Toes, Socks, and Genes

In terms of our physical build, I don't think my dad and I have a lot in common. I have broader shoulders than he does, he has thicker calves than I do. I'm about 1 cm taller than him but he can reach a good 3-4cm higher than I can - I don't know if this means I have stumpy limbs, or he's built like a gorilla (I jokingly say the latter).

In 2005, Lauren and I were in Ghana (you can read about our entire trip here). At one point on the trip, we were with my mother, in her hometown, the town where my parents got married. While there, we visited the guy who was the best man at my parents' wedding. One of the the first things he said to me was 'Ah, Kodwo, I can see you have your father's toes'. Needless to say, this was quite the odd comment to hear so soon into conversation.

It was an impressive thing to say right off for several reasons.

1. How in the world did he remember what my dad's toes looked like? Who pays attention to that sort of thing?

2. Why would my toes be one of the first things he noticed? Who pays attention to that sort of thing?

3. He was exactly right.

I do have my dad's toes and they're kind of annoying.

My toes point up. This is hard to explain, but the base of my big toenail is about 1/2 cm closer to the ground than the tip of the toenail, and I keep my toenails pretty short. I think my dad's toes point up even more than mine do (though I'm not sure) and his toenails are definitely not shorter than mine. This causes problems.

For me, every pair of socks I own will get a hole formed by my left or right big toenail long before any other holes form in the sock - I don't think I've ever had a pair of socks get a hole in the heel, for example. I then swap socks, and soon enough, there are holes on both sides of the top of the sock. 

The worst case is like the socks I noticed today that both had a hole in the exact same place (the top right of both socks), which means I have a hole that the big left toe pokes out of, regardless of which sock I put on which foot. 

I decided to just wear the socks today, with plans to toss them out. I like to wear flip flops around the house and at some point during the evening I looked down and saw this...

As I looked down, thinking about the sock I was about to throw out, my dad, my genes, I thought about the kid we're about to adopt. I've always wanted to adopt a kid, and we're in the final stages of the process now. I looked down at my toe sticking out of my sock and thought two things. First, this kid will never be able to write a blog like this; about the odd gene their dad may have given them. Then I also thought, this kid will never have to write a blog about the odd gene their dad gave them. 

I've never liked the phrase 'blood is thicker than water'. Last time I checked, water has nothing to do with family or friends, but love does. Love is more powerful than blood, people have spilt blood for love. And so even though a blog like this will never have to be written in this child's future, hopefully there will be other blogs; better blogs than this one; about the odd father that loved this child.

The Oscars

I realize I've been ranking the Best Picture Oscars since 2006 (I think I skipped a year or two though).

I thought 2013 was a good year for movies. It wasn't 1939 or 1994 by any means, but it was a good year.

For the first time since the Oscars expanded the number of Best Pictures from 5 to whatever it is now (I think it's now between 5 and 10), I genuinely liked all the nominees. This made it a bit difficult to rank them, but I'll give it a go.

I've found in recent years, maybe from listening to more film criticism podcasts than I used to, or maybe with age, story seems to mean more to me that it did in the past. While I can admire spectacle, the story carries more weight for me this year than it has in the past, and that will be seen in my rankings below. I'll go from worst to first here, and should note this is not how I think things will pan out (I actually think my #2 film will win best picture), but how I feel about the movies after seeing them and having some time to reflect.

9. Dallas Buyers Club - There was something about this film that just didn't click with me. I thought the performances by Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto were both amazing (I think Leto should win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar) but I don't know what it was. Pacing, possibly? Or maybe I wasn't sucked in the story as much as I would have thought? Who knows. One thing that did bother me during the movie was the time stamps. There were time stamps through out. 'Day 1', 'Day 27', etc. then it would say something like '6 months later' then at the end went back to using days. That's a minor thing, but the lack of consistency bothered me (and Lauren, who also brought it up). Also, when they say '6 months later' is that 6 months from Day 1 or 6 months from what ever Day we were on? Again, a minor thing, but it did bug me. Lauren mentioned after seeing the film, that it was good but she didn't think she would remember it in a year. Ultimately, that's why it's my number 9; I'm not going to remember this film as a film, only for the performances.

8. The Wolf of Wall Street - Long movies (over 2.5 hours) bother me. There have been many a film that I would have liked better if they were only a bit shorter. This film squarely falls in that category. I thought Leonardo DiCaprio was great (I don't think he'll ever be able to give as good as a performance as he did in What's Eating Gilbert Grape, but this was pretty damn good). The story was good, but there were some sequences that just went on for way to long for my taste. I was listening to a podcast where a guy who loved the movie was talking about the over 20-minute long sequence where two of the characters get high. He thought that amount of time was needed to get the point across; I remember looking at my watch during that sequence for the first time, wondering how much more of this we were going to see. It was the only film on the list where I checked the time during the film. I thought it was a great story, I thought the performances were really good, I just kind of wished that Martin Scorsese could have chopped off 30-45 minutes off the film. It would have been higher on my list if he had done that.

7. American Hustle - This is a fun movie. It's a performers' movie and the performances were great. A little over the top but not so much that they got annoying. What bothered me about this movie was I felt like it was giving off the air of being bigger, or more important, than it actually is. I felt like it was trying to be Goodfellas lite, and it just wasn't. I think it might a David O. Russell (the director) thing because I kind of had similar feelings about Silver Linings Playbook (a movie I liked significantly less than American Hustle). I feel like I'm putting down the film, but like I said, story has become more important to me as of late and what makes this movie good is not the story, but the characters. In the end, what they're saying didn't really matter to me but the way they said it, did.

6. Philomena - This movie caught me off guard. It opened months before the Oscar nominations were announced and I never even considered seeing it. It looked like a small, British, movie that wouldn't get much respect in the US, and therefore not get a nomination. I guess I was wrong. I was also caught off guard by how much I would like it. Going in, I was sure it was a movie I would not think much of, and I know there are a group of people who think it's a good movie, but not Best Picture worthy. I can't say I disagree with that statement; except for Judi Dench, it doesn't have the components that typically make up a Best Picture nominee. I think it also suffered from its advertising. From the trailers I saw, it looked more like a comedy than it actually is. It is a very touching movie, and that it's based on a true story makes it that much more touching. I liked it a lot more than than I thought I would and I'm hoping that the nomination will give more people (like me) the chance to see it.

