African Tour:Pretoria

Pretoria is right next to Johannesburg, so there were no flights or sitting around airports all day. The charter bus took less than an hour. We only did two shows, so there was no hotel. We left our Johannesburg hotel in the morning, drove to Pretoria, had a quick rehearsal, did the first show, took a break, did the second show, and took the bus back to the hotel.

State Theatre
Our very temporary home base in Pretoria was the State Theatre, billed as the largest theater in Africa. It did not seem all that big to us, but we quickly found more than a few places that claimed to be the largest of their kind on the entire continent. My impression was that it is similar to every Ray's in New York that claims to be the original. The theater had a decent stage and sound system, and more importantly, ample restrooms backstage, so it worked for us.

Union Building
With limited time between shows, we never strayed far from the central business district. We did some eating, too much shopping, and went to the Union Building Gardens, a hillside park outside the president's house. You cannot actually go inside the Union Buildings because it is the president's house. The park is nice, and since it sits on one of the tallest hills in the city, there was a nice breeze rolling downhill. That is always a good thing between shows.

Photograph by Clayton Majona
We saw why Pretoria is known as the Jacaranda City. Several streets were lined with Jacaranda trees in full bloom. We also saw why some of the locals see them as a nuisance. When thousands of people walk over the fallen flowers, they create a sticky stain that must be a pain in the ass to clean.

African Tour:Johannesburg

Taoyuan International Airport
Taipei, Taiwan

Suvarnabhumi Airport
Bangkok, Thailand

Hamad International Airport
Doha, Qatar

OR Tambo International Airport
Johannesburg, South Africa

Flying from Taiwan to South Africa is pretty simple. We took Thai Airways from Taipei to Bangkok, then Qatar Airways from Bangkok to Doha and a separate flight from Doha to Johannesburg. It was supposed to take 24 hours.

Our first delay was in Bangkok. We spent nine hours at Suvarnabhumi Airport. They never told us why. As other passengers were put onto other flights, we waited. We were a larger group, so it was probably more difficult to find something for us. I am not normally a fan of waiting in airports for nine hours, but something interesting came out of it. Our original Bangkok to Doha flight was supposed to be on a Boeing 777, which I have flown on plenty of times. Our new flight was on an Airbus A380, which I had never flown before. The A380 is that double decker plane that was supposed to revolutionize air travel and replace the 747. Except it never did. Airbus built fewer than 300 planes in 18 years, compared to more than 1,500 planes in 50 years for the 747. Airbus lost money on the A380. Boeing made a fortune on the 747.

We finally left Bangkok at three in the morning. Because of time zones and that whole spinning of the Earth thing, our seven hour flight landed just before six in the morning. Hamad International Airport in Doha seems to be pretty popular. It wins awards from organizations that hand out awards to airports. The first time I went to Hamad International Airport was on my way to Barcelona. That flight was also delayed, so I spent ten hours in the award-winning airport in the middle of the night when all of the things that won the awards were closed.

This time, we spent almost 15 hours at the airport, starting at six in the morning when everything was closed. The advantage to being in a larger group was that the airline put us up in one of the airport hotels. The last thing they wanted was for any of us to leave the airport, not that we had any visas for Qatar. I was the only one in our group with a passport that could get me out of the airport without any extra paperwork. Since I only had 15 hours, and I am not wild about spending money in a country where being gay is a capital offense, I thought it best to stay with my group and take a break in that free hotel.

After dinner, we took an eight and a half hour flight to Johannesburg on a Boeing 777. Our 24 hour trip from Taipei took 44 hours.

Melrose Arch
We arrived in Johannesburg at four in the morning and were at our hotel before six. Another good thing about being in a larger group was that we could check into the hotel as soon as we got there. Solo travelers usually have to wait until the normal check in time, which is nowhere close to six in the morning. The Johannesburg Marriott Hotel Melrose Arch was a standard business hotel just like every Marriott I have ever seen anywhere in the world. For some reason, I assumed all of our hotels on this trip would be similar. They were not.

Melrose is a more upscale neighborhood of Johannesburg. The Melrose Arch is a new office/retail development that looks absolutely nothing like most of the city. It is how business leaders want Johannesburg to look and how community leaders know Johannesburg will never look. I do not and should not have a dog in this race, but if I had a vote, I would say the city should try to keep its traditional feel and not look like a pedestrian shopping mall. The entire Melrose Arch area reminded me of the outdoor pedestrian part of the Southpoint Mall in Durham, though only in appearance. Johannesburg feels nothing like North Carolina.

One of the first things I noticed about the Melrose Arch was the overt security presence. One thing we had been warned about before leaving Taiwan was the high crime rates in South Africa, especially Johannesburg. From what I could tell, it was all private security. That did nothing to make me feel safe. I know nothing about South African police training, but anywhere else I have ever been, private security companies do not generally hire the best of the best. In Jerusalem's Old City, you sometimes see armed soldiers. If you want safety, they are the way to go. Their training is some of the best in the world. Any job that pays the bills is something to be proud of, but mall cops are not going to take a bullet for you.

Not that we ever needed anything that extreme. Johannesburg was like New York or Los Angeles. There are some neighborhoods you might want to avoid at night and some you should probably stay out of altogether. Most of the city is perfectly safe for anyone not walking down the street waving large wads of cash. To the Taiwanese, none of that made any sense. You can walk any street in Taiwan at any time with the Hope Diamond in your gold crown and no one will look at you twice. Unless you are a foreigner. Then they will stare at you all day, without any violent intent. I never noticed anyone staring at us in South Africa. Then again, Johannesburg has the largest Chinese population in all of Africa, and people who look like me are nothing special.

We were two to a room in the hotel, which was not a problem at all since we spent most of our time either at work or visiting some tourist trap. I can barely remember what the room looked like. There was a lot of gray and beige. I suppose those are the fashionable colors right now. By South Africans standards, it was exceptionally dull and lacked the vibrant colors we saw all over the country.

The biggest disadvantage to traveling with a large group of Taiwanese is that they love guided tours. The larger the group, the better. When I go somewhere new, I want to wander around and get a little lost. The things I have accidentally stumbled across are far more interesting than anything some stranger booked in advance. When Taiwanese go somewhere, they want to shop, see the most popular sights in the travel guides, and eat at mostly Chinese restaurants that have been approved by previous Taiwanese tourists.

Since Johannesburg was our first stop on this African Tour, and I am a supervisor of sorts, I chose to stay with the group more than I wanted. In between rehearsals, shows, and all the driving back and forth, we piled into a charter bus when we had some time off and saw tiny slivers of Johannesburg that taught us almost nothing about the culture or its people.

Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens
We went to the Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens, which looked more like a park than a botanical garden. Apparently, they used to have a nursery, but it closed a few years ago. Its biggest selling point is a small waterfall that flows from a hill where some eagles live. I never saw any eagles, but we were in South Africa. Plenty of animals were right around the corner.

We went to the Old Kromdraai Gold Mine, one of the mines during South Africa's gold rush that put Johannesburg on the map. They still call Johannesburg the City of Gold, but only on brochures. No one actually called it that in person. While the history is important to South Africans, no one in our group was especially impressed by rusty old mine carts and the dirt entrance of a tunnel.

We took a walking tour of Sophiatown, a cultural and artistic haven at the beginning of the 20th century, much like Montmartre in Paris or Dashijie in Shanghai. At the time, artists of all races and backgrounds could mingle, drink too much, and discuss all the vast intricacies of life. Unfortunately, most of the original buildings were bulldozed when it became a white neighborhood and the black population was violently relocated to the Soweto township.

