Fog Rising, Sun Shining, Lake Steaming (And Dinner with Turks)

Kemal Kirisci and family

6:55

Up at 6:45, the sun filling the living room, some fog on the lake because of the cool temperature, 49º and another perfect day forecast.  I am back to my Saturday morning routine, listening to Only A Game on NPR and I hope to take in a yoga class at 9:00.

With Kemal Kirisci

Yesterday was an interesting day, starting off with a brief but invigorating kayak paddle just as the fog was lifting, over to Long Point swimming area and then back home to Woodlawn.  Sometimes just being on the lake in the morning acts like an elixir, buoying one's spirits...it was that kind of paddle. When I returned, we again drove over to the CI to hear the final talk, by Kemal Kirisci, a former Head of the Political Science Department at Bosporus University in Istanbul. Now he is the Tusiad senior fellow and Director of the Center on the United States and Europe's Turkey Project at the Brookings Institute. He was by far the most interesting speaker of the week, a true academic with a realistic view of Turkey.  He did emphasize what a miraculous economic change has taken place in Turkey since the 1970's when I lived there.  Turkey is now an economic power, not only in the Middle East but the world, in deed, a model for the Middle East.  But he also warned that many of seemingly draconian, conservative laws passed by the current Erdogan government have led to protests like those that took place in Taxsim Square a couple of weeks ago.  The movement towards a more conservative and Islamist, less secular government challenges Turkish image as a model for the Middle East.  Only time will tell if Turkey returns to its roots, a secular, modern looking government, the kind envisaged by Ataturk when the Turkish republic was created.

Sinan Catches Bass

After the talk, we met briefly, and I mentioned I had taught at Robert College, left him my phone in case he wanted to get together, never expecting him to call.  Well, we had met his children earlier, towards the end of his talk because they were standing outside the Amphitheater, just like us.  I guess they told him about us, wanted to come and see our home, so he called to say they would love to come over late afternoon. So, Evie and I got busy, preparing for their visit, Evie making baklava, me picking up some local micro brews for Kemal, along with some Utz chips and dip for his children.  I picked them up at 5:30 and brought them to our house, where we sat on the porch talking about many mutual friends in Turkey. Both Kemal and his wife, Candan, are lovely people, and we really hit it off, perhaps because of mutual experiences  Their son immediately wanted to fish, so Evie took him out on the dock(he is fourteen) and he dropped his line and to his delight, he caught the largest bass of the summer, amazing.  Sinan later told Evie this was one of the best things that has ever happened to him. We then cruised over to Bemus in our boat, had reservations at the Seezurh House.  Evie called, told them we had special friends coming, so they held a table for us.  All Kemal wanted was a burger, fries and micro brew, so the Seezurh was the perfect choice.  They all ordered burgers and fries, enjoyed them. and loved the busyness of both Bemus and the restaurant.  A real American experience, quite different let's say from what they passed up, dinner at the Chautauqua Institutes's Atheneum and a evening with Billy Collins and Paul Simon.  We boated home at dusk, and they jumped at Evie's suggestion of a fire, so I built one in our fire pit while Evie made Turkish tea.  We had tea and baklava, which they loved, thought it was the best they have had in awhile, and sat outside around the fire, once again reminiscing about our lives in Istanbul, their children and ours, and how Turkey has changed. They are now living in Bethesda, outside of DC since Kemal will be at the Brookings Institute for the next five years.  Their two children go to the French International school in Washington, both are fluent in English and French as well as Turkish.  Neat kids.

Kemal with Sinan and Eta

Dinner at Seezurh House

I dropped them off at the CI around 10:00 and we now have become fast  friends; they have invited us to come see them in Washington and we would love to see them come back to this area.  They loved the CI, of course, were shocked by how beautiful it was.  There reaction to the the American Utopia: they felt it was more like Turkey, where houses are close together whereas the image of America is often of wild open spaces, with homes isolated from each other.  Interesting.

It was a great day, not what we expected when we got up.