5. Gravity - There is talk that this might win best picture. Gravity is possibly the most visually stunning movie I've ever seen, but the story is what brought it down a few notches for me. It gets a lot of points for being as short as it is (like I said earlier, I don't like long movies), but I felt like the characters were too simple, and that stuff was added that felt like it was being added for the sake of being added. There is a story line of the main character having gone through a serious loss back on earth but that didn't really add anything for me. It didn't make the story more compelling so it felt like it was added to pull the heartstrings, which I don't think need pulling in a movie about people lost in space - that's pulling the heartstrings enough. I also didn't like the George Clooney character. No one would be that calm in the situation they were in. I felt like it was George being George, calm, cool, and always under control. That being said, I do think Alfonso Cuarón should win Best Director. If Ang Lee can win for Life of Pie, Cuarón better win for Gravity.

4. Nebraska - I heard someone say that if some no-name director had directed Nebraska, and not Alexander Payne, there is no way it would have been nominated for an Oscar. I don't doubt that. The thing is, there was a no-name director who directed a movie that didn't get a Best Picture Oscar nomination back in 1999, when he directed Election. That director was this director, who has now made a name for himself. Election is my favorite Alexander Payne movie, and if you haven't seen it, you should. Nebraska, is my second favorite movie from him. I wasn't a fan of The Descendants at all, and didn't like Sideways as much as everyone else did. What I liked about this movie is what I liked about Election - the characters. Even though I've talked about story in this post, for me, it doesn't matter so much what the story is in Nebraska, but the people involved in it. I liked the side characters more so than the two main characters. The extreme side characters I liked even more. This movie grew on me the more I thought about it and I like it more now much more than I did when I walked out of it in December. I don't think this movie will win any major Oscars, but I do think it's the kind of movie, like Election, that I will remember scenes from, 15 years after it was released.

3. Captain Phillips - This was the first of the Best Picture nominees that I saw, and it really struck a chord with me. I don't know what it was, but it just really stuck with me. I was shocked - shocked - that Tom Hanks did not get a best actor nomination (even if he did have a bad New England accent). Last year, I posted my favorite scene from a movie. This year, my scene of the year is from this film. Alas, I can't post it because it's the very last scene in the movie, and I don't want to be a spoiler. One performance that I very much thought was impressive, but I'm hearing no critics talk about, is that of the 2nd hijacker. Barkhad Abdi, who plays the lead hijacker is nominated for Best Supporting Actor, rightfully so, but no one seems to be talking about the performance of Barkhad Abdirahman, who plays 2nd hijacker. The 2nd hijacker was the scarier of the two, in my opinion, and required a great deal more rage from the actor, which I thought he did a great job with. Yes, the lead hijacker needed to be more subtle, but I just kept waiting for the 2nd guy to go off (and he did a few times). I wish his performance was more recognized. I also thought Paul Greengrass was the perfect director for this movie. The unsteady camerawork he likes to use fit so well with the situation and the story, both of which were constantly in an unsteady state. I know this is not getting much love as a frontrunner, but I thought it was a great movie.

2. 12 Years a Slave - This film lost point for something that was entirely my doing; I read the book shortly before seeing it, so there was no element of surprise or suspense for me. This film does a great job of putting the viewer in the place of the main character, so it's best seen not knowing what is about to happen, because then you can relate to the actor much more. I didn't have that luxury, so I was a bit disappointed in myself for reading the book beforehand. That being said, it is a remarkable story and a remarkable film. I thought the performances were all great, but I think that of Sarah Paulson has somehow got lost in the nomination season. Her character comes off as loving and kind but also extremely evil. Like Barkhand Abdirahman, I do wish her performance would have gotten a bit more attention. This is a difficult film to watch and not one I would want to watch again because of this. But sometimes, the films you can't watch again are the ones that stay with you and stand the test of time.

1. Her - I loved Her. It hit all the right notes for me - the story, the directing, the music, the setting, the costumes, and Joaquin Phoenix. I think it must be very difficult to act against no one, especially when you're supposed to be showing tenderness, and I thought he did a great job. I'm also a Spike Jonze fan, back to when he directed this Weezer music video (although, I have to admit, I didn't really like Where the Wild Things Are). I just thought it was a very well put-together movie. On the surface, it's a very simple movie, but there was so many small details (like that none of the men wear belts) that may go unnoticed, but that add so much to the sense that we aren't quite in the normal universe of today, but some slightly fictional universe of the not-too-distant future. I've heard people say it reminded them of (500) Days of Summer, and I don't disagree with that. I liked that movie a great deal too, so maybe it's just that I like that type of movie, or I like Joaquin Phoenix, or I like Spike Jonze. Whatever it is, as soon as the credits started, I leaned over to Lauren and whispered 'Best movie of the year'. Several weeks after seeing it, I still feel the same way.

So that's my summary of the Best Picture nominees. This is the first time in a while where I saw all movies in a theater, and saw them with time to reflect, so I'm happy with my ranking, though I don't see any way that Her will win best picture.

airbnb n me

Our airbnb room as it was

A few weeks ago I ‘unlisted’ our airbnb page.  

I first heard about airbnb in Spring 2012. We had just bought our flat and my uncle and aunt were planning on coming to Edinburgh. They asked if they could stay with us and we told them they could, but that we had no furniture. They were welcome to sleep on air beds, but they wisely passed. Instead they decided to stay at an airbnb. I had no idea what this airbnb thing was, but I soon fell in love with it.

If you don’t know what airbnb is, go here; this is not a blog describing it but my experience as an airbnb host.

After doing a bit of research, which mainly involved looking at my uncle and aunt’s two airbnbs in Edinburgh and talking Kristina Wong during the 2012 Fringe Festival, who runs/ran one in LA, we got to planning. We had a room we weren't using and a futon that was missing parts. After being able to fix the futon in early 2013, we created our airbnb host page - I would post the link to our page, but it’s now unlisted.