One of the better guided tours was the Alexandra bicycle tour. We rode bicycles around the Alexandra township, which is one of the poorest neighborhoods in Johannesburg and borders Sandton, one of the richest. There was a bit of a history lesson, but our guide mostly ignored the poverty around us and the fact that what we paid to ride bicycles could have bought books for a few families.

Soweto
The best and worst guided tour we took in Johannesburg was in Soweto. With a population of over one million people in two hundred square kilometers, it is by far the largest township in South Africa. The tour covered a small area while the tour guide tried to cram a lot of history into a short presentation. Most of my Taiwanese colleagues were completely unaware of South Africa's history. Apartheid was never something they studied in school, but it was a word they heard a lot in South Africa.

Our tour guide told us that Soweto was essentially a ghetto for black people, many of whom were evicted from their homes and forced to live in the township. They could only legally leave when going to work in the mines or other parts of Johannesburg. Someone in our group asked how the white people could control the black population that outnumbered them six to one. The convoluted answer was a long history of colonization and oppression by my ancestors. By the time Apartheid was the law of the land, the black majority was used to being treated like criminals. As the only white person on the bus, I did what my people have always done. I oversimplified a complicated situation for my Taiwanese colleagues and told them the whites had all the money.

As the only person on our tour group who knew anything about the history of South Africa, albeit not nearly enough, I was not at all surprised by anything our tour guide told us in Soweto. What surprised me were the living conditions. I expected a Hooverville of tin shacks with dirt floors, which do indeed exist. I thought Soweto would look more like Alexandra. But there were also plenty of paved roads, wood framed houses with tile roofs, lots of garages for all the cars, and ample electricity and indoor plumbing. At least in the daytime. Nelson Mandela's house is a small but sturdy brick and mortar building.

When I saw a tour group of white people strolling through the township, I wondered if their tour guide was showing them the real Soweto or the tourist version we were seeing. I never felt guilty while I was with Taiwanese people who had nothing to do with Apartheid. Had they lived in South Africa at the time, they would have been classified as Coloured, which sounds terrible where I come from and was even worse in 20th century South Africa. I could not help but look disapprovingly at the white tourists who were treating this home to a million people as some kind of tourist attraction, even though I was doing the same thing. My internal defense was that I never wanted to go there. I wanted to explore Johannesburg's vibrant present, not learn even more about its appalling past. When I go to Hiroshima, I visit the Peace Park, but I spend most of my time in the mix of near future and distant past.

In Johannesburg's present, we ate a great deal of food. That is unavoidable if you travel with a large group of Taiwanese. If they love anything more than shopping during their travels, it is easting. The food in South Africa was something I was not looking forward to at all. Most of the time, in my daily life, I can ignore the fact that I have no sense of smell and cannot taste flavors. When I go somewhere I have never been, especially somewhere as famous for its cuisine as South Africa, that reality hits me in the face at every meal. Had I been able to taste anything, I probably would have eaten like a Taiwanese.

Most of my colleagues wanted to try the local Chinese food. There was a basic, all over the place “Chinese” restaurant near the hotel. None of their dishes were familiar and no one was impressed. It never stood a chance anyway because it was not in the travel guides. Not the most adventurous people in the world, my traveling companions were really only interested in eating pre-approved food.

Oriental Plaza
Luckily for them, not so much for me, Johannesburg has more than a few shopping malls. They reminded me of every shopping mall everywhere in the world, except for the metal detectors at the door and private security guards checking bags before anyone could get in. The one mall I might remember in years to come was the Oriental Plaza, just down the M1 from our hotel. I thought the name was interesting because where I come from, it would be seen as insulting to the Chinese. The Chinese shoppers I was with could not have cared less. They were there for deals. Unlike most malls, shoppers could haggle on prices at the Oriental Plaza. Taiwanese love to haggle, even though prices are set at all malls in Taiwan. As for a taste of the Orient, nothing in the mall reminded anyone of home. They were mostly disappointed that it was run down and looked like it had seen better days.

Further east is China Town, several blocks of restaurants and shops that did not look the least bit Chinese. But there were Chinese signs all over the place, which I found strangely comforting, and most of the shops were owned and operated by Chinese immigrants. My colleagues loved it because they could speak to people in their language and eat food that was far more authentic than any of the upscale “Chinese” restaurants in town.

There were plenty of extremes in Johannesburg. We went to the poorest neighborhoods and some of the richest. We drove past car dealerships selling Maseratis and young men standing on the side of the road selling cell phone cases and plastic toys. There are roadside stalls selling fruit in Taiwan, but usually in rural areas. The most you will see in the city is someone selling flowers. In Johannesburg, larger than any city in Taiwan, you can buy anything at a stop light. Which are called robots, for some reason.

We also did some work here and there, but Johannesburg was more about adjusting and adapting. The work was nothing new. The audiences were, and they seemed to enjoy a look into a culture very different from theirs. Johannesburg will always be my gateway into Africa, which is probably not the best position to be in. I vividly remember my first visit to Tokyo, but the Ginza was sensory overload. There was too much to take in all at once. I get the feeling Johannesburg will feel the same way a few years down the road.

Johannesburg

---

I took thousands of photographs in South Africa. It is going to take a while to sort through them all. But since I will be describing some photogenic places, it feels wrong to not show any pictures. I will use placeholder photographs until I can replace them with my own, and give credit to the photographers when I know who they are.

African Tour

My dance company is going on tour in Africa. That is something I never really expected to say, but always wanted to. That is also an incredibly vague thing to say, like “Let's eat Asian food”. Africa is an enormous continent with at least 54 countries, thousands of different cultures, more than one thousand languages, and hundreds of religions. I will see almost none of it. We are scheduled to perform in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, Cape Town, Nairobi, Mombasa, and Dar es Salaam. Three countries out of 54, in the far east and deep south. Calling it an African tour sounds disingenuous, like when rock stars go on a “world tour” to the United States, a few cities in Western Europe, and Tokyo.

The people planning this tour have been planning it for years. It would have happened earlier if not for a plague that killed some travel plans in North America and Europe. Fortunately, this was the one plague that was relatively kind to Africa. The total deaths in Kenya are about the same as Idaho. It barely touched Tanzania at all.

We leave on Tuesday. Despite how much I enjoy going to other places, especially places I have never been, and despite how much I have wanted to see bits of Africa for a long time, I am not looking forward to Tuesday. We have a four hour flight from Taipei to Bangkok, which is not so bad. But then we get on a different airline and fly Bangkok to Doha for seven hours. Extra airlines means extra people handling your luggage. The more it changes hands, the more likely it will get lost. We are bringing costumes, sets, and props. Losing those would ruin the entire trip. From Doha, we have an eight and a half hour flight to Johannesburg. Getting from here to there should take a little over 24 hours. After a night off, we get to work.

The tour ends in Dar es Salaam, but we have to fly back to Nairobi, from which we will fly five and a half hours to Doha, six and a half hours to Bangkok, and three and a half hours to Taipei. It is practically the same route back, except we arrive on the continent in Johannesburg and depart from Nairobi. Despite all the different airports in different countries, my only real concern is that I have an Israeli work visa in my passport and I have to fly through Qatar. They are not exactly best friends, though Qatar has less of a death to Israel stance than some of its neighbors.

