learn how to pre-predict the weather. And I’ve never been wrong in 51 years.”

“Did you ski?” I interrogated. “Very little, mostly I made my own snowshoes by bending green branches over a fire… “Did you ever come into town?”
“Yes, if food was scarce I would walk all the way into Bishop with two 5-gallon buckets and get my carbohydrates. Then I’d walk all the way back up...”
“Did you ever get harassed by the Forest Service?” “Sure, they were chasing after me for 30 years. Not once did they ever catch me or find my camps. And I told them I had the right to be up there because I’m a professional mountaineer, which I can prove, and I gave up four years of my life fighting the Japanese up in Alaska.

“And the other thing is that, except for a few groups like the Sierra Club, Americans never backpacked in the High Sierra until all this technology came up, not until 1960. And by 1970 there were 20,000 ding-a-lings running up and down the John Muir Trail, trying to climb Mt. Whitney, treating the Sierra like it was Prospect Park. That’s when I had to become a search and rescue agent. I came across families, Boy Scout groups, people who were injured, people with hypo-thermia, hyperventilation, bunions, bruises, the whole bit. I never worked for the sheriff or anything, I did it all on my own. It was just driving me nuts.”

In 1979, Phantom says a fierce, late-summer storm hit, turned to snow, and over four days he had to rescue a whole canyon full of backpackers and fishermen. The ordeal gave him frostbite, and he was “hypothermiating the whole time.” “You know how to catch fish?” I prompted.
“I am the undisputed fishing master of the High Sierra. These pictures are just a scratch in the bucket...1956, a strange thing happened, I was trying to improve my fly family, and I saw this 12-inch golden trout, the sun at my back, it was shining like a spotlight, and wham! I thought, if you could take that shine and put it on a lure, you could sure amplify your catch…

And to perfect his World Famous Glitter Fly? 
“When you shoot your deer, you knock off the hooves and boil ‘em and scrape the film off the surface, and that’s the strongest epoxy anywhere. And so I had a fly that carries so much oil you can put it in the water for 20 years and it will never sink. And I tie little eyes on…This is 70 years of science that nobody in the history of fishing has ever thought of…

“In 1997, the frostbite and hypothermia from 1979 finally caught up with me. The Paiute chief, Dan Silverspoon, came up to check on me, and I couldn’t move. I told him, let me be, I’m ready to go. But he said, ‘you have knowledge that nobody else has, you have to come down and share that knowledge.’ And he carried me down.”

Glover is 83 now, and since 1997 he has lived in town, venturing into the mountains only on day trips, showing people how and where to catch fish, and helping others.

“Anybody who needs food or anything, that door is always open… I have a guy who takes me down to Pleasant Valley Reservoir, and I keep two fish for myself, and I find seniors or a family with kids… And Raymond’s Deli returns that karmic favor, giving him a table to troll for conversation and customers from, and an occasional sandwich.

I kept asking myself, could the Phantom really have lived in the Sierra for decades, a neo-Daniel Boone? Logic said, nah, no way. On the other hand, his tale stayed very consistent, and I couldn’t dismiss it outright. Maybe he wraps a few boasts, like glitter, around a very real core. I met him a second time. This time I drove us out to Pleasant Valley. With his lungs still hurting from a hit-and-run incident with a car, we strolled slowly toward the reservoir, and he was indeed frail compared to when I saw him striding the high country. But as he talked—never a problem with that—pieces began to come together. 
“I’m a loner. I want to be alone. And man, I had one nasty childhood. I was born in Hollywood but my parents were slaughtered when I was three years old. In 1929 they went back to Germany to try to retrieve their relatives, and Hitler slaughtered all of ‘em. He took their property to feed the army, who were starving. That’s how he came to power. So in the meantime the Depression hit and I was turned over as a ward of the court. I went through three families, five orphanages, and I was nothing but a damned slave to every one of‘em. Most of them were alcoholics, one father beat the #### out of me with a quarter-round, so this kind of turned me against the world and all.

“In World War II, I was a sniper up there in Alaska, at Dutch Harbor. It was declared the second Pearl Harbor. And after that I just got disgusted with people killin’ and beatin’ each other and everything. And so I decided to live in nature. Nature is a fantastic teacher.”