Heavy Fog and A Chilly 47º

7:00

Up at 7:00, no coffee in the jar, so I had to hunt around the pantry and open a new can of Folgers, our 'specialty coffee' of choice.  I walked outside and could hardly see beyond the dock the fog was so heavy though it did not feel that cold.  I was hoping to go kayaking early but I will have to wait for the sun to burn off the fog.  A fishing boat just went by the dock and we could hardly see it.

Yesterday morning, I went again to the Chautauqua Institute to listen to the speaker, this time a young woman named Ozlem Denizmen, a Vice President of Dogus Group, a Holding Company, a television personality, writer, and Internet entrepreneur.  She was another great ambassador for Turkey, articulate, intelligent, modern, tech savvy and vivacious.  And she was optimistic about the changing role of women in Turkey though she admitted things are changing slowly.  She has a weekly TV show, on financial literacy for women, the Maria Bartiromo of Turkey.  The audience really seemed to enjoy her very personal talk, gave her a standing ovation at the end of her talk which is rare.  I did speak with her briefly afterwards, and she was very personable, approachable, gave me her card, and knew lots of Robert College graduates.  When the talk was over, as people were walking out, two older ladies came up to me, pointing their finger, asking, 'Are you the whirling dervish we saw last night at the Amphitheater's  Turkish Music and Dance Program?'  I had to admit that I wasn't though I did say I lived in Turkey for seven years.  Hilarious. Maybe I can have a new life as a dervish.

With Turkish TV personality, Ozlem Denizmen

I then went to the CI library, took out a couple of books, another one on bread, what else and did some shopping in Mayville, at the Hardware store.  When I got home, I had lunch then inspired by a bread recipe and the coolness of the afternoon, I put together another no knead bread recipe, no fail supposedly, with oats, flax seeds, and quinoa.  I will let you know how it does today when I bake it. Evie is not optimistic as I have tried this type numerous times and it ends up being a flat loaf, not rising for some reason.  This time, however, it's going to rise!

The Many Colors in  Evie's Garden

Evie finished up cutting the yard, did some edging and we both commented on how amazing both the front and back yards look this time of year.  Usually the grass has browned out some but not this year and all the flowers are wild and happy with the rain and sun, our back yard like a cottage garden gone wild.

Our Menu for the Night

At 6:00, we went over to the Mc Clures for dinner.  We sat out side, around a fire, for our beers and appetizers before going in when it became too cool, for a great dinner, lentil and eggplant soup, lamb chops and corn, both grilled by Mr. Ron, and a salad.  It was  a fun night; we looked at some pictures of their trip to Spain and Germany, with the promise of more to come.  We stayed until 9:45 and went home on surprisingly empty roads, to watch some TV and read before going to bed.

A Bright and Shiny Morning on Lake Chautauqua

6:25

A sparkling lake, clear sky, and brilliant sunrise at 6:20 this morning, a fine day lies ahead, cloudless skies, highs in the low 70's, a perfect day on the lake.  There's very little action on the lake, a kayak paddling by, one or two fishermen.  Where have all the people gone?

Yesterday morning, Evie and I decided to take in the lecture at the CI by Turkish journalist Nedim Sener.  We left about 10:15, drove to Chautauqua Estates, parked our car, walked to the gate, got our library pass, and went in to listen to his interview with David Rohde, a fellow journalist.   Because his English was only fair, he had an interpreter which did not seem to matter much.  He was a marvelous ambassador for Turkey, funny, charming, thoughtful, articulate, and most importantly, courageous, willing to speak his mind, which is why he's being indicted for terrorism in Turkey in November. a charge he will not run from.  He's even spent a year in a Turkish jail for his criticism of the Erdogan government.  In his talk, he compared Erdogan's leadership to that of a conservative father, telling his children (people) what to eat, think, and how to act, how many children to have, and brooking no dissent.

We spoke with him briefly after the talk.  Up close, he was almost as tall as me, affable, extremely charming and handsome.  Evie was thoroughly taken with him.  We both wish we could have invited him over for tea but he was going to Niagara Falls in the afternoon, then flying home to Istanbul.  It's always exciting for us to talk with Turks.  In fact, as we were listening to his talk, three Turkish looking young people were standing to our right.  When they walked by, I said hello in Turkish and they turned around in surprise.  We talked to them briefly and they were indeed Turks, musicians living in New York, who were here at the CI to perform Turkish music that evening.