According to the schedule, we will have some free time in Cape Town. I need to figure out if there is enough time to visit Kruger National Park. It is on the opposite side of the country from Cape Town, but it is one of the top places on my list. We will not have nearly as much free time in Johannesburg or Durban, which are much closer. Dar es Salaam is right next to Zanzibar, which I would love to go to, but there is probably not enough time. The trickiest part will be trying to extend my stay and hitting a national park or two in Kenya while everyone else flies home. If at all possible, I would really like to see the Serengeti in Tanzania, which is not unrealistically far from Nairobi. Cape Town to Kruger is more of a pipe dream than Nairobi to the Serengeti.

Whatever happens, I predict this will be an exceptional trip. We are cramming far too many places into far too short a time, so who knows how much I will really learn about anything, but it should be a unique experience. If nothing else, I should discover which places I need to go back to off the clock.

Junior Assistant Adjunct Professor Hailey

I just started a new job. It is part time and will never be full time, at least as long as my career holds out. You never know. A few years ago, my dancing career took a nosedive and I wondered what would happen. I had pretty much nothing to fall back on. I can always pick up gigs as a musician, but that never paid the bills. I used to do a lot of musical theater when I was younger. I doubt that pays as much today as it used to. And there is little to no demand for a coloratura mezzo-soprano who knows all the biggest show tunes around here. It kind of amazes me that I live in a time and place where dancers easily earn more than musicians.

I have been very slowly building up my academic CV. I am not at all qualified to be a professor anywhere in the world, but I have some experience as a substitute teacher of sorts at two or three different universities. When one of them offered me a low level, part time gig, I jumped at it.

My roommate and sister from another mister, Lily, is working on a master's degree at Wenzao Ursuline University of Languages. Through her, I met a professor who taught a dialectology class, among others. After substituting for her a few times, and more importantly, after she wanted to drop the class, I threw my hat in the ring. I have no doubt there were other, more qualified applicants for the position. What I had on my side was the recommendation of a tenured professor and the approval of several students. That those students had already taken the class and would no longer be my students seems to be irrelevant. One of the worst things about Wenzao, in my opinion, is that they put entirely too much stock into what their students want. That helped me get the job, so maybe I should like it, but it seems to me that the students should never be in charge of any school. They are the customers who pay to keep the lights on, but keeping them happy has to be one of the slipperiest of slopes. And the customer is rarely right.

As of August, I am a lecturer for the Department of Translation and Interpreting, College of International Culture, Education, and Foreign Affairs. That looks great on my CV, but it is a part time job and I only teach one class. Next semester, I will only teach one class. Next year, who knows. I could be invited to go away. Or asked to teach a single class again. In Taiwan, lecturer is about as low as you can get on the ladder and still be allowed to teach a class. In the United States, I might be called an assistant professor, though I am not at all qualified to be an assistant professor here. During my first semester in Minnesota, we used to call all the teachers professor, even if they were graduate students who were little more than teaching assistants.

As of September, students in this dialectology class went from being taught by a full professor to a part time lecturer. I would see that as a serious step down if I were them. This is not a general education class that students take to get an easy A. Almost everyone in the class needs it for their major, though I was surprised by how many different majors are involved. No one has complained about their new teacher, as far as I know. Then again, no grades have been posted yet.

The hardest part about teaching this class, so far, has nothing to do with the actual teaching. Standing in front of a group of mostly young people whose minds are sponges and want to soak up my wisdom, or at least the wisdom of the textbook, is easy. I like having a captive audience. It is all the paperwork that sucks any inch of glamor out of the job. Substituting for someone else is much easier. They did all the paperwork. All I had to do was teach the class.

When my sister used to teach at a cram school in Hong Kong, it took her maybe five or ten minutes to write up her lesson plans. At Wenzao, I spent about a month preparing, as well as a few extra hours the night before each class. The big difference between our experiences, other than one was after school tutoring for children and one is a university class, is that her school pretty much left her to her own devices. My school wants to know every move I am going to make, and they are watching me closely. I assume that if I do not screw this up, they might relax a little next semester. Or they might never really trust me. I am a foreigner who works part time. You never know.

Clear Water Bay 2022

We just had our annual summer trip to Clear Water Bay. By we, I mean Lily and me. Kevin did not go this year. It is his boss who owns the big house. Theoretically, he is the one who is house sitting while the boss is on vacation. But the boss knows about Lily and me, and does not seem to mind that we go to his house just as much as Kevin, if not more.

Going to Clear Water Bay is harder than ever. When we lived in Yau Ma Tei, it was an easy MTR ride on a few different lines and a quick taxi or hike to the big house. From Kaohsiung, it is a quick MRT ride from our apartment to the gaotie, a two hour train from Kaohsiung to Taoyuan, a two hour flight from Taipei to Hong Kong, a thirty minute Airport Express ride, two MTR lines, and a quick taxi to the house. There are also 90 minute flights from Kaohsiung to Hong Kong, but Taipei has far more flights and last minute availabilities. Maybe next time we should fly from Kaohsiung and save a couple of hours.

Since Lily is not a citizen, she is subject to all the arbitrary changes to entry rules and regulations. As a Canadian, she never needs a visa to go to Hong Kong, but now that China is changing their plague policy every week, we had to plan this trip more carefully than usual. We had to book the flight online, which we would have done anyway. They currently have a quota system for foreigners, so there was an extra application step for her. Apparently, I can just waltz into Taoyuan and buy a plane ticket to Hong Kong. She cannot.

She had to get a PCR test two days before the flight. That is very easy around here. Her school is an authorized testing site, so she simply made an appointment, showed up, got a stick rammed up her nose, and waited for the result. A positive test would have killed the entire trip, long after the tickets could be refunded. Fortunately, we live in a place where almost everyone always tests negative.

We both had to scan health declarations on our phones, but that was both easy and completely pointless. Anyone could lie about that. It was like walking through the 'nothing to declare' line at airport customs no matter what you have in your luggage.

From Hong Kong Airport, it was business as usual. Except we took a taxi to the big house. The Airport Express to Hong Kong Station is usually a little faster than a car, depending on traffic, but a taxi from the airport to the house was much faster than the Airport Express/MTR combo would have been. The funny thing is that I almost never took taxis the first few years I lived in Hong Kong. Now, I seem to take them from the airport all the time. It probably makes a difference that I used to live close to the Airport Express Kowloon Station. Going to Clear Water Bay or the Ma On Shan apartment is much slower by train.

Another funny thing is that we have an apartment in Hong Kong, yet we stayed at some guy's house. But one of the main points of this trip was to stay at that house. The Ma On Shan apartment has swimming pools, but they are open to everyone who lives in the complex. The Clear Water Bay swimming pool is completely private. Swimming is one of the best reasons to go to Hong Kong, as far as I am concerned. Rain or shine, I had every intention to hit that pool every day.

We used to throw parties at the big house. I think we must be getting older. Not a single person besides Lily and me set foot on the property the entire time we were there. We saw plenty of friends, but always somewhere else. I have no real explanation for this. I definitely wanted to hog that swimming pool all to myself, but I have no idea why Lily never invited anyone over. I think we are both starting to recognize how strange it is that we even stay at that house at all. Now that we are homeowners ourselves, letting in people who are complete strangers to the big house owner feels different.

For Lily, this was a summer trip during her school vacation. For me, it was a summer trip and a quiet place to work on some paperwork I had to do for a new job. She certainly spent some time in that swimming pool, but not nearly as much as I did. To her, swimming every day is excessive. Just as shopping is to me. For whatever reason, she prefers the shopping options in Hong Kong. I think they are pretty much the same as what we have in Kaohsiung, and if not, Taipei is close enough. Since this was the only thing we disagreed on during this trip, the solution was simple. Whenever she went shopping, I jumped into the pool.

