Places Not to Visit in Michigan

It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw, I've gone to look for America...  (Simon and Garfunkel, "America")

Dave and I love to mindlessly cheer when we hear those lines. After all, we've passed by highway exit signs for Saginaw many times! We decided to make our false identification with the Michigan town more authentic by actually going there this weekend. Big mistake. I'm here now to tell you all: do not go to visit Saginaw, or probably any place in the Thumb.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. There were actually some nice spots in the town. We first visited the Castle Museum, formerly the Saginaw Post Office.

Beautiful building, from the 1890s. It currently hosts the Saginaw County Historical Museum, which was surprisingly contemporary, well-curated, and informative. We learned about the area's history with the lumber industry, then the manufacturing and automotive industry, and now the misery industry. It's located in the "business district," which is a misleading name. This is what the view across the street from the Museum looks like:

The beautiful weather might deceive you; this scene was absolutely desolate. Every building in the picture is empty, with the exception of the building on the far left, the Social Security Administration. There was not a single business in sight! No people either. Very post-apocalyptic.

I got scared, so we high-tailed it across town to the Children's Zoo. For a depressed, small-town zoo, it was pretty charming! Heavy emphasis on local farm animals over exotic big game, but that's fine. Here are some highlights:

 The Chicken House was playing an episode of "Reading Rainbow" on loop. LeVar is about to ask a bunch of hens, "Which came first?"

 This tortoise was desperately trying to escape. It was very sad.

 

 This joey is unimpressed by my imitation.

 There was a section of the zoo best-described as "petting zoo, if you can reach them." I've been longing for years to pet a Flemish Giant Rabbit, but alas, it was not to be this day.

We headed further up the road to Bay City, so we could go to the beach! Let me preface by first saying, Michigan has some absolutely stunning, gorgeous, write-home-about beaches. This beach was not one of them:

Note the charming factory not too far down the shore and the "beach muck," which a very small notice warned us was the result of algae bloom, and has tested positive for fecal matter and E. coli. I put my shoes back on. The notice was so small and full of text, I'm sure no one else read it. Public Health Fail.

Scared again, we turned around and got on the highway as soon as possible. We ended up in the "Little Bavaria of Michigan," the town of Frankenmuth.

While I usually consider myself far too cosmopolitan to enjoy this kind of kitsch, I must admit: at least it felt...safe?

Now I can say that I finally understand the Simon and Garfunkel song: yes, it is absolutely worth hitchhiking for four days out of Saginaw, even if the destination is the New Jersey Turnpike.

View Ann Arbor, MI in a larger map

Blueberry Galette

On my Blueberry Cheesecake post, the Fat commented that I should try to make Blueberry Galette. Blueberries were on sale again, so I had my opportunity. As advertised, it was very easy:

Per the Fat's warning, I was wary of the bubbly overflow! I baked the galette in a rimmed baking sheet, so nothing dripped onto the bottom of the oven. But the bubbly overflow did succeed in making the bottom of the pie crust stick to the foil beneath it. It was not easy to separate! Perhaps I should not have skipped the step of buttering the foil.

Here's what it looks like served with vanilla ice cream:

The Onion: Horrible Couple Really Wants Wedding to Reflect Their Personalities

Love this Onion article:

“We want to throw out all the wedding conventions that don’t scream ‘Jess and Ross,’” the utterly contemptible Black said Thursday, adding that the couple’s “uniqueness” will be mirrored in every aspect of the ceremony. “From the drinks served in mason jars, to the sparklers we’re handing out to everyone when it gets dark, this is going to be a wedding only we could have.”

“We want it to be a celebration of our love,” the unbearable woman continued. “But we also want it to be fun and quirky, just like us!”

The couple told reporters the insufferably precious ceremony will include readings from Walt Whitman’s Leaves Of Grass, a 10-minute silent meditation on each wedding guest’s own conception of love, and a forcibly lighthearted accordion wedding march expected to last for nearly 20 minutes.