We offered a room, for up to two people, use of our living room, kitchen, and cold breakfast items. I also baked something for each guest.

Last March, our first guests arrived. In November our last guest left. In the months in between we learned what it was like to run a kind-of hotel, how to deal with living with people we had just met, and that you simply can’t satisfy every guest.

The good guests were great. They would tell us when they were expecting to arrive, would arrive in that time window; they would eat the food we had gone to the trouble to buy/make, and would leave the place relatively clean. Sadly, there’s no fun in writing about a good guest because what more can I say; they were good guests.

I wouldn’t describe any of our guests as being bad guests - that would be way too harsh so instead, I’ll say we had some odd guests. We actually had a couple of guests that were good guests and odd guests, so odd is not code for not good.

We had guests that bought practically the exact same fruit we had bought for them to eat (after we had told them that the fruit we bought was for their consumption). They ended up eating very little fruit at all and we ended up having twice as much fruit as we had before they got here. I don’t mind fruit, but there’s only so much one can do with 15 apples.

We had guests who wanted to go to the grocery store with me. I offered to pay for the coffee they they wanted but they refused. They did however want me to get the 'points' on my grocery store membership that they got from buying said coffee. This involved us going to the customer service desk and taking several minutes to 2 points on my membership card that has no real value until it reaches something like 1000 points. I was at the grocery store at least 3 times longer as I would have been if I had gone by myself - I don't think the 2 Sainsbury's points were worth it.

There, of course, were the late/non-communicative guests; guests that would give us an arrival time then show up 4 hours later; guests that didn’t respond to any of our messages asking them when they would arrive then were surprised when we were not home when they showed up before we were home from work.

We also discovered there are three types of social guests - the anti-social (lock themselves in the room whenever we were home and would wait until we were not home before they would do anything in the flat); the semi-social (would ask questions about where to go, what to do, didn’t hide, but didn’t want to be our best friends either), and the too-social (see the grocery store paragraph above - the type of guest who is nice, but you also kind of would like them to give you a little space). I should note that I would be an anti-social guest category, though I wouldn’t book a room with our kind of set-up.

I actually liked the semi-social and too-social guests. I felt like I always learned something in talking to them.

I liked it when we would come home and a guest was watching ‘Good Will Hunting’ on our TV. Not only did they feel comfortable enough to watch our TV, they also had good taste. 

I liked it when a guest would feel comfortable enough to sit in our rocking chair while watching TV, with us at our computers in another room.

I liked it when the baked goods I made were gone a day and half into guests’ stay. 

I liked when people would eat our yogurt or our eggs (almost no guests ate our yogurt or eggs), or use our stove top to cook anything (two guests did this).

There was very little I didn't like about our airbnb experience. I guess I didn’t like it so much when guests would want to use our washing machine the day before they were leaving (mainly because we don’t have a dryer so their clothes would be wet, so I guess that’s their problem).

I enjoyed the experience. We met people from all over the world (mostly from Germany, really) and there is a part of me that would have liked to keep it going. But alas, the guest room has been turned into an office and I wouldn’t want to charge people to sleep in a room that I would like to use whenever I want.

Maybe one day we’ll live in a bigger place, but for now, our airbnb hosting experience has ended.

Our former airbnb room as it is now

My Sucky Relationship with Air Travel

above Phoenix as we flew in

I am blessed because of my mixed-ness. I'm bi-racial, multicultural in the truest form, having lived in three countries, on three continents, with family from at least 5 distinct cultures. I've experienced more culture than probably 99% of the world, and I love experiencing different cultures.

What I don't like is what is involved in getting to the places where these different cultures are. I don't like traveling. I especially don't like air travel.

In January 2003, I was flying from London to San Francisco and the turbulence on that flight was insane; when you hear fear in the flight attendant's voice as she's telling everyone to go to their seat and sit down, it's a bit scary. For the rest of the time I lived in the Bay Area, I was scared to fly (although I flew at least twice a year). Just driving by SFO on the 101 made my heart race, even if I wasn't flying anywhere.

The fear stopped in March 2010. I was flying from London to Baltimore, to see my mother for the last time. I didn't think about the flight, I thought about how my mother must have been feeling as I was flying and my fear was gone. To this day, when I have any fear of flying, I think about how this fear is nothing compared to the thought that I will never see or hear my mother again, and the fear is gone. 

But this blog isn't about that odd way to prevent fear of flying. It's about why I don't like to travel.

I've jokingly told Lauren that we have bad luck when we travel together. 

On the way to Costa Rica for our honeymoon we had to spend a night in the Dallas airport because of a tornado (we were married in December, not what people think of as tornado season). This delay had a domino effect on the rest of our trip, missing busses we had paid for, and a night's hotel stay. It sucked.

When we've taken trips around the UK, we are sure to be welcomed with heavy rain, wind, or both. I don't think we've taken a successful trip anywhere in the UK, without other people going with us. It sucks.

In the past year, I've been on 4 trips and 2 of them had really bad delays (on a third, my bags were delayed by a couple of days, but I won't get into that). Coincidentally, those were the only two trips where Lauren and I travelled together. Hmmm....

In June, for my birthday, we went to Southern Spain (I should note that we flew on my birthday, which is not ideal for me, but we were going to Spain!). The trip was great. We spent time with Lauren's parents, saw some cool stuff, got back to the airport in Malaga, to find out our flight was delayed for a couple of hours. No big deal, really. We boarded the plane, got buckled in, then the captain comes on. The flight would be delayed by 7 hours and we couldn't get off. There was an air traffic control strike in France (which we had to fly over) and so he would need to take off on short notice, if they allowed him. They didn't. We sat on the plane for 7 hours. I saw one of the flight attendants crying when I went to the bathroom. People were irate. It sucked.

This last trip, to the US, wasn't much better. I was on 4 legs on this trip (Edinburgh -San Francisco - Phoenix - Baltimore - Edinburgh). Three of the four had problems. 

First, my flight out of Edinburgh was cancelled (snow in my connecting city of Newark). I stood in line at the Edinburgh airport for a couple of hours and was re-routed and actually got to San Francisco 2 hours earlier than I would have. Mind you, I got a crappy seat on a 10-hour flight and couldn't get a vegetarian meal on the 10-hour flight, but it actually ended up for the best. It didn't suck. I should note that Lauren wasn't with me on this leg of the trip.