We also had some business to attend to. Our Kai Tak apartment is still being built, but one of the inspection deadlines was coming up. At least one of us was going to have to go to Hong Kong whether Kevin's boss took a vacation or not. We simply timed it so we could do both. Lily and I agreed that the apartment is looking good, but what do we know. Neither of us has any construction experience. We will not really know that all is well until everything is done. That will have to wait for a future trip. Hopefully, no one gets a stick up the nose.

One night in the hot tub on the pool deck under the stars, Lily casually wondered if the house owner had any hidden cameras anywhere. In eleven years of staying at the big house, that never occurred to me. As soon as she said it, I thought about what he might have seen in those eleven years. During this conversation, Lily and I were completely nude, of course, but no camera on the pool deck would ever be able to see under the hot tub bubbles. However, it would see everything that happened on that deck, some of which I would never want to see posted online.

Most of the nudity at the big house was probably out on the pool deck, but it seems more likely that if the owner had any hidden cameras, they would be indoors. There are no valuables outdoors, unless someone knows hot to pocket a swimming pool. There was plenty of nudity indoors as well. I am pretty sure Lily and Kevin have had sex in just about every room of that house. I may have had an inappropriate relation or two in that house, mostly in my room, and maybe in the kitchen once or twice. This is why we think the owner most likely does not have any cameras. If he saw videos of Kevin getting it on in his house, we have to assume he would have said something, or at least looked at Kevin differently.

But if there are cameras, they saw multiple parties, including more than a few on Moon Cake Day. The boss goes on vacation during that holiday more than any other. I think I would be more embarrassed by the parties than swimming naked. In my mind, it is perfectly natural to swim naked. I will wear a bathing suit if I absolutely have to, but would rather not. Hosting a party at someone's house while they are away sounds more irresponsible to me. For dramatic action, the only video I would want to see was when I tore a deltoid ligament out on the pool deck ten years ago. That was not fun at the time, but I would not mind watching it now. But I sure as hell don't want it posted online.

Elevation Consternation

One of my building's elevators was offline for the weekend. There was some kind of maintenance issue that required people in jumpsuits coming out and making a racket for two solid days. The weekend was chosen based on the assumption that more people needed to get to work during the week. While probably true, I usually work weekends. That sort of thing might be a first world problem, but it was a bit of an inconvenience.

My building has multiple elevators. You can only get to your apartment from one. Each elevator only serves two apartments on each floor. Most of the time, that works well. The elevators are never crowded because only the people directly above or below you should be on your elevator. I also like the fact that I only have one neighbor on my floor, and that our apartments are separated by the elevator shaft/stairwell. We share no walls and rarely see each other. This is the ideal setup to have good neighbors. There are other apartments on the floor, but their walls do not touch my walls and there is no way to get from my apartment to theirs without taking my elevator down and taking theirs up.

The downside is that if the elevator is broken, which has never happened, or is being repaired, the stairs are our only option. I live on the 21st floor. From the basement parking, that is 22 floors to walk up. I like to exercise, but there are limits. Imagine carrying your Costco boxes up 22 floors. Fortunately, we were warned ahead of time that the elevator would be out of commission. My 45 pound cases of water could wait another day. Unfortunately, my neighbor is at least 80 years old. She was away visiting relatives when the elevator went offline. Getting down was easy. The elevator worked when she left. Getting her back was going to take a little more effort.

When I arrived on the scene, my neighbor was asking the doorman how she was supposed to get upstairs without an elevator. It was a good question. I was prepared for the hike. She was not. The doorman suggested waiting until the elevator was scheduled to be back in operation. That would have required spending the night elsewhere, and she was already coming back from an overnight trip. As an advanced citizen, she is a little set in her ways. Even convincing her to spend the night in a hotel would have required someone going up to her apartment to grab a few things, which most likely would have included some unmentionables that she would never want anyone to touch. Someone also would have to pay for it, because she never would have. She considered the building responsible for her predicament, despite their written warnings about the elevator closing. I have only known my neighbor to be a sweet little old lady. Like a lot of people set in their ways, she often ignores written warnings about something being different. Someone would also have to drive her to the hotel because she does not drive. Everyone over 65 has to take the driving test over again, so most older people simply stop driving.

In the end, we decided to just carry her upstairs. And by we, I mean two of the building's maintenance staff. She refused to be carried, what with all the touching of her private person, until I suggested she sit in a chair and we (they) carry the chair. While people she only vaguely recognized carried her up 21 floors, I carried her luggage. The good news for me was that she travels light. I have no idea what she had in her carry-on bag. It felt like a pillow and sounded like her hat collection.

Two relatively young men carrying a little old lady up the stairs might sound like an easy job, but that stairway was not really designed for people to walk side by side while lifting someone in a chair. They had to walk single file and make sure not to hit her head. She was convinced they were going to drop her every step of the way. I walked behind them, more for her peace of mind than for my convenience. That let me move at a leisurely pace.

Eventually, we were all at her front door. She offered to pay the young men who carried her, but they are not allowed to accept gratuities. Also, this is a culture that respects the elderly. They never thought twice about helping a little old lady get home. I did far less, and I had to walk up those stairs to get to my own apartment. She never offered to pay me. I am absolutely allowed to accept gratuities. As my neighbor, she offered me the first batch of cookies she made the next day. My roommates are not fans of hard, sugarless Taiwanese cookies, and consider hers inedible. I can eat pretty much anything. My legs and my teeth got a pretty good workout.

I doubt any formal complaints were ever filed, but my neighbor complained plenty when she came home and discovered the closed elevator. I don't remember the exact time the notice about maintenance was posted. I seem to recall having ample warning. It was a minor inconvenience that I knew about ahead of time. The building's management probably also thought we had sufficient warning.

There is currently a notice about upcoming four-hour maintenance on the elevator. In six months.

Section 259, Subdivision 2

When your parents die, you tend to talk about it. A lot. I never expected that. We stopped talking to each other when I was 16. The more years that passed, the less I thought about them. When they died, I thought I would think about them a little and then move on. But quite a lot happened after their accident that forced me to think about them more now than I ever did while they were alive. All of their paperwork saw the light of day, revealing their deepest secrets. I learned that my grandfather left me his house when he died in 2006. If my real estate agent can sell it for the asking price, I will have a nice little nest egg, at least by today's standards. I have no intention of retiring in the next thirty years, and who knows how much anything will cost in the 2050s.

Then I was told that I was still on my father's life insurance policy. When that check eventually comes in, it will be nowhere near as much as the house. But it is free money. There are no taxes, fees, or commissions, and I will never have to pay anyone to install a kitchen sink in the life insurance.

In one final act of selfishness that backfired horribly against them, my parents accidentally gave me the greatest gift of all. And the biggest surprise. The life insurance was a tiny surprise. I never knew about it, though had I ever bothered to think about it, being on my father's life insurance policy almost makes sense. My grandfather's house came completely out of nowhere, but I always knew the house existed. I spent a lot of time there when I was younger. I simply thought my parents sold if off after he died. The biggest shock in all of this, and the one I never would have seen coming a million miles away, was that I was adopted.

This raises a great many questions.