The video is pretty great, too.

But how sad is is that I kind of want to have sparklers at the wedding?? Oh, Onion, how you shame me...

Ann Arbor Whimsy

There's a lot of deliberate whimsy in this town. For example, there are tiny little fairy doors located around downtown, and I often see families with young children spending an afternoon trying to find them all; it's a kind of treasure hunt that leads them to walk around and explore local businesses. I guess it's cute.

 I studied next to this fairy door this afternoon, and tried to be normal to the three families that stopped by.

But I found something yesterday that I think is funnier. Ann Arbor really revels in its historicity (never mind the fact that it's not exactly Boston, much less Rome). Just between my apartment and the bank, one can observe three types of didactic signs! There's the difficult-to-read transparent pictures on the sidewalk:

Solid signs on building:

And official-looking placards:

They're usually very boring and not very informative at all. Maybe that's why I've walked by this unassuming doorway (with placard to the left of it) hundreds of times without stopping to examine more closely.

 

Here's the close up: 

Haha! Who paid money to install this silly sign in public? I would like to be his or her friend.

the greatest melon of all

You can keep your cantaloupe and honeydew. I'm always most interested in WATERMELON. And now that it's hot again, it's time to beat the heat by enjoying a delicious watermelon. One reason why I love watermelon so much is that it is one of two words that I can accurately pronounce in Chinese. (The other one is "hot pot.") My favorite childhood memory associated with watermelon is of my grandfather tenderly washing a giant watermelon in the sink, like a baby. He would always have one or two in the refrigerator when we'd come to visit! So it was with great excitement that I recently acquired this specimen:

Such a promising yellow spot! And inside:

Pink and ripe! With a small rind. Perfect!

I refrained from buying watermelons during my first few summers of graduate school, for lack of a watermelon-eating buddy! I have since acquired one. We eat watermelon in several ways:

The classic wedge

Eating in chunks is more civilized, but I miss the slurping.

What happens when you can tired of chewing your watermelon? You drink it! Here's a refreshing glass of sparkling watermelonade:

And yes, it's as delicious as it sounds! Watermelon, lemon, simple syrup, and sparkling water.

And finally, if you are still looking for advice on how to eat watermelon, I recommend this truly astounding video by Petey Greene, which apparently was part of a real TV show. I found the commentary on racial and regional differences especially informative:

good advice

I've been writing some every day this week, and it's been a drag. But I came across the following advice in a recent issue of the New Yorker. It's part of a "Talk of the Town" interview of the master stone carver who is inscribing the new granite monument on Roosevelt Island. Something about his work reminded me of the dissertation:

But he is really slow. He averages just fifteen letters a day...He quoted a family adage, from a scolding that a graduate-school professor had given his brother: "The work is hard. Do the work."

Did his brother get a PhD in Classics at the University of Michigan? Because that sounds exactly like something my professors would say.

I've added a new post-it above my desk with that exhortation. It joins another post-it I put up just a few days ago, after I had lunch with my friend Brianne. When I was fretting out loud over how to apportion the sections in my current chapter, she recommended, "Write it 'til it's done." Pretty good advice. I think I'll give it a try!

Annual Fitness Day

It's been hot around here. I'm grateful that, despite the record heat and unpredictable storms, my apartment still has power and that I've been able to go to the library to soak up the "free" air conditioning! But now that it's cooled off to normal summer temperatures, D. and I decided it was time for "Annual Fitness Day at the Park"! This rare orgy of sports-like activity reminds me of the annual Presidential Fitness Exam in elementary school. Did you have to do that, too? When suddenly we got all competitive in events that we never practiced, like the "vee-sit-and-reach" and the "shuttle run" and the especially-dreaded "pull-ups." Apparently, if you performed well enough on enough tests, one could receive a certificate at the end-of-the-year awards assembly. I wouldn't know.