As he said that we reached the reservoir. His blue eyes promptly lit up, his head lifted, and his enthusiasm came back. And he declared, “This is my real home, this is the greatest country anywhere.” Phantom pulled out a paper and handed it to me. It was printed with his own poetry. I started to read,
Hiking the Sierra’s a mile a smile
I heard strange music and paused a while
It filled the air, it humbled me,
‘twas the magic of nature’s symphony…
And I realized that, one way or another, the Sierra Nevada has put the life into the Phantom’s heart, and that’s what really counts

J.P "Sierra Phantom" Glover
1926-2012
May he rest in peace

For the love of winter

We have been spending our weekends up at Mammoth Mountain skiing.
After years of flailing around on light telemark gear, I bought some old beater downhill gear and made the switch back to the kind of skiing I did when I was a kid.
Holy hell, it's fun!
Six year old Babbo is kicking my ass, but it is as it should be.

Reason enough to be relieved he's not doing well

It's weird to think that I could vote for a person based on one or two issues alone, but after having had the likes of Perry and Santorum in the Republican field of candidates.....

Rick Santorum thinks pregnancy through rape is God's gift? Seriously?

25 Jan 2012: Kate Harding: Invoking God's will as a supporting argument to his position on abortion hardly fits with the constitution he claims to uphold

• 
• • Kate Harding
  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 25 January 2012 06.30 EST
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Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum (left) signs autographs at a Tea Party campaign rally. Photograph: Joe Skipper/Reuters

As a lapsed Catholic turned atheist, a staunch feminist and someone who has a strong general aversion to sleazy, disingenuous men, I was shocked yesterday to find myself feeling something like respect for Rick Santorum, Pope Benedict XVI and Piers Morgan all in the space of three minutes.

The three minutes in question are a clip from Morgan's interview with Santorum on the former's CNN talk show. In it, Santorum declares that even if his own daughter were raped – a hypothetical scenario both men manage to discuss with remarkable calm – the Roman Catholic presidential candidate would maintain his adamantly pro-life position regarding abortion.

I sincerely feel a tiny, grudging mote of respect for that degree of consistency. As anti-choice zealots go, those who will take the "baby killer" argument to its extreme appeal to me slightly more than those who can say with a straight face that abortion is murder, except when the woman didn't want to have sex.

Of course, that's the beginning and the end of my respect for Santorum, who had the gall to tell Morgan that his opposition to legal abortion is "not a matter of religious values". He insists that it's founded on his interpretation of the US constitution, as opposed to his interpretation of the teachings of Jesus Christ: "[L]ife begins at conception and persons are covered by the constitution, and because human life is the same as a person, to me it was a pretty simple deduction to make that that's what the constitution clearly intended to protect."

Hang on, I need a moment. Reading those words just gave me a bad flashback to tutoring hopeless freshman composition students in a university writing lab.

We're to believe that Santorum's desire to overturn Roe v Wade is "not a matter of religious values", yet, when discussing a hypothetical pregnancy by rape just moments later, he says: "I believe and I think that the right approach is to accept this horribly created, in the sense of rape, but nevertheless, in a very broken way, a gift of human life, and accept what God is giving to you." ("In the sense of rape." Deep breaths, Kate.) "Gift from God," "person under the law" – why quibble about semantic differences? The point is: Life! Glorious life! Santorum will defend it!

And here's where my blip of respect for Morgan comes along. "I know that your position is – correct me if I'm wrong – that you believe in the sanctity and the innocence of life. How do you equate that with supporting the death penalty?" he asks. Boo-yah! I dearly wish more American reporters would put that question to self-styled "pro-life" candidates who evince little interest in the sanctity of human life ex utero.

That brings us to my smidgen of respect for Pope Benedict XVI – and for that matter,John Paul II before him – for making it clear that Catholic doctrine, in a moment of convergence with common sense, holds that a pro-life position contraindicates revenge-killing born people. "It cannot be overemphasised that the right to life must be recognised in all its fullness," Pope Benedict said in 2009, praising the abolition of the death penalty in Mexico. So at least in that one respect, Santorum can truthfully say that his political intentions are not based on his professed religious values.

Still, if you can't even speak for a whole minute on a political issue without invoking "God's will" as a supporting argument, you have no business running for president of a country whose constitution actually – no weasel words or tortured logic necessary to make this case – enshrines freedom of religion. That alone should be enough to make any American who truly loves liberty and the vision of the "founding fathers" lose all respect for Rick Santorum as a politician.

But if you're not persuaded by that, just try remembering that he said becoming pregnant by a rapist is a gift from God. Out loud. With a camera on him. And he wants to be president of a country that has women in it.

What does this man have to do to get drummed out of the race?

It's ugmo and it might be ours

We've been in the market for a new car. We go down to LA often enough for Children's Hospital visits that we need a reliable Schoberlew mover that won't break down on the way down and that won't break the bank in gas. Used cars are really expensive right now and I'm sort of tired dealing with all the baggage that comes with owning two 1994 Toyotas - one with over 100,000 miles and one with over 200,000 miles. 