Flying from San Francisco to Phoenix was fine. After hearing of my travel woes, my co-worker said that's why the West Coast is the Best Coast. Based on this trip, it was. Clearly.

Flying from Phoenix to Baltimore was fine until about 20 minutes before we were scheduled to land. We were flying low, but not low enough and it seemed rocky and we were circling but not getting lower. After about 15 min of this, the captain came on and told us the wing flaps weren't opening. That's not exactly what you want to hear as you're in a plane that is about to land. He ended by saying "but it shouldn't affect the landing". What?!?! I tend to think wing flaps are pretty important to landing a plane and the issue was already affecting the landing. We should have landed by the time he made the announcement.

We had to continue on this very slow, rocky, circling descent to land at BWI. Lauren got really bad motion sickness; I thought we might crash; but we (eventually) made it back to land. It was scary, and it sucked.

Getting from Baltimore to Edinburgh was an ordeal. Looking ahead a few days, I saw that we would be in a window between a snow storm that had hit the east coast and the 'Polar Vortex' (I should say I hate the phrase 'polar vortex' more than I hate flying). We would be fine, I thought. 

We got to the airport, checked in. There was a slight delay, we were told. No big deal. Then the delay got longer, and longer. There was talk that it was because Newark (where we had to connect) was overwhelmed with air traffic so the delay was for our benefit, so we wouldn't be circling forever. There was talk that the 'polar vortex' was the cause of the delay, even though neither city would be feeling it for the next couple of days. The plane was ready to go, the crew was there, then the truth came out. There was no pilot. It sucked.

I think the pilot was in a city that was affected by the 'polar vortex' and so our plane was a no-go. 

You would think a stranded pilot would be enough to cancel the flight with enough notice so people could use other means to get from Baltimore to Newark (it's a 3-hour train ride), but United Airlines waited until 2 1/2 hours after we were supposed to take off. If we had known the pilot was not around a lot of us with international connecting flights could have made it to Newark early enough to make our connections. As it was though, very few were able to make their connections. The earliest they could get us to Edinburgh was 4 days later. This really sucked.

The customer service we received in Baltimore compared to when my flight was cancelled in Edinburgh was markedly different. Baltimore United Airlines staff should take note from their Edinburgh counterparts, where things were dealt with in a much calmer and efficient manner. 

There was no evidence that they would pay for a hotel (luckily we were staying with my dad), or give us any kind of food voucher (we were at the airport for over 6 hours without any kind of information). For this last leg of our trip, I completely blame United Airlines. 

When I posted about this 4-day delay on Facebook, someone said I was lucky that I got to travel the world. I definitely realize just how lucky I am and I  and I don't want to take that luck for granted. But I can't wait until the teleportation stations start to open. Although, knowing my luck, I'd have to take a plane to get to one.

Coffee cake vs. coffee cake

photo courtesy of Hobbee's

Living with a linguist for over 9 years, I like to think I notice language use more than the average person, even if I don’t understand that usage entirely (that’s Lauren’s job to explain).

About two years ago after living in Edinburgh for a little over a year, I wrote this blog post about adjusting to new words that I was still trying to figure out how to pronounce and when to use. Since then, I’ve found that there are some words, and particularly phrases, that I use when speaking to a Scottish audience. But I think, for the most part, I still have a very American vocabulary.

I have always found it interesting how two different phrases can mean the same thing, and also how a word, or phrase, can mean very different things to different people. I think my first memory of this is the boot vs. trunk of a car - my dad still says boot, even though he's been back in the US for 25 years. I also feel more comfortable with boot, which was a word I used from childhood.

One phrase that has grown on me in my time in Edinburgh is ‘half ___’ when telling time. ‘The meeting is at half two’ means the meeting is at 2:30, and so forth. I find that I only use this phrase when speaking to certain people. I like the phrase enough to feel like I should use it more, but it doesn't roll off my tongue yet. Maybe one day, I’ll be a pure ‘half ___’ person.

The other day, I was talking to someone about something they bought. They said they got it because is was ‘on offer’ at Sainsbury’s. A day or two later, I was in Sainsbury’s and got the same thing. I told Lauren I bought it because it was ‘on sale’. I think the American ear (at least my American ear) thinks of the word ‘offer’ as meaning free. A store offers good customer service, which is not something you buy. I never use the phrase ‘on offer’, but I have admit, it doesn't sound wrong to my ear any more.

A phrase that I noticed very early on in my time in Edinburgh, was when I saw advertisements for movies or TV shows. In the US, you are likely to hear some movie is in theaters ‘on Friday’ or a TV show is on ‘at 10’. In the UK, you are likely to hear that the movie will be in theatres ‘from Friday’ and the TV show is on ‘from 10’. That ‘on/at’ verses ‘from’ is something I still notice every time I hear it, and it still sounds odd to me; far more odd than something starting at half two being on offer. I just don’t associate the word ‘from’ in terms of time, unless it also includes the word ‘until’ or ‘to’. If a TV show is on ‘from 10 to 11’, that sounds ok to me, but just saying ‘from 10’ always sounds (to me at least) that the end of the phrase was cut off.

Much like two different phrases having the same meaning, I’ve run across a phrase meaning one thing to the person I’m communicating with and another to me. This, of course, leads to misunderstandings.

In the final stages of buying our flat in early 2012, our financial adviser emailed us, asking if we would be able to meet mid-day some weekend. I responded by saying I could probably meet mid-day, but could he let me know what time. He responded by saying could we have the meeting at mid-day. As I was in the process of writing an email back to him asking him to clarify on the time, Lauren happened to call me. She said ‘you realise mid-day means noon, right?’ I didn’t.

Here I was, thinking mid-day could be any time from 10-2, some time during the middle of the day. Mid-day meaning 12:00 makes a lot of sense. We call the 12:00 that happens at night mid-night, so why not call the 12:00 at happens in the day mid-day. I still almost never use mid-day to mean noon but I wonder how many times I sounded like an idiot for not understanding when someone said it to me.