Our Fitness Day is a bit like that. All year long, I avoid airborne objects. Suddenly, I'm supposed to try to intercept them? What a bad idea. Fortunately, D. is patient with me and can coax me through that difficult game known as "catch." This year's Fitness Day involved tennis, baseball, catch, frisbee, and basketball. Although we did not play any of these sports competitively, I would like to note that I defeated D. in the basketball game of Horse! Well, not really, since, while D. was playing HORSE, I was playing CAPYBARA.

D. modeling his sporty look and new hairdo

My big family reunion is coming up in August. My cousin Andrew loves to organize games, and with the upcoming Summer Olympics in London, I wouldn't be surprised if Andrew is inspired to put together the Tam Family Olympics. If he does, we'll be ready!

Blueberry Cheesecake

Not the world's best picture, but here's a no-bake blueberry cheesecake that I made this weekend:

It's no-bake and quite light! I recommend it as a nice summer dessert (especially when blueberries are on sale at the grocery store). We enjoyed the cheesecake while catching up with Sarah and John, who are housesitting for friends. Their house came equipped with this special webby friend:

I never knew that frogs with such sticky toes live in Michigan! It looked more like an Amazonian frog from the nature specials than the typical pond frog. But an even more special friend is TUCK the awesome dog:

But the real reason I am posting about blueberry cheesecake is so that I can tell the following anecdote: my parents went on a cruise to Alaska to celebrate their anniversary in 1996; it was the first time they had judged my two brothers and me old enough to be left on our own for a week. Of course, while they were gone (and out of phone contact, not to mention email, which hardly seems to have been invented at that point), I broke out with a horrible case of hives! I have a very strong histamic response to the world, and I was miserable. Fortunately, my uncle, who is a physician and lives up the road from my parents, was able to come by and check me out. My brothers and I were generally eating the same foods, but for one exception: the blueberry cheesecake in the fridge. That must've been it! But inquiring minds don't rest. We had to test it out. So after a few days had passed, I ate another giant helping of cheesecake and blueberries. And lo: I broke out in horrible hives again! And I was miserable! Two inquiring minds were put to rest; mine was kept awake by all the itching. SCIENCE!

A wedding-planning boost

I've been holding off on thinking about many aspects of wedding-planning: I'd wanted to find the venue first, and then I was so busy with teaching and dissertating and enjoying New York that I put off thinking about dresses, colors, bridesmaid attire, flowers, etc. etc. for all of June. But this past weekend, I got to spend some concentrated time on wedding details! And it was fun!

Well, first, the weekend started with a special get-together: D. brought his parents down to my parents' house, where we all visited Longwood Gardens, relaxed at the house, and had a nice dinner together. This was only the second time that they'd met each other. 

When I had first suggested to D., in September 2010, that we introduce our parents to each other, I remember not being pleased with his response: "Uhh...introduce our parents? I don't know...I wouldn't want anyone getting the wrong idea!" What wrong idea, D.? I guess at this point, everyone knows that we're more than just friends, so it was okay for all of us to get together.

My mother had made a birthday cake for D.'s dad; after we sang for him and he blew out the candles, we re-lit them and made the cake an engagement cake for us, too! Very practical, Mom.

The following day, Julie and Shuen both drove up from the D.C. area. We hit the mall and looked at so many different things! Cuts and colors of bridesmaids' dresses, veils, hair pieces, wedding gowns, make up, color swatches, and more. I highly recommend these ladies as bridesmaids: they are efficient shoppers, flexible but offer considered opinions, creative in imagining various scenarios, and just thoughtful all around! We looked at bridal magazines together and talked, talked, talked. With everyone living so far apart, I was worried we wouldn't have the opportunity to do any real wedding stuff together, but it worked out really well this weekend. Thanks, Shuen and Julie!

I drive back to Ann Arbor tomorrow morning. For the next month, I'll be focusing more on writing my chapter and less on wedding details (with the probable exception of trying to find a church). Let's see if I can figure out how to balance this right!