So after having test driven the Toyota Matrix and the Honda Fit, we are pretty much sold on the Fit. This will be the first non-Toyota I've ever owned. 

The automatic gets 35 miles to the gallon and the manual gets 33. As much as I wanted a manual, it might be more practical to get the AT.

[Shakes fist in the air]

Had a great quick trip thanks to work and United Airlines to the Bay Area for two days. I made it to my first staff retreat in 12 years of employment! My office really does fight the great public health fight, and I work with so many dedicated people and friends.

It took me nearly the whole two days to get my city on. I brought a compass and discreetly whipped it out when I came out of the holes in the ground that are BART stations. Speaking of which, dude, the upholstered seats on BART have to go. There's a vaguely pooey/peeey element about those damned seats, and it's activated every time somebody gets up or sits down. Having said all this, I was grateful for the chance to catch up with my dearest friend (and boss) Diane at the un-upholstered North Berkeley station while we waited for our trains.

I stayed with Chris and Val next to Mission Dolores in "the City." They lived in Bishop until late 2004, and I've only seen them once since. A lot has happened to us all in the intervening years (we - the parenting route, they- back to the high flying, venture capitaling/consulting route), but it was beautiful to pick up where we left off - feeling loved and telling tales with blankies on our laps on their most perfect couch.

They spoiled me and ruined my life (probably in more ways than one) when they introduced me to these little bastards (which are not shipped by any retailer) http://www.4505meats.com/chicharrones/

The week started with a most perfect family ski day at Mammoth. We had a date with two lovely families and did laps on mellow Chair 7 and Chair 16. The kids decided that two hours wasn't enough and became masters of their own universe and did endless laps on the poma lift. They were free. They were happy. It was t-shirt weather. It was a good way to put me on a wee plane and send me off to the big city. 

Babbo's blood sugars were out of control the morning after I got back and we either gave him some bad luncheon meat or he had a bad stomach virus. I was glad to be home for him.

Food notes: got to eat Mission Chinese. Had Tripe Florentine (land squid) and calamari (sea tripe) at Delfina. Happy girl.

"No, Babbo, it's gratitude, not attitude."

We went on a bomber run to Reno and had a nice visit with one of my mothers-in-law. I know in the scheme of things, the chance to be with our folks is finite. There was no drama. Nobody cried. The drive home through Smith Valley, Nevada, was glorious.

We're trying to walk that fine line by not spoiling the child, but damn if he isn't blessed with an embarrassment of riches from his four sets of grandparents, school nurse, friends, etc. Still, I had to remind him, "No, Babbo, it's gratitude, not attitude."

So, with this lesson in mind, I must say that I was personally grateful for the following this year:

• our folks' relative health
• our health
• health insurance
• frequent flier miles (can't use them any time soon, but they allow us the chance to dream, non?)
• dual immersion Spanish at Bishop Elementary School
• the first graders I am with on a weekly basis
• the care I got from friends and family - it kept my head above water this year
• work and seeing all my workmates and my dear Diane at Fallen Leaf Lake in Tahoe
• getting to babysit Zartie the Black Lab a few times and not having our own dog - just yet
• the fact that my dad has taken such good care of Judydog who is white faced and arthritic, but happy 
• the mornings where Babbo and I walk a block to school - we're not late and we're just talking and holding hands and being
• the quickie trip to Europe to see the Phoenix Foundation and being with dear people
• the quickie trip to LA to goof off with Sue Brettingen, Steven Schayer, Marc Horton, Chantelle Patterson, Patria Jacobs, Martin Wong. It was the trip that made me fall in love with my hometown again.
• the High Sierra Music Festival
• the yellow I am painting the living room - it has helped with the winter blues
• skiing en famille

All hail the foundation garment

I bought myself a girdle. Middle age has meant that my bits and bobs feel like they are falling off. I am now my grandmother.

Good riddance

I for one am glad to see the backside of summer and spring 2011. A friend said that Mercury was in serious retrograde this year and that all relationships were up for reconsideration. I laughed it off, until one day, recently, the psychic goo I'd been carrying around for months lifted. Mercury went out of retrograde that day.

At any rate, Matt and Babbo and I are still a family. I will take it. My heart really goes out to folks who didn't make it through what has been a hard 2011 and who are finding their way in the world again.

10 reasons to travel - LA Times

latimes.com

10 reasons to travel

Why not? Even in these tough times, it's good to get away occasionally. Think of the adventures that await. The exotic foods, the sights, the memories.