This last experience reminded me of how my mother always referred to mid-night as some time in the middle of the night. She would say she woke up at '3 in the mid-night', which always made me chuckle (and still does).

Finally, I come to the title of this blog post.

In my previous job, we regularly had a staff tea/coffee thing once a week. There would be baked goods, usually brought by anyone who wanted to bring stuff. A few times, I was told coffee cake was available. I’d look at the variety of baked items, not see any coffee cake and not really think much of it. This happened a few times and I started to wonder if I was missing something. One time, I even ate a piece of cake that I was told was coffee cake. It was good, but it wasn’t coffee cake. I didn’t want to say anything though because, like many things with that job, I felt like an outsider; a foreigner.

A couple of months before leaving that job, we started our airbnb. For one of our guests, I made strawberry coffee cake that the guests didn’t eat (they didn’t seem to eat anything we gave them, so it wasn’t that the cake was terrible, they were just not the type of guests that wanted to eat our food). I brought some into work and told my officemate that I had made strawberry coffee cake. She gave me a slightly odd look and asked why I would make a cake with strawberry and coffee. That’s when when she explained it to me; coffee cake in the UK is a cake, made with coffee, not eaten with coffee.

Not only did this explain away all the times I had coffee cake and didn’t know I was having it. It also makes a lot of sense. Chocolate cake is not a cake you eat with chocolate. Can you imagine eating a cake to go with carrots?

I told Lauren about my coffee cake experience a few days later. She had no idea either - at least it wasn't just me this time. That night, we went to Sainsbury’s and got some coffee cake, so she could experience it herself. 

This whole learning something new every day (some said 'every day is a school day' to me the other day, which I'd never heard before and might be a UK phrase) can be fun, even if it leads to misunderstandings sometimes. 

Now I know that I can go to the store at mid-day, or half twelve, and maybe there’ll be some coffee cake on offer which I can eat at home, while I watch Law and Order, which is one every weekday from six.

photo courtesy of Laura Loves Cakes

Was that really 20 years ago??

photo courtesy of the Baltimore Sun

It kind of hit me when the Facebook group invite came in - ‘Towson High School Class of 1994 20yr Reunion’. 20 years? Really?!?

There are few times in the past 20 years when I’ve felt ‘old’. Maybe it’s because I’ve always worked with students, so I feel only slightly older than them. Maybe it’s because I don’t have kids. Maybe it’s because I take gym classes with 20-somethings and see some of them giving up before I do. 

People always thought my mother was much younger than she was, and I’m noticing that more and more people underestimate my age, as I get older. There was the time co-workers were asked to guess my age and one of them said 30. There was the time I talked about applying to colleges 20 years ago and someone thought I must have been some sort of Doogie Howser to be applying to colleges 20 years ago (I probably dated myself with that Doogie reference).

I have to say, I don’t mind being assumed to be younger than I am, but I often wonder what it’s like to ‘feel’ an age. I see pictures of people who are younger than me that shock me - they look so old, I think to myself. Do I look at that old? Do I? I have no idea.

I didn’t like high school - those were probably, collectively, the worst years of my life. I have nothing against the people I went to high school with; I just didn’t like it and have no fond memories of the four years I spent there. Even going back to Towson to see family, takes me back to place of my life I didn’t at all enjoy. Being thousands of miles away is a good excuse to not go to the reunion, but I have to admit that I am curious. 

The only reason I’d want to go to this reunion is because of my curiosity. Curious to see just how old my classmates look. Do we all look like we’re 30, and not 37-39, or am I blessed with my mother’s genes? 

It’s unlikely I’ll find out.

The Heat

When I saw that the roads were melting, I knew the apocalypse was upon us.

I've lived in very warm climates; the first 12 years of my life were spent just south of the Sahara and every other summer, we went to Phoenix for our holidays - talk about out of the frying pan into the fire; I lived through many a Baltimore summer in my parent's house without air conditioning - I avoid visiting my family in the summer because of this; spent time in Ghana, and lived in San Jose (which it not really that bad in the summer).

In the nearly three years I've spent in Edinburgh, the last two weeks were, by far, the warmest stretch of time we've had. Highs were in the upper 20's C (mid-80's F) for about a week straight. To hear some people talk, you'd think the world was coming to an end because of this heat. Most Americans would love to have highs in 20's at this time of year; but in the UK, the world was time to complain.

Did I complain about the heat? Of course I did - it was the thing to do. In reality though, I didn't think it was that hot. For the most part, I'm not in air conditioned buildings - I don't know anyone who is, really. So it did get somewhat uncomfortable in my office in the afternoons, so some complaining was justified. 

But it was kind of nice to be able to wear shorts and flip flops outside and not freeze while doing so.

I saw news stories of train tracks having problems with the heat, there was a grass fire on Arthur's Seat, and, shockingly, some roads were melting - seriously. The melting roads really makes me wonder about the quality of the roads in the UK.

I saw a lot pasty white shirtless guys; sunburns so bad I wonder if these people knew that sunblock was a thing you could actually buy at the store. What I didn't hear of (like I hear every summer I was in Baltimore) was people being told to stay indoors and check on their elderly neighbours.

It looks like it's going to be cooler over the next few days, we've survived heatpocalypse 2013. Whew! At least we didn't all melt.

This Koforiduan Life

I took very few pictures on my trip to Koforidua. I did take a few where the people didn't know they were being taken. I love the two below - they were taken seconds apart. I thought of merging them into one to get both kittens in one picture, but decided to leave it as two.

These pictures, and what happened when they were taken is part of what Koforidua is to me.

This is my mother's uncle and we all call him Master - I actually don't know his real name. Master never got married, has no kids, and is currently the elder in our family. He's old, has really bad vision, and doesn't hear very well. He sits in this chair every afternoon, for hours, overlooking our compound.

What happened every afternoon was this: he would sit there in silence while kids play in the compound. The moment one of the kids starts to act up Master stirs and tells them to quit it, in a word or two. They would say 'sorry, Master' and go on playing. About 15-20 minutes, the process would repeat itself. I found it very funny because he would not raise his voice, but the kids would hear him clearly.