At 1:00, I took my car into Jamestown for its yearly inspection.  I suppose it makes sense  (to keep unsafe vehicles off the road)  but it's always annoying to have to do it.   It took about forty five minutes, cost me twenty one bucks, less than Ohio used to cost, and I had a chili dog at the drive in across the street for lunch.  Yum.   I stopped at Sam's on the way home, picked up some of the staples we have gone through in the past couple of weeks and came home, to read some and relax.  About 4:00, both Evie and I went out side and spent about an hour weeding our brick path, a mess since we had not done much with it over the past three or four weeks.  After we were done, Evie cut the back yard and we both remarked on how green,  how lush our backyard looks, the garden, flowers, trees, hiding a good part of our house.

Manhattans  cocktails in Our New Glasses

Late Afternoon View

We then sat out on our porch, had the rare Manhattan, commenting on how lucky we are to live on the lake, how much we enjoy just being here.  We never get tired of our view.  We had rotisserie chicken for dinner, with cole slaw and sweet corn and watched a few more episodes of Nurse Jackie, then to bed.

LIFE AFTER LIFE; KATE ATKINSON

This is the third book I have read by Kate Atkinson and it's quite different from the other two, which had a element of mystery to them, a 'who done it.'  This one, however, is set in Great Britain, between 1910 and the 1960's.  It's a bit confusing at first when a few characters reappear after they have been killed off by Atkinson in an early chapter.  You think you have misread something until you realize she is telling the same characters life over and over until she gets it right, including some of the details from the previous retelling, thus some characters reappear, some are killed off, even the protagonist in a couple of narratives.  At first the reverses seem strange but after awhile, quite normal

Ursula Todd, born in 1910, dies in child birth, but reappears in the next chapter, having miraculously been saved, thus setting the narrative structure for the novel, the heroine dies, then is born again, having escaped whatever it was that threatened her, birth, the 1917 flu epidemic, a murder, a suicide, the bombings of London in the 1940's, or, as the book begins, the assassination of Adolph Hitler, in a
German Gashaus in 1933 as he starts his rise to power.  Events are told over and over, with greater detail, the people who die in one chapter may appear in the next.  She has boy friends, who die, then reappear in a later chapter.  Once you catch on, which I did finally after the first two chapters, the novel reads easily and well.  There's no mystery here, as in her other fiction, just the retelling of Ursula Todd's life and that of her brothers, two killed in WWI, her older brother, who makes it in big in business despite being the bully of the family, her mother, never satisfied with Ursula, and her father, always loving and understanding towards his 'little bear.

I liked it best for it's depiction of what it must have been like to live through the bombings of London in the early 1940's, as much of the story takes place at this time and Ursula has volunteered to be part of the Guard which are called to bomb sites to extricate any of the living, often a ghastly task.

The novel dies out in the late 1960's, with Ursula never having married but having survived, the cherished Aunt of her siblings children.  Not my favorite novel by Atkinson, as you get a little tired of the same events happening after awhile but still, it's lovely writing and interesting to a point.

Has Fall Arrived?

Happy Birthday Marisa, Who Turned Ten Yesterday

7:13

8:03

Up at 7:00 to a wet, cloudy, and cool morning, reminiscent  of a fall mornings in October.  It's 52º, windy, a high today expected in the mid 60's.  As I was getting my coffee, the house still felt unfamiliar, strange, no grandchildren, no clutter, everything in its place, as I mentioned yesterday, like a model home.