By Chris Erskine

Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

February 27, 2011

Gulliver traveled. Look where it got him: lashed to the land by little people. Columbus, big traveler, right? Underestimated the circumference of the Earth and died thinking he'd found India. Sure, you can come up with justifications for never leaving the splendid safety of your office chair. Truth is, travel makes us better in many ways: better employees, better buddies, better mates. So, no, in these tough times, you probably don't feel the need to spend the money. But here's why we all should escape somewhere anyway:

The anticipation

Pros: A vacation begins the second you start to plan it. A study last year found that travelers' moods improved eight weeks before the actual vacation started.

Cons: Running out of toner the second you try to print your boarding pass. Trying to remember where you put the digital luggage scale. Rushing out to buy batteries for the digital luggage scale.

Why go anyway? Because the pleasure of pre-trip anticipation is almost sexual. It's why December is better than January. It's why puppies are more joyful than dogs.

The romance

Pros: Lonely? Get your booty to St. Lucie. There's nothing like a big, beachy drink to jump-start your love life. Studies show we have more sex on vacation. Whose study? Mine.

Cons: Heartbreak. Disease. Liver failure. Excessive drinking while on vacation can lead to inadvisable hook-ups. Or even marriage.

Why go anyway? Sun. Surf. Wet skin. Diving in. Good snow. Moon glow. Fresh faces. Love in strange places.

Mental health benefits

Pros: Look at your coworkers sleepwalking through their day. Know exactly what time they dine or head to the loo? Look, Dilbert, escape before you do something crazy. Escape now — before you become a cartoon.

Cons: Finding your way around a congested new city can make you nuts. A lousy hotel room can be a sinkhole of the human spirit. I once ordered a martini in Paris that tasted like dog spit. (This has nothing to do with mental health — I just like saying dog spit.)

Why go anyway? You know that moment your fanny hits the plane seat? Or you pull out of the driveway with a full tank of gas? It's freedom. It's conquest. It's you, Steve McQueen, on your great escape. You, the cooler king.

The adventures

Pros: What if Hemingway had never left Oak Park, Ill.? The physical challenges of travel give us fodder for our own stories about the world, some of them epic.

Cons: Death is such a drag sometimes. Imagine the crystalline splendor of being frozen to death atop a mountain, your body missing till the bears find it come spring. In 100 years, Cub Scouts could be camping on you.

Why go anyway? I once saved a man's life on a raft trip on the Upper Kern. Later, he bought me a beer.

The conversations

Pros: Sometimes the lilt of a new language can distance you from the worries back home. Then there are the stories, the humor, the handshakes. Travel is an education, and it all starts with chatting up the locals.

Cons: Hell is other people, Jean-Paul Sartre said. I'm pretty sure he was talking about New York cabbies. Or Parisian waiters.

Why go anyway? The kindness of strangers is a remarkable thing. It can change the way you feel about a country, its people, its culture. Just watch your wallet, especially in Madrid.

The photos

Pros: "The soul cannot think without a picture," Aristotle said. I don't think he was talking specifically about digital photography or that goofy shot of you pretending to be Bullwinkle on a bus tour of Denali. But maybe.

Cons: Your friends may hate you. Watch as they examine the shots from your latest cruise or safari. Bubbles of envy will form as spittle at the corners of their mouths. It will gunk up their throats till they can barely breathe.

Why go anyway? See above.

A change of scenery

Pros: Travel offers new textures, fresh smells, a change in weather. In Seattle, sunlight trickles through a bistro window differently from the way it filters in London. All the escapism found in a good novel can be found first-hand in travel.

Cons: Yeah, at 400 times the price of the novel. By the way, ever awakened while traveling and not known where you were? I once called a front desk and asked: "Essentially, where am I?" The clerk said Room 511. "Thank you," I said and hung up.

Why go anyway? Because you can go home again. Returning to your own bed, your own easy chair is a pretty good feeling all by itself. Just make sure you're in the right house. In my 'hood, they all look the same. At least that's what I tell the cops.

Family bonding

Pros: Is there a better icon of family life than an SUV loaded with tents, beach balls and canoe paddles? Many of our fondest memories are made while on vacation, as children or as parents.

Cons: Happy Meals. Potty breaks. Car sickness. Vomit. Sartre got it wrong: Sometimes, hell is your own family.

Why go anyway? Your kids are going to wipe you out no matter what, physically and fiscally. May as well be some place where a waiter will bring you a margarita big enough to launch a cruise ship. Salud!