Why did no one ever tell me? How did no one ever tell me? Maybe my parents were planning on telling me when I got older, but we had our falling out before it ever came up. In all those arguments, how did they never blurt out that I was adopted? Or maybe they did and I dismissed it as a heat of the moment interjection. Maybe at some point I said, “I wish I was adopted” and they said, “You were.” I would have never taken that literally. Call me old fashioned, but I think telling your child that she is adopted requires a sit down conversation. I have to consider the possibility that they were never planning on telling me.

Who are my biological parents? Or were. They could be dead by now, too. Why did they give me up? There could be a million reasons, most of which I would probably understand. But I still want to know. More curiously, why did the people I have always called my parents want to adopt me? They were never all that excited to have me around, and I always assumed I was an accident they had to live with because of their religious beliefs. But if I was adopted, that means they went out and acquired me on purpose, filling out multiple government forms in the process. That pretty much goes against everything I know about our relationship. Was my brother also adopted, and does he know? I suppose if he was, he would have also been told by now. But does he know that I was adopted? If so, did he always know? I have to doubt it. He never would have been able to keep that secret when we were younger.

This brings up the hardest question. Did my grandfather know? He almost had to. I can't see too many scenarios where your child adopts a child and you never know about it. If my grandfather knew, why did he never tell me? Maybe he was waiting until I was 18, but I think you should tell children long before then. He must have had his reasons, but what were they?

Most people are probably told about their adoption when they are still children. Or at least they should be. The most common issues adopted children likely face are feelings of rejection, not fitting in, and maybe being treated differently/not accepted by extended family. The people I always thought were my biological parents rejected me a long time ago, so learning that a previous set of parents rejected me even earlier is having no noticeable impact on my psyche. I survived, and was eventually relieved, when my parents disowned me. It turned out to be a great thing. Maybe losing the biological parents was also for the best. At this point, I have no information to make any kind of determination.

I never felt like I did not fit in, but that was more because of my grandparents than anyone else. They always treated me as if I was their granddaughter. There were never any issues in the neighborhood or at school from being adopted because no one seemed to know. Everyone probably assumed I was my parents' biological child. Anyone who may have known did an excellent job at keeping it secret.

I never had any issues with extended family because I never really knew most of my parents' relatives. I grew up with a brother, mother, father, and one set of grandparents. We were never a large family. My mother was an only child and her parents died before I was born. Her parents had siblings who lived in other parts of the country, so I rarely ever saw them or their families. My father had two sisters. They had a falling out over religious issues several decades ago. Things were rocky between my father and his parents for a while, but they patched all that up before I was old enough to know what was going on. My grandfather's family was mostly old and dead by the time I could get to know them. My grandmother's family came from old money “back east” and mostly had a problem with her marrying a jazz musician. Essentially, most of my extended family never had the opportunity to reject me because they had all rejected each other far sooner. The more you know about these people, the easier it is to understand how easily my parents disowned me. That family boat was rocking long before I started making waves.

How could I possibly be adopted when I have my birth certificate, which clearly lists my parents as the parents. Here is the funny part, and something I never knew about until I started down this rabbit hole: Once you are adopted, the state changes your birth certificate. The official government record that documents who you are and where you came from is falsified. And it is all completely legal. It has been standard operating procedure for over a century. Not only do they replace your birth certificate, they make it amazingly difficult to get a copy of the real thing. The best you can do is jump through a lot of hoops to maybe get pieces of information. Naturally, you have to pay the government for the privilege.

So what happens now? I was adopted in the United States, which never makes anything easier. Most countries have one set of laws. Realistically, one set for the rich and one set for the poor. In the United States, each individual state has its own laws. To get any information, I have to go through the state of Minnesota, rather than any federal database. In Minnesota, I can request any and all information about my original birth certificate. Within six months of that request, whichever government bureaucrat is assigned the case will “make every effort” to contact whoever is on the birth certificate.

This is where it gets tricky. The state has to respect the privacy of everyone who gave up a child for adoption. At the same time, they are usually the only way for anyone to find out who their biological parents are. They contact the parents or parent, if possible, and tell them the other shoe has finally dropped. Anyone who gives up a child has to know this is coming sooner or later. The parents then have 30 days to (1) tell the government to not disclose their information under any circumstances, (2) tell the government to go ahead and disclose whatever they want, whenever they want, or (3) ignore the state agency's request.

The biological parents also have the option to change their mind at any time, assuming no information has yet been disclosed. If they tell the state they want to remain private and the state tells me tough luck, the parents can fill out a new form days or decades later telling the state to go ahead and give me their information. At that point, the state has 31 days to inform me.

If the state fails to locate the biological parents within six months of my initial request for information, there are two options. (1) If either parent listed on the original birth certificate has ever filed, at any point in time, the correct form telling the government to never disclose their information, then the state cannot tell me anything. Unless the parent files a new form to revoke the first form, or a court orders the birth certificate unsealed. (2) If neither parent has ever filed the nondisclosure form, I can petition the court for the information, which the court can either (a) reject, (b) release partial information, or (c) release all of the information if the court decides it is in “the best interests of all known persons involved”.

If I am allowed to learn anything, by either court order or all the appropriate forms getting filed properly, the state has 31 days after the last parent was notified to give me any information. If, after being notified by the state, only one parent consents to releasing any information, then I would only be told about that one parent. I think that would be infinitely better than nothing. Even if I could only talk to one of them, odds are they would tell me more about the other than the government ever could.

If either parent is dead and filled out the form allowing me to have their information, the state has 31 days to give it to me. If they are dead and filled out the form forbidding me to have their information, I can petition the court, where a judge plays that “best interests of all known persons involved” game. My first thought was that, if dead, why not tell me who they were? How would it hurt them? But then I remembered that money and power are of the utmost importance in American courts. If my biological parents turn out to be Rockefellers, there are a few billion reasons to keep me in the dark. Those are not the type of people who enjoy sharing their inheritance.

Unfortunately, there is no government form that says I just want the information and have no intention of invading anyone else's territory. If, in the highly unlikely event that my biological parents were indeed rich and powerful, there would be no way for me to let anyone know that I do not want anything other than information. My point of view is that if you grew up in that family and you had to put up with all their bullshit, you have more right to their stuff than I do. In the far more likely scenario that my parents are anonymous everyday slobs, I still only want information. Family dynamics are a precarious thing. I have no desire to make even more waves. I am more than open to getting to know any potential relatives I might have, but I understand completely if they are less curious. Whoever these people are, I am not part of their family. I am simply the result of some man ejaculating into some woman. At the very least, I just want to know who owns the womb whence I sprang forth.

It May Be Worth Something Someday part 2

The funny thing about owning a house on the opposite side of the world is that they still want to hand over the keys to show that you have taken possession. Legally, you own a house once all the paperwork is signed and filed. That can be done anywhere in the world. The passing of keys is purely symbolic. Everyone changes the locks when they buy a new house anyway. I could sign everything myself, but I had to designate a proxy when it came time to getting the key. That was actually pretty easy.

Joanne, my high school boyfriend's mother, went to the house and gave me a full report. She was always in my corner during the bout between my parents and me, and even more outraged when she learned that they stole my grandfather's house. She knew me when I was supposed to inherit that house, so she knows how much I could have used it at the time.

I was surprised to learn that the house is in good shape. I suppose I should not be. If their goal was to sell it, my parents would never let it fall apart. Joanne checked the fireplaces, ran hot water through the faucets, turned on the light switches, and charged her phone in several different outlets. She said everything is in working order. The electricity, gas, and water are still turned on, which is odd since no one has lived in that house since 2006, as far as I know. Our best guess is that everything was turned on while my parents worked on renovating the place. Joanne thinks I should keep everything on so the house will be easier to sell. I think that the longer it is on the market, the more I have to pay bills for an empty house. Maybe she should have some people over for dinner and really test out the place, but I doubt she would want to. She kept telling me how clean everything is, and would worry about doing anything to make it look less attractive to potential buyers.