I also had no idea how he could tell that kids were acting up. Me, with much better vision and hearing didn't notice the kids acting up as quickly as he did. Maybe that's why we all call him Master.

I typically have blog posts with one theme and one story on that theme. This time though, I'm going TAL-style and will bring you a blog post with a theme and several stories on that theme.

This post's theme: Kodwo in Koforidua: Stories of my one-week visit to Koforidua.

Act I: The world is flat. What happens when Koforidua catches up with developed countries and developed countries catch up with Koforidua?

Act II: Family kneads. Three generations of bakers and a funny sounding snack food come together in one evening.

Act III: Us, your family. How do you answer the question of where you want to be buried when it's asked by a complete stranger?

Act IV: A new cultural experience. 500 guys packed into a hot room can only mean one thing on a Koforidua weeknight. You'll find out what.

Act I - The world is flat

That was my welcome to Ghana

I own The World Is Flat, but I've never read it. I've tried starting it twice but being that it talks about Indian call centers and supply chain systems as new ideas, it just feels dated to me. Anyone who has studied business in some capacity in the past ten years knows this already and is not being told anything new.

I thought about world-flattening a lot on my trip to Koforidua. I've seen how much Ghana has caught up with 'the west' (I hate that phrase) and how much 'the west' has caught up with Ghana.

Growing up, my mother didn't like telling her family in Ghana that she was coming - everyone would want stuff. We would use our full baggage allotment to pack in soap and toothpaste, cake mixes and syrup, old clothing and shoes we didn't want. We were like a traveling charity shop. Keeping that in mind, my sister Affie, told almost no one that I was coming.

As my flight was descending into Accra that Saturday night I was thinking to myself 'man, Accra is so big and look at all the lights'. Just after that thought, about 1/3 of the city's lights went out. That was my welcome to Ghana.

I thought things were supposed to have changed in Ghana.

Ghana has indeed changed.

I brought soap and toothpaste only to see that my sister had shower gel in the bathroom that was given to me to use. Shower gel!? I brought a pair of unworn shoes to give away, only to see that just about everyone had better shoes than what I wear in my daily life. I felt like an idiot for bringing this stuff.

I saw nice mountain bikes and SUVs on the streets of Koforidua, the likes of which I would not be able to afford. Kids saying 'Obroni, give me money' has a completely different meaning to me than it did even 8 years ago. I almost feel like I should be asking some of these people for money.

My nephew has a wall-mounted flat screen TV, in the 40-inch range and a mobile broadband hookup to his nice looking laptop. I have a 22-inch TV that sits on a bookshelf, a frustrating router, and a computer so old that on every page I load I get a message saying my flash is out of date (whether flash is needed on that page or not) - I can't watch YouTube videos without giving the computer permission to use the old version of flash.

There are satellite dishes around the roof of the compound, with CNN, live Champions League games, and a constant airing of the Ghana Election Petition hearing that has gripped the nation. At home in Edinburgh, I can't watch the Premier League and mark the one Champions League game shown on TV in a Champions League week on the calendar, so I don't miss it. CNN is a website to me in Edinburgh, it doesn't exist on my TV.

My cousin pulled out his iPhone 5 so I could use it as a mobile hotspot. I'd never even touched an iPhone 5 and had no idea they could be used as mobile hotspots.

I felt old and behind the times. Ghana had come and passed me by without me realizing it.

The memories of 2005 when Lauren and I would compose an email on our laptop, put it on a flash drive and hope to send off one email at super slow Internet cafes are only memories now - that world doesn't appear to exist anymore.

On the non-tech side, I saw ramen for sale as I walked through the market. Ramen!?! Now, an American college kid can come to Koforidua and not only keep up with friends back home online, they can also keep up their same diet while they are here. Crazy!

But 'the west' has also caught up with Ghana in some ways.

As we walked through the market, Affie asked if I could get things in the UK; Yams? Yes. Plantains? Of course. Gari? Cocoyams? Cassava? Yes, yes, and yes.

One of the last meals I made in Edinburgh before coming to Ghana, was a Ghanaian meal - plantain with palm nut and bean sauce. I can get all the ingredients for this meal on my walk home from work. I taught Affie how to make a Nigerian snack food not eaten in Ghana, that I have made in Scotland.

At least in terms of food, 'the west', at least 'the west' I live in, has caught up to Ghana.

There are still differences though. The water pressure is not always the best, Ghana still needs to work on its litter problem, electricity does go off from time to time and the heat and humidity were unbearable (that can't be very easily controlled).

But you don't see the lushness of Ghana in 'the west', you don't have the beauty of untouched vegetation, you don't have people who will gladly welcome you into their home and offer you a meal, even though they don't know you.

As much as the world has flattened so far, I hope it doesn't get so flat that the beauty of Ghana, and its people, are lost.


Act II - Family kneads

So I continued, sweating, with the lights out, kneading dough

Baking is in my blood. My grandmother was a bread baker. I vaguely remember a big clay oven where she lived that would produce loaf after loaf of fantastic bread. When she died, my aunt Esther took up the mantle, continuing to bake bread.

My mother settled in Nigeria, where she became a cake baker. You could see her tea cakes all over the university where we lived, in kiosks and small stores.

My mother gave up professional baking when we moved to the US in 1998. I learned on my trip to Koforidua that doctors had told Esther to stop baking - the intense heat of her oven was doing something to her health. No one has taken over the bread baking mantle in my generation and that aspect of my family's heritage may be lost.

I like to bake. The greatest gift my mother gave me was the time she spent teaching me to bake. While I don't bake professionally (though the thought of doing that has crossed my mind many a time), I have tried to keep the baking tradition of my family alive in my own small way.

Before I got to Koforidua, Affie had asked me to bring some recipes to make stuff while I visited - I think the baking gene bypassed Affie. Armed with recipes on my iPod, I was good to go.

We decided that I should make sugar/butter cookies and chin-chin, a snack food I know of from Nigeria. Affie didn't seem to remember chin-chin and thought the name was funny so she chuckled every time it was said. Affie bought ingredients and we were ready to go.