The food

Pros: Sampling new cuisines is one of the most pleasurable parts of travel. Meals tend to be longer and more leisurely. Food is a portal to understanding a new culture.

Cons: In China, they eat sparrows, bones and all. In other parts of the world, silkworms, grasshoppers and nutria (rats the size of cats) are popular. Gator is eaten in parts of the U.S. South. Tastes like ... nutria.

Why go anyway? Remember all those flaccid meals they used to serve on airplanes? Now, they serve them in midpriced U.S. restaurants. Honestly, how many times can you eat a skinless chicken breast with a side of mixed veggies?

The memories

Pros: Travel is incandescent. It's the clink of a cocktail glass in a romantic restaurant, the chirp of a calliope atop a riverboat, the sound of your footsteps in Westminster Abbey.

Cons: Travel can be exhausting. As they say, nobody needs a vacation as much as the person who just returned from one.

Why go anyway? On your deathbed, do you really expect to say: "You know, I really wish I'd stayed home more"?

chris.erskine@latimes.com

Going to embrace that inner hippie once again

Tickets bought for High Sierra Music Festival. There will be a fair contingent going from Bishop. We might even be dressed as mules. I don't think I've ever seen Matt so excited about a music event. Maybe that gorgeous, redheaded, foul-mouthed, siren Neko Case has something to do with it?

That unwieldy band I love so

So I didn't come home with any insight other than I will harden the fuck up. I was glad to go away and glad to come back. I got to spend a week acting like an adult, not just a mommy - I forgot what that was like. Mostly, I just people-watched from the comfort of Parisian buses. All hail the mighty weekly transit pass. All hail travel partners who are always up for a glass of wine/beer/aperitif.

I loved giving Jean Van Roy, the current brewer at Cantillon, a bottle of Russian River Temptation. I loved speaking to Jean-Pierre Van Roy, the former brewer, in my poor, poor French. Cantillon's Marmouche (elderflower) is a funky glory to behold. I loved meeting Mark O'Neill, who feels like a twin separated at birth. I get squishy when I think about those lovely men from St. Louis.

The Phoenix Foundation put on an amazing show. They still do the wall of sound that just wells up from nowhere. They still have the nuances that so endeared them when I saw them at Cuba Street in 2004. Tom, the new bassist from the Little Bushmen, is working out just fine. The band have grown so much in the 8 or so years I've been following them. I was proud to hear how the Phoenix Foundation still think fondly of their time in Bishop (they still remembered the name of the local Native American Paiute tribe!). I am just happy and grateful to have been along for the ride.

In case your mama drops dead

Babbo, know that Mommy has every intention of coming back to you to boss you around.

If something happens that I shouldn’t come back, know that raising you has been the best and hardest and most rewarding thing in my life.

I am so proud of your compassion for friends and people in general. You make everyone feel very welcomed, and that’s a special gift.

I am amazed by your love of learning. The way you listen from your little cuadrado morado and participate in class is something I hope you carry with you in life.

I want you to listen to your Daddy. He knows a lot, he’s patient with you, and he’s a fair teacher. He loves you more than anything and will guide you right.

I want you to “focus!*” and know that in life, you will have to do some not so fun things that may be boring or frustration or scary. Some things will even be so hard that you will fail when you try them. Most of these things are to help you become a better or wiser person, so bear through them and learn from them.

When you are older, you will see a lot of the world. There are many folks to learn from and many ways to do things. Travel will teach you this. Mommy heard the call to go for a quick trip. Travel is what she did before she became a mommy, and what she hoped to share with you. Going away on a journey, no matter how short or long, was one path she tried to take to become a better and more understanding person. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. Just know that she tried.

Mommy loves you so very much.

*Something I always say to you in class on the mornings I help.

The fete grows larger

Steve and Mark will be coming all the way from St. Louis to be in Paris the same week! I am so very thrilled for Steve who has loved the Phoenix Foundation for so very long, but has not seen them live.

I'll never forget how encouraging and helpful he was when I first pitched to the band to come to Bishop in 2006/2007.

I'm writing the same "Mommy has no intention of dying, but in case she does" letter I always write Babbo when I leave home for more than a day. It is the superstitious Chinese mother in me. Somehow, all these weird mortal concerns fall away once the letter is written and my ass is on that plane.

An unnatural love

Perhaps even stranger is my excitement that if I have to self cater a fair few meals to swing this trip, there will be a Picard Surgeles around the corner. Foie Gras, escargots, and poor man's macarons, stuffing with prunes, chestnuts, and armagnac, await...not to mention the two meals I'm looking forward to - one of Auvergne-style tripe and the other of AAAA Andouillete.