My grandparents' house was built in 1929, which is both a positive and a negative. The attention to detail is unlike anything you would find in a house made after the 1940s. All the mouldings, arches, woodwork, and brass would be seen as too expensive or too ostentatious today. The fireplaces and some of the doors are definitely more ornate than houses made since the Great Depression. The original exterior windows were all replaced decades ago with glass and panes more appropriate for Minnesota winters, but many of the Art Nouveau mirrors and interior glass remain. I am told that some of those mirrors are more valuable than any mirror really needs to be. Why my parents never sold them, I may never know. With the right staging, the house could easily attract buyers.

Until they look at the details. There are none of the open floor plans today's buyers want. Most of the rooms are completely separate. A few are not ideal to anyone who gets claustrophobic. Too many of the walls have wallpaper that any new owner is guaranteed to remove. One of the bathrooms looks like Art Nouveau and Art Deco got in a fight, and both lost. Some of the carpeting needed to be replaced decades ago. While the bedrooms have huge double doors, the bathroom doors are tiny. The mudroom has plenty of space for coats and boots, but no place to hook up a washer and dryer. The entire side entrance is spotless, though I suppose not much snow and mud get tracked in if no one has lived there since 2006. The original garage can hold two or three modern cars, or maybe two SUVs, but it is not connected to the house. That means walking in the snow or rain to get to your car. Fortunately, my grandparents built an attached garage not long after they moved in. The addition looks natural to me because that is the way I have always known it, but it is also smaller than what people want today.

The exterior of the house was recently cleaned top to tail by commercial pressure washers. Obviously, I can't say anything about how it looks up close. In pictures, it looks brand new, which is where it matters most. Anyone thinking about buying the house is going to be drawn in by looking at real estate pictures. All those ninety-year-old bricks and quoins look like they just came out of the brick factory, or wherever bricks come from. If I had not spent my childhood in that house, I would assume it was less than five years old.

Professional gardeners have been taking care of the front and backyard, and have done an excellent job. What Joanne showed me could be in one of those house and garden magazines. It looks fancier than anything my grandmother would have approved of, but it will look good on real estate brochures. Indoors, the walls and floors are as clean as only an empty house can be. Someone painted recently and polished the hardwood floors. The Persian rugs in the living room and dining room are not only still there, they look spotless. I am genuinely surprised my parents never sold those rugs. I can only see photographs, but they appear in excellent condition. My grandmother's office looks exactly like it did when she lived there, except there is no furniture and the bookcases are empty. That room looks naked without books, most of which were my grandmother's. She was a serious reader and worked for Simon & Schuster as a children's book illustrator back when they owned the Little Golden Books. Her collection included more than a few first editions that were probably worth some money. In all likelihood, my parents threw those books away a long time ago.

Some of the bathroom fixtures are new while some are original, or at least original to what my grandparents had. I will need to check, but I am pretty sure none of the plumbing is truly original. I know the entire HVAC system is far newer than 1929. I don't know what they did in 1929. I doubt they had central air conditioning. Two of the bathtubs have been converted into shower/bathtub combos. I'm reasonably sure the house had no showers when it was built. My grandparents only had one. We always took baths when we spent the night, which I always liked. At my parents' house, showers had to be quick. At my grandparents' house, I could sit and soak.

Most of the upstairs carpet could use some work. Joanne says a good shampoo will do. I think some of it might have to be replaced. The carpet in the master bedroom looks amazing. I really can't tell if it is the same as what my grandparents had or if it is new. I had forgotten how enormous my grandmother's closet was. It is more than a walk-in. That closet is large enough to be an apartment bedroom. It is also carpeted, of course. Thankfully, there is no carpet on the first floor. A little polish takes care of the wood and tiles, and a few rugs here and there fill it out. The basement carpet has to go. It is clean and in good shape, and the ugliest carpet known to man. The best thing about that basement was always my grandfather's music room. Since all of that equipment is long gone, it looks like any finished basement now. They put up walls and remodeled the basement to such an extent that it is unrecognizable.

Somewhere along the line, my parents put in new kitchen appliances, which is great news for me. The oven is top of the line and looks brand new. The subzero refrigerator and dishwasher are maybe a few years old. They added an island in the kitchen, which is odd because it already had one. They did not replace it. They put in a second island, which just looks out of place. The kitchen is not big enough for two islands, and the second one eats into the dining room. There is no kitchen sink, for some reason. Maybe that was the next thing they were going to replace. I have to assume they had some kind of island plan that involved a sink or two. The washer and dryer in the laundry room are relatively new looking.

One thing that really steamed my broccoli when Joanne showed me pictures was the swimming pool. My grandparents never had one because the house is on a lake. A private pool is safer and more controlled, but you can do a lot more on a lake. They thought a swimming pool would be redundant when they were so close to a large body of water. But they did put in an in-ground spa/hot tub after they retired.

I spent my entire childhood begging my parents for a swimming pool. Their house was not at all on a lake, or even a pond you could swim in back in the days when the algae levels were low enough. Their neighborhood has far fewer swimming pools than it could, making any house with one more attractive. Someone once told me that most people did not have pools, even though almost every backyard was large enough for one, because there are so many lakes and ponds all over the place. I never really bought that excuse. It was Minnesota, so the nearest recreational lake was less than two miles away, but a swimming pool would have been the greatest thing I could imagine when I was a child. I was an excellent swimmer. Even my brother, with two left feet and all thumbs, could keep afloat. Safety was not an issue. Their only objection was that it was too expensive. When I was younger, I had no idea how much anything cost. When I got a little older, I thought they could afford it. The fact that they eventually put in a swimming pool at my grandparents' house kind of supports my theory. The real issue was probably maintenance. Not taking care of a pool is infinitely easier than taking care of one. The only greater insult to seeing that pool at my grandparents' house would be if they had another daughter and paid for all of her dance and music lessons.

The new swimming pool is smaller than what I would have done. On the one hand, there is plenty of room to put a larger pool farther away from the house where there is more open space. On the other hand, they put it right next to the spa and a detached structure that looks like a pool house. To me, it looks like they screwed up. To someone who never saw the house before, it probably looks completely natural. The pool matches the spa, as if they were both built at the same time. The landscaping around the pool is alien to me, but was obviously done by professionals who knew how to take advantage of the gentle slope heading toward the lake. When I get past my white hot rage, I can admit that the entire installation was well done.

The detached pool house was never a pool house, at least for the eight decades before there was a swimming pool. My grandfather called it the BBQ pit. It is almost the size of the original garage and was obviously designed and built with the house. No one knows its original purpose. It faces away from the road. Driving around the house to park inside it would be horribly inconvenient, while the original garage is the first obvious place to park as soon as you turn in from the street. It was most likely never meant to house cars. Plus, it has a fireplace. One theory is that it used to be a small horse stable, but it only has three walls and there is no evidence that the open side ever had any doors. Leaving a horse that exposed in the winter would be criminal. It was most likely meant to be a place to sit and look at the lake, though there are currently trees blocking the view. The house's back patio has a direct line of sight and is closer to the water. Whatever it was meant to be, the open space was ideal for grilling without suffocating, so my grandfather used it for any outdoor cooking. Now that there is a swimming pool, it looks like it was always meant to be a pool house.