It was very hot and humid in the kitchen that Thursday evening. My uncle had come to the house for a visit; Esther was milling about; I was to make chin-chin and cookies with family looking on, in sweltering conditions. The pressure was on, then it got worse - the lights went out. I now was under a time constraint to make the cookie and chin-chin doughs before it got too dark to see.

Luckily, Affie was the only one looking over my shoulder (not literally, since she is only 4' 11"). Papaa (my uncle) and Esther didn't want to stay in the kitchen because it was too hot - they popped their head in from time to time but not long enough to pay too much attention to what I was doing. Papaa chuckled, as Affie did, anytime chin-chin was said. I think it's odd that people who like a snack food called kelewele think chin-chin is a funny word - kelewele is a lot funnier, I think.

At one point Esther came in and asked Affie what I was making - Esther doesn't speak much English so she often speaks to me in Twi, or asks Affie what I'm up to, even when I'm in the room. When Affie told her, Esther said something that got to me. In Twi she said 'Aye! He's making his mother proud'. For that to come from the primary family baker meant a lot to me.

So I continued, sweating, with the lights out, kneading dough; feeling the generations above me in my hand and in that dough. Everyone in the compound loved the chin-chin, funny name or not, and it was gone in about 10 minutes. Papaa filled up a small bag with some, to take home to his family. I've introduced my family to a new snack food that they like. I was thinking, if things don't out for me, I could move to Ghana and become a professional chin-chin maker.

The family tradition goes on.


Act III - Us, your family

....I thought you said buried

My father was 26 when he married into my mother's family. My mother's family loves him and treats him with the utmost respect (most of the time). He is almost treated like an elder, even when he was younger, and everyone calls him 'Mr. Shirley'.

I, on the other hand, am kind of treated like a kid and have always been called Kodwo, except the one girl who calls me Brother Kodwo.

I'm now 10 years older than my father was when he joined this family and while I can understand people of his generation respecting him and treating me like a kid, I've never really understood why my generation (many of whom I am older than), treat me like a kid.

I don't go on walks with people my age, I get told that I should go on a walk with 10-15 year olds. I get the 'do you want the boy to show you the way?' question when I decide to go anywhere. Adults never seem to want to show me the way apparently, even though I'm sure they'd be happy to show my dad the way (I should say that my dad likes to explore so I've never known him to like being 'shown the way' by anybody).

I'm not bitter about this; it's just the way it has always been. Because of this though, I get the impression people think I'm younger than I actually am. I'm sure it's not just this; it might also be my hair, the way I dress, or that I don't have kids. Whatever the reason may be, I'm constantly being mistaken for a younger man.

I was walking back from the heart of the city when I ran into my cousin, Kwame Wasa. He's a character - he's not quite there mentally and is teased because of his gregarious ways. He's so outgoing, so vocal, claims to know just about everyone, and openly brags about how his brother (me) lives overseas. He is also just about impossible to shut up or say 'no' to, so once I saw him that morning I knew what I'd be in for.

He greeted me, introduced me to the people he was with, and wanted to take me to greet his 'mother and father' - everyone in Ghana is your mother, father, sister, or brother so that meant nothing to me, especially since I know who his parents are and I know that they were nowhere near Koforidua at the time.

I went to the house of these people, greeted them, then listened to the same stuff everyone says - how long are you here? why such a short visit? how is Britain? how is your father and your sister? don't forget about us, your family, in Ghana. That last statement, 'don't forget about us, your family', always bothers me because its most often said by people who are not my family and know me the least. Chances are they will forget about me before I forget about them.

The 'father' then asked me an odd question: are you going to be buried in Britain? This was the first time in Ghana I've felt someone thought I was older than I am. While I appreciated his not thinking I was a kid, I didn't know if this was what I really wanted to talk about. We're talking about my death now? Nice to meet you too, guy.

How do you answer that question? For one, I don't want to be buried at all, but cremated and my ashes placed in several places around the world (I feel sorry for whoever will have to take on that task). But after the disagreements about what should be done with my mother's body when she died, I wasn't about to get into a cremation vs. burial debate, so I didn't go there. I just gave the first answer that came to mind.

I said that I was born in Nigeria and had a soft spot in my heart for that country. As soon as I gave that answer I knew it may be a mistake - some Ghanaians don't like Nigerians and so saying I'd want to be buried there could be seen as an insult. I didn't know where this couple stood on Nigeria and he didn't seem really satisfied with my answer so I tried to move on, adding that I hadn't really thought about it too much yet.

At this point, my cousin said 'he already has a wife'.

They had no interest if I wanted to be buried in Britain but if I wanted to marry a Briton.

'Oh, married.....I thought you said buried'. Again, I felt that I had put my foot in my mouth. I smiled at the misunderstanding. He didn't. I felt like Karl Pilkington.

I broke the tension by saying I had been with my wife for nearly 10 years and that she was neither Ghanian nor British, but American. I'm not sure how they felt about that answer, but at this point I didn't care.

'How old are you?', the wife asked, sounding shocked that I could be in a 10-year relationship. I told her I as 36 and they both said they thought I was much younger. I wonder what 'much younger' meant to them: 31? 26? Surely I don't look 21. Even asking a 26 or 31 year old about a possible future relationship, without first asking if he's already in one, seems odd. A fair number of 26 and 31 year olds are attached and why that wasn't cleared up first was beyond me. I felt like they were putting on that they knew more about me than they actually did by assuming I was single and younger than I am. Who was putting their foot in their mouth now?

In that moment, this couple went from 'us, your family' to 'you, random people I don't know and who clearly don't know me at all'. Lauren has been to Koforidua twice with me. These 'family' members must not have come to my mother's funeral (a 10-minute walk from their home, I should add), so what does that say about 'us, your family'? I felt somewhat insulted as I left their house.

I almost wished they were asking about where I'll be buried because, at least someone would not think I was a kid and it would seem that they cared somewhat about me, their 'family'.

I did get to spend sometime with actual family after that though. I walked home with Kwame Wasa and he introduced me to his 3-month old son. The family I hang out with seems to be getting younger and younger.