Yesterday was cool if not cold and unless the sun was out, we needed a fleece, a sweatshirt.  It even felt cosy to wrap yourself in a blanket if you were sitting out on the porch, like Evie did, going through photos on Aperture for a couple of hours.  She is almost finished with the washing and all of the bedrooms now have clean sheets and pillow cases, beds made, ready for our next round of guests. While Evie worked, I went to the CI around 10:15, got my library pass and listened to the Turkish speaker Ibrahim Kalin address the audience on Turkey's role in the Middle East.  He is supposedly an advisor to Turkey's President Erdogan but he had little to say about Erdogan, his critics, his crack down on journalists, etc.  In other words, he avoided the flash points and concentrated instead on a broad outline of the changes in the Middle East, the world, over the past thirty years.  Four touchstones have changed the world according to Kalin: the end of the Cold War, 9/11, the collapse of the Financial System in 2007 and the Arab Uprisings in 2012 and 2013.  He went on to expound on how these changed the world and suggested that the Euro centric view of history or the world was gone and he welcomed what he called a poly centric view, one that embraces various cultures and religions.  Only when he was questioned at the end did he respond to some of the critics of the current Islamist leaning government in Turkey

I spoke briefly to him after the talk, introduced myself as someone who lived in Istanbul, taught at Robert College, and played basketball for Besiktas.  He was affable, said the current teams have many NBA players.  As a lark, I left my name and phone in case he wanted to get together.  Fat chance although it worked once in Turkey, back in 1975.  Kareem Abdul Jabbar was visiting Istanbul, putting on a clinic.  After it was over, I introduced myself, asked if he would like to get together.  He said yes, and we picked him and a friend up at his hotel, brought him back to our house, to meet Evie and the kids, and then we took him out to dinner to the Captain Restaurant, in our village of Arnavutkoy.  We had a great meal together and I remember asking him if he was getting tired of playing basketball.  He said no way and ended up playing for close to another twenty years.

We relaxed most of the afternoon, and I did some reading, returning to Elizabeth Strout's The Burgess Boys, which I am starting to enjoy.  Evie called me in to watch Charlie Rose because he was interviewing John Oliver, the guest host on the The Daily Show.  It was a great interview and we both watched the entire hour.  It's amazing how creative and interesting and intelligent some comics or humorists are.

Enjoying Music at the Lakeview, in Mayville 

We then met the Mc Clures, yes, they are back, at the Lakeview in Mayville and sat outside in the cool evening, listening to a guitarist and singer that they both really like.  He was quite good, especially as a guitarist and could play almost any song, from Neil Young, to the Eagles, to Credence, to Loggins and Messina.  It was too cold to stay outside and eat, so after an hour, we went in, ordered our sandwiches and fries, always good and stayed till about 9:45.  When we got home, we watched some TV, did some reading and went to bed around 11:00.

DARKNESS VISIBLE: WILLIAM STYRON

I remember the reviews of this book, a description by the writer, William Styron, of his battle with depression in the early 90's but never got around to reading it until I saw it recently on a book shelf in the Prendergast Library and picked it up.  It's a short read, an extended essay, but well worth reading, in fact, it should be required for everyone since one of the main themes of the book is that no one but the sufferer of depression can understand what it's like to be afflicted with this disease.

He makes clear, early on, that depressions do not disappear overnight; there is no panacea, no easy, quick cure, no drug, no operation, nothing but time, therapy, perhaps drugs, and hope.  It is an eye opening look at this disease, something many people suffer through, misunderstood, and mostly ignored, by family, peers, even the medical profession.

As he says: "Depression is a disorder of the mood, so mysteriously painful and elusive in the way it becomes known to the self---to the mediating intellect---as to verge close to beyond description.  It remains nearly incomprehensible to those who have not experienced it in its extreme mode, although the gloom, 'the blues', which people go through occasionally and associate with the general hassle of every day are of such prevalence that they do give many individuals a hint of the illness in its catastrophic form."

On a more personal level, he describes his depression: "Of the many dreadful manifestations of the disease---both physical and psychological---a sense of self hatred---or, put less categorically, a failure of self esteem---is one of the most universally experienced symptoms, and I had suffered more and more from a general feeling of worthlessness as the malady progressed...a dank joylessness."  And this feeling of worthlessness comes from a world renown writer, famous world wide.  His depression became most pronounced one mid afternoon when "gloom began crowding in on me, a sense of dread and alienation and, above all stifling anxiety."  He adds, "For myself, the pain is most closely connected to drowning and suffocation...but even those images are off mark," adding that the psychologist William James, a sufferer most of his life described it best though implying its near impossibility: "It is a positive and active anguish, a sort of psychical neuralgia wholly unknown to normal life."