If the house were almost anywhere else, I would worry about selling it to developers who would cut up the backyard and divide it into subdivisions, where the dreamer or the misfit is alone. Today, the lake is where the upwardly mobile of Minneapolis go to get away from the hustle and bustle of the big city. Or the tiny town of less than half a million people. When I was young, I thought Minneapolis was large. Now, I think anything under five million people is a village. Regional differences aside, the last thing anyone wants to do is make the properties on the lake smaller. If anything, people want to go bigger.

After the resorts and hotels of the late 19th century went out of style, people came in and bought all the land around the lake that used to be owned by companies and robber barons. Some built grand mansions, while most, like the people who built my grandparents' house, aimed smaller. For whatever reason, the plots of land stayed the same size. This house is not nearly big enough to be a hotel. Maybe a B&B. But the lot used to hold a hotel. You could easily build two or three more houses on the land, as long as you do not need an upwardly mobile lakeside mansion, and you really enjoy cutting down trees.

My grandfather bought the house when interest in the area was probably at its lowest point since the Mdewakanton tribe was forced out. At the time, people were building cottages and small houses in the area. No one wanted the larger plots of land that required more upkeep. What he paid for the house could buy a new car today. It was not until the 1980s that everyone rediscovered the lake. Ever since then, houses have been getting bigger and the prices of everything have gone up. Today, it is a seller's market. Despite few of the modern conveniences people want, I should be able to sell it quickly. If not, paying for the gardeners, pool cleaners, utilities, insurance, and taxes will destroy me.

Crimson Permanent Assurance

A lot of paperwork comes out in the open when both of your parents die at the same time. Wills are read, insurance policies are combed over, titles and deeds are inspected, houses put in trust get noticed.

I was not anywhere close to being in my parents' wills, which is fine with me. I wanted nothing from them at the end of their lives and would accept nothing from them in death. That is probably easier to say since they were never rich. I can only speculate about how strong my principles would be had they been billionaires. I have no qualms about taking possession of my grandfather's house because he gave it to me, not them.

Then came the insurance. My parents never had personal life insurance. Mostly because they were covered by their church. It started when my father started working there, and I was added right after I was born. Apparently, my father tried to remove me, but he was never the policy owner. The church was, and removing a child from a life insurance policy out of spite kind of went against their brand. I was what they call an irrevocable beneficiary. I could only be removed if I agreed. I never knew anything about it, so I never agreed to anything.

Since my mother died at the same time as my father, the only surviving beneficiaries are my brother and me. Since the church had no idea that my brother was our parents' favorite, they always had everything divided equally among anyone left alive. What all this means is that, yet again, my parents have unintentionally left me something, despite their best efforts. And since it is far less than a billion dollars, I don't have to struggle with redefining my value system. I suppose the sensible thing would be to put the money into fixing up my grandparents' house. But that would help it sell and then I would profit off my father's insurance. The second I was told a check was eventually coming my way, I decided to donate it.

The obvious question is to whom. There are plenty of great charities out there. I would prefer to give this money to an organization of which my parents would never approve. When it comes to charities, my first thought is always groups that help children, like the Children's Defense Fund or the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, or something about cancer, like Gilda's Club. But none of those would piss off my parents. They were pretty terrible at raising children, but they did not hate children. In fact, their church has done its fair share in helping children's charities.

Since they were Republicans, I could donate to the DNC, but that would be like flushing it down the toilet. Before Republicans went full crazy, Democrats were just the other side of the same coin. It is only a matter of time before Democrats fall off their own deep end. My parents would roll over in Hell if I gave their money to Democrats, but other than that, I would get no satisfaction out of it. Both the RNC and DNC are corrupt corporations that could best serve the nation by having a going out of business sale and shuttering their doors. I think I would rather set the money on fire and watch it burn than give it to any American political group.

I could give it to a Chinese political group. That would really make their heads explode. But Chinese politics are almost as corrupt as American politics.

I could just give it to some random homeless people, like Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy in Coming To America. My parents would never approve of that in a million years. They would say that handouts only make people lazy. I don't know about that, but I would worry about what the random homeless person did with the money. My culture has sufficiently programmed me to think that it would go to drugs or booze, when it could just as likely go to food and shelter. Or more likely, for all I know. I have no personal experience with homelessness. At the same time, I firmly believe that once you give something to someone, it is theirs to do with as they wish. How they use it is really none of my business.

Unfortunately for me, though fortunate for society, there are no homeless people around here. They almost have to exist. No country can be wholly housed. But since we are a bunch of heathen socialists, we don't let our fellow human beings die in the gutter. This country has too many safety nets for anyone to fall through the cracks, unless they are absolutely determined to do so. I have no idea where I could even find a homeless person.

I will probably go with something in the LGBT category. My parents were never the most homophobic people in the world, but they were hardly inclusive. They did not want to lynch gay people, but they never supported marriage equality. If there is a reputable charity that centers on young lesbian girls, that would be ideal. Unfortunately, that also sounds like a bad porn movie I saw once.

I think this might be one of those first world problems you hear about. Woe is me. However shall I give away this free money? But I want it to go somewhere useful. And I really want to be petty about it.

It May Be Worth Something Someday

My grandfather died when I was 16. Not coincidentally, that was the same year my parents and I had our final falling out. He was a decent buffer. My grandmother died almost two years earlier. She was the true mediator in the family. She never took any shit from anybody, so none of us were allowed to get carried away while she was alive. My grandfather inherited the mantle after his wife died, but he could never pretend to be impartial. Everyone knew I was his favorite. He was too good at being a grandfather to ever actually come out and say that I was his favorite grandchild, but we could all tell. And the feeling was mutual. He was always my favorite person. There was a time in my childhood when I wanted my grandparents to adopt me. They never did, unfortunately.

Music was important to my grandfather. Other than a few years in the army, he was a professional musician his entire adult life. He did not come from a family of musicians and often wondered if he had been switched at birth. When he got married and had a son, he wanted to pass on his musical knowledge. That son had no interest in learning to play anything, and took his life into a decidedly different direction from his father. When his son had a son, that son was encouraged to play sports. It looked like my grandfather was destined to be the sole musician in the family.

Then his son had a daughter. I was born to be a dancer. That was simply the way it was. As a dancer, music is exceptionally important to me, particularly rhythm. My grandfather taught me Every Good Boy Does Fine and Good Boys Do Fine Always. I taught myself scales on the piano, using the hunt and peck whole-whole-half-whole-whole-whole-half method. As soon as I was tall enough to reach everything, my grandfather had me on his drum set and taught me everything I know about playing drums. He bought me my first set, which was the only reason my parents tolerated it. I can see where having a child who plays drums might be a little annoying, but they could not forbid it without disrespecting their elder. Fortunately for everyone, my lessons were at my grandfather's house. Fortunately for my grandmother, my grandfather's music room was in the basement.

As a musician, my grandfather never made anything close to Paul McCartney money, though he was hardly in the garage band tax bracket. Money was a taboo subject in my family, but I think I was always aware that my grandparents had more than my parents. I simply saw that as the natural order of things. The older you were, the more money you had. My grandparents lived well. My parents had everything they needed. I had less than everybody.

Not that I grew up in poverty. We always had a roof over our heads, food in the kitchen, two cars in the garage, and plenty of clothes. Everything I ever wanted was an extravagant luxury, according to my parents. Except new clothes. New clothes were welcomed and encouraged. As long as they were respectable. “No daughter of mine is dressing like a cheap whore.” Evidently, an acceptable response is not, “How about an expensive whore?”