I guess I shouldn't be complaining that people always think I'm younger than I am, but the age issue has been going on since I was about 16. From people thinking I am younger than my younger sister to spending 8 years at De Anza having to justify that I was not a student 3-4 times a year. I have some sort of age complex.

You don't see many people complaining about how young people think they are, but this isn't the real world. This is Jeffersonia (that sentence shows you just how mature I am). It would be nice though if 'us, your family' would be family enough to have some sense of how old I am, being that I've been coming to Koforidua for past 36 years.

Act IV - A new cultural experience

So there I was, in a very hot room with about 500 other guys

The one thing I worried most about, when thinking about my trip, was what I would do in Koforidua for a week.

My last four trips to Ghana, dating back to 1997, have involved at least one person who had never been to Ghana before. This meant we did touristy things - we go to the art centre (I was more than happy to not go there on this trip), we go to falls of some sort, walk around the market seeing just how different it is from a grocery store.

By myself, having done all these things several times, none of them seemed particularly appealing. Add to it that the car Affie uses as a taxi was out of commission, and I was pretty much in the same position, transportation wise, as I am in Edinburgh - a walker.

Once I saw the satellites on the house, I penciled in something to do on Tuesday and Wednesday nights - Champions League. At least that would be something to look forward to.

On Tuesday, a few hours before Barcelona was to take on Bayern Munich, I was told that that game would not be on TV. I would have to go to Hajj's to watch it. I had no idea what Hajj's was, except that it was probably owned by someone who had made the Hajj (why I know that gives an inkling of how much Muslims have influenced my life and why I'm so bothered that Muslims have gotten a bad rap over the past 20 years for the crimes of a few idiots - but I digress).

I was to go to Hajj's with a cousin of my mom, a teacher who is about 50, but he didn't seem to be around when the game started so I guessed it wouldn't happen.

At the time the game was about to start, my 11 year old nephew knocked on my door and said that his mom said he should take me to Hajj's. Why was I not surprised that an 11 year old would be the one taking me someplace instead of an adult?

Turns out I could have taken myself to Hajj's because it was about a 2-minute walk away. From the outside, it looked like a small red barn. I asked my nephew how much it was, told him to keep the money his mom had given him (to pay our way in) and not tell his mother I had given him this money. I paid our 2 Cedis and we walked in.

The game had already started.

Hajj's looked like a cross between a fringe venue, a movie theater, and a stadium. It was a dark room with a projection screen showing the game, rows and rows of benches, with an aisle down the middle; about 500 guys packed in tight, shoulder to shoulder. There were also some guys standing along the walls of the room and some kneeling in the aisle at the front of the room. There were ceiling fans to circulate the air, but being that we were in Koforidua, it was a hot, humid, sticky, room. Hajj's would definitely not meet Health and Safety regulations in the UK.

I lost my nephew in entering and he ended up in the front of the room somewhere. I was about 1/2 way up the room, in the middle of one of the benches.

So there I was, in a very hot room with about 500 other guys, watching a sporting event.

I have not been to a ton of sporting events in my life, but I imagine watching some sort of underground boxing match would have a similar feel to Hajj's. Supporters of both sides sitting side by side, very vocally giving each other grief with every offsides or miscalled handball.

I'm not much of a supporter of Barcelona or Bayern, so I didn't go in rooting for one team in particular. I was sure this would be a Barcelona crowd though. I don't think of Bayern Munich as being a global brand the way some of the Premier League and La Liga teams are, so the eruption that happened when Bayern scored the first goal was a bit of a shock. Guys were out of their seats, cheering and rubbing it into the face of the Barcelona fans.

There was some back and forth taunting between the Bayern folks and the Barcelona folks after this first goal. But by the time it got to 3-0, the Barcelona folk were silent. The Bayern supporters held up 3 fingers, sang the 'ole!' song over and over, we're bouncing up and down (blocking the view for a lot of us), and it was over for Barcelona that night. Even I jumped out of my seat as the fourth goal went in - partly because I couldn't see anything when everyone else jumped up the previous three times.

I found my nephew on the way out as we all poured into the street, feeling ever so slightly cooler, my shirt completely dampened by my sweat and that of the guys I sat next to. The guys with the Barcelona shirts were mocked and the Munich fans cheered, and we made our 2-minute walk home.

I love the game of football. For those two hours, millions of people all over the world watched Bayern beat Barcelona. Whether it was alone in a living room in Edinburgh, on a computer at work in Silicon Valley, or in the thousands of places like Hajj's in the developing world. For those two hours, we were all the same - rooting for our team, yelling at a ref, taunting those who supported the other team. For those two hours, at least for the football fans of the world, the world was as flat as the field the game was played on.

Thinking of You

'Oh I'm thinking of you

And all the things that you wanted me to be
And I'm trying now'
-Lenny Kravitz

It's been three years since my mother died. Some days, I hear her voice, and it's like she was here yesterday. Some days I try, but can't remember, how she would react to something, like she's been gone forever.

I thought about writing about how my life is now, with respect to my mother, or publishing something I wrote three years ago, in the aftermath of her death, or putting up the transcript of what I said at her funeral, but I've decided to go for this instead.

Like many of us, my mother never liked pictures of herself, but I always liked pictures of her, even the ones that don't look right. I like them, because that is who my mother is - the person who didn't always have her eyes open as the picture was taken, or who wasn't smiling, or who was caught off guard. A posed picture may tell a 1000 words; an unposed, or mis-posed, one can tell so much more.

If she were alive today, she would probably not want me to post these pictures, but she also wouldn't stop me - that was her way: not to get in the way of her children, even if it meant a little embarrassment for her.

Without further ado, I'm thinking of you, mom, and all the things you wanted me to be....

My mom an I in late 1976/early 1977

Like mother, like son - eyes closed

I always had a safe feeling when my mom cut my hair - this was in 1984

A very odd family photo from the late 1990s

At Emily's high school graduation - I love her smile in this picture

With her first grandson, Kofi-Atta, in 2002

In Ghana, in 2005, when we unintentionally both wore green shirts

Speaking to us at our wedding in 2006

At our wedding reception in 2007

The last picture I have of my mother healthy and happy - goofing around with Maya in Summer 2009