He also makes an interesting connection between hypochondria and depression, a feed back loop, where the sicker you think you are, the more depressed you get.  And the more depressed you get, the more you find things that may be wrong.  He takes us to the point where he considers life not worth living he's so desperate and talks about all the artistic types who end up committing suicide but stops short, realizing that life ultimately is worth living, that one can conquer this disease, it just takes time, a good doctor, and most of all, the realization that you need help.  For him, finally admitting to himself that he had lost control was the beginning of his return.  He is admitted to a hospital, stays there for a couple of months, and just the change of scenery, the isolation, being taken away from the world of anxiety and guilt, and left to just be free of all of societies nets seemed to be the prescription he needed.  So the book, though not a happy one, ends on an optimistic note.  It adds two caveats at the end; his doctor, for the most part, was less than helpful; he should have gone to a better one.  And the drugs the doctor prescribed, he's sure, had some part in his final swoon.  He also credits his wife, who stuck with him throughout, with being a saint.  Depression is tough on any relationship.

As I mentioned earlier, every one should read this book, to better understand people who suffer from depression, what they feel and go through day after day, but also to see that there is a way out, with help and understanding.

Overcast, Heavy Rain, Thunder, and Lightning Last Night

6:50

Kayak Afternoon

Up later than usual, around 6:50, to a freshly washed yard, phlox beaten down by the rains, hydrangea flowers hanging, touching the ground.  The storm woke both of us up about 2:00 and we came down to check on windows, various appliances flashing as the electricity must have gone out briefly.  I checked the rain gauge this morning, about an inch, though the storm did not last long.  It's 62º, more rain expected, a cool day, with a high of 68º.

Yesterday, we both returned to our routines.  My day started  with clearing the yard of chairs and tables, so Evie could cut the lawn more easily.  Around 9:15, I went off to yoga and it was good to get back to class, most of the same people. though one or two new faces.  It was good for my sore back as I left with no discomfort.  I stopped at Ryder's and Joyce the proprietor, mentioned she had talked to my daughter last week.  When I returned home, around 11:30, after returning books to the Ashville Library and picking up THE INTERESTINGS and stopping at the post office,  Evie was just finishing cutting the lawn.  Around 1:00, we sat down to lunch and watched last week's episodes of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert for an hour.  We are two weeks behind, not having watched any TV really over the past two weeks except for Shark Week.

Halle's Painting of her Baba

It was a relaxing afternoon, me reading, Evie going over some of the pictures on my computer, seeing what photos were taken from the past couple of weeks, picking out some of the best family shots for viewing or printing.  It was overcast much of the afternoon but the lake was an inviting, windless gray, so we decided to go for a kayak paddle around 5:00.  We went over to Long Point, to the Marina, but the algae bloom was so disgusting that it actually colored the shoreline.  We paddled back to Wells Bay and the water was fine, little if any algae, so it must congregate in certain areas, like Long Point Bay.

Newest Cairn

We came home, sat on the front porch with a glass of wine, and watched the dwindling action on the lake, the joys of a weekday...few boats, few people.  Just kidding Woodlawners!  We like having you around.  We a mushroom pasta sauce for dinner and finally watched the last two episodes of The Killing, though I had to buy it from Itunes since we forgot to tape it last week.  I was wrong about the killer, set up my the writers no doubt and did not pick up on any hints that it was the Lieutenant, Sarah's lover, until he sat with his daughter in his car mid way through the last episode.  It just did not seem right to spend so much time on him.  The last half hour was weak; I can understand Sarah being upset with the fact that her lover is a serial killer but breaking down in front of him, crying, making your self vulnerable to him if he chose to kill her, seemed ridiculous.  I did like the fact that she finally shot him, twice, to keep him from talking, her from being made a public fool.  And so it ends, and we look forward to next year where Sarah once again will have to deal with her past actions and their consequences, an innocent man executed because of her and having loved unknowingly, a serial killer cop.  Heavy.