My parents were never rich, but they were several neighborhoods away from poor. My father was the pastor of his church, which pays more than it really should. He was also on the board of directors at their evangelical headquarters in Chicago, or whatever the sectarian version is called. Probably church council. Though he only went to Chicago a few times each year, he got paid to be on the board as if it was a real job. He also had an expense account for travel, both out of state and around town. Lutherans do not exactly take a vow of poverty.

For as long as I can remember, I was aware that many people had far less than we did. If I wanted a new toy, I was told about the starving children in Africa who had to play with sticks and rocks. If I wanted to eat something other than what was offered, I was told about the starving children in Africa who had to eat spiders and worms. For the longest time, I had a typically American misconception about Africa, given to me by people who had never set foot on the continent. Many years later, I had a boyfriend from South Africa who never even saw a jungle until he was an adult.

My grandparents grew up during the Great Depression. In the 1920s, my grandmother's family was rich, by any definition. At the beginning of the 1930s, they were homeless. She went from changing clothes for every meal when she was a child to sleeping in the family car when she was a teenager. She knew what it meant to lose everything, and made sure I knew how much I had. Most of my friends' parents probably had higher incomes than mine, but I knew as few rich people as I knew poor people. My childhood was deep in the heart of middle class.

I had to beg and plead with my parents for every little thing, except clothes. I think that might have been more about keeping up appearances than anything else. It was important to my parents, especially my mother, that we all looked like we could afford to live higher on the hog. How I dressed reflected on them, whereas their social circle never knew or cared if I could play Richie Cole's “Shaker Song” solo. I paid for anything music related that was not from my grandfather because my parents thought it was an extravagant hobby, despite the fact that my grandfather was a professional musician most of his life. When people complain about being forced to take piano lessons as a child, I wish my parents had done that. They paid for everything related to all of my brother's sports, when it was obvious that he would never come close to being a professional athlete, but there was never enough money for what I would turn into a career. It is true that my taste in musical instruments leans toward the better equipment. I had a Selmer series III alto sax in high school when there is absolutely nothing wrong with a cheaper Yamaha. But even after I started making money at my “hobby” and my brother was getting cut from one team or another, they could only afford to pay for his extracurricular activities. I left before college, but they were never going to pay for that either. At least for me. They paid every dime of my brother's education.

My brother was unequivocally their favorite child. He was the oldest, their golden boy who followed their rules – as far as they knew – and their only son. He was the only one who could carry on the family name, at least directly. There are probably a million people with our name, but our branch of the tree is not getting any bigger. My grandfather was the only son of his parents and he only had one son, who only had one son. Of course, daughters can carry on the family name in this century, but if I had a child tomorrow, she would have my Chinese name. If not for my grandfather, I would have rejected my English name a long time ago.

I try not to hold any of that against my brother. It is no more his fault that he was our parents' favorite than it is my fault that I was our grandfather's favorite. It was compatibility, personality, and mutual interests.

What I do hold against my brother is that he knew I was in my grandfather's will and never told me.

When my parents died last month, everything they owned was catalogued, assessed, and put under a microscope. No one cares about your thumbtack collection, but lawyers look at property, and the IRS always wants their cut. My parents' house and pretty much everything they did not give to their church went to my brother. Fair enough. I was dead to them, so there was no reason I would be in their will. Had they felt guilty and left me something, I would probably reject it on principle anyway.

An interesting point here is that, in the United States, when most people want to leave an adult child out of their will, they either specifically mention the person by name and indicate that they get nothing, or give the person a single dollar to show that they were not accidentally left out. The purpose is so the child cannot contest the will under the assumption that they were left out by mistake. In some states, but not Minnesota, you can put a clause in your will that someone only gets whatever they get if they do not contest the will.

Instead of doing any of that, my parents showed how big their balls were. Since I was dead to them, they never mentioned me in their will at all. Why would you put a dead person in your will? They either went against their lawyer's advice, or better yet, their lawyer never knew I existed. Legally, this leaves their will wide open for me to contest. I think they either knew I would want nothing to do with them and their stuff, or they genuinely thought of me as dead and I never crossed their minds when writing up the will. Either way, they gambled that I would not take it to court. And they were correct. What is theirs was never meant to be mine. Contesting the will would only hurt my brother, not them. He probably needs it more than I do.

After all the people with suits and clipboards sorted through the cobwebs, something no one was expecting was that my parents owned two houses. Except that they did not. One of those houses was my grandfather's, and he absolutely did not leave it to them. As it turns out, he left it to me. I was a minor when he died, so it went into a trust under my father's control. Naturally, no one told me. After I was dead to my parents, they must not have seen a reason to tell a dead child that her grandfather wanted to take care of her since her parents refused. A few years after I was out of the picture, they tried to sell the house. But it seems that real estate agents have some kind of rule against selling houses for people who do not actually own them. After that, who knows what their plan was. The house was in their will, so they knew it was still there. Leaving it to my brother was not a smart move, especially since he knew it was not theirs to give away. I have no idea what legal consequences he might face. I am told he has cooperated with everyone and never personally did anything illegal. By trying to screw me over, my parents kind of screwed him over, too. His childhood memories of that house are now tarnished by legal bullshit that he never asked to have dumped on him.

When the dust started to settle, I started to realize that I own a house in Minnesota. Obviously, I have to sell it. I like the idea of keeping it, but the property taxes will not go away just because I live elsewhere. And I would need someone to take care of the place. I could rent it out, but finding responsible tenants is difficult, especially from the other side of the world, and I would still be responsible for maintenance. I have great memories of that house. Some of the best moments of my childhood took place in that house. I would hate to supplant those memories with tales of clogged drains and broken pipes. Selling the last thing my grandfather ever did for me might be difficult, but I thought it was sold off years ago. I highly doubt he wanted me to live in it anyway. The only practical reason to give it to me would be so I could make some money off it. He probably assumed that by the time he died, I would be fully supporting myself as a professional dancer, and just like every professional dancer, could use the money. He sure got that right. I was flat broke when he died.

Just for fun, I looked up the address on one of those real estate websites. I don't know how they determine anything, but according to them, the market value of that house gradually increased over the years until it plummeted dramatically in 2018 and then skyrocketed in 2020. I don't know what happened in between those two years. Ordinarily, I would ignore website experts, but the rest of their information about the house is pretty accurate.

The obvious question now is sell or wait. If the price is only going up, it makes sense to see how high it can go. But it will go down eventually. In 2018, it went down hard. I paid nothing for the house, so everything after taxes and fees is profit, but if I sell it in five years for 60% of what I could get today, I will feel like I lost that theoretical money.

The more I think about selling it, the more pissed off I am about what my parents did. When I was 18, I lived in a tiny downtown Minneapolis apartment no bigger than my current bedroom. My grandfather generously wanted to give me his house. He put it in a trust rather than simply name me in his will, mostly to avoid taxes, but also so that no one – presumably my parents – could contest it. My grandfather's mistake was making someone as untrustworthy as my father the trustee. It is far too much house for an 18-year-old, but I could have sold it. According to the internet, I would have gotten far less for it then than I could now, but I needed the money far more then. My grandfather wanted to help me out in a way that would have completely changed my life. Had his wishes been kept, everything would have been different. Then again, would it have been better? Life has worked out pretty well for me so far. It would be too easy to speculate about all of the hypothetical possibilities. If I had sold the house at 18, I doubt any money would be left. If I sell it now, I have retirement savings. Maybe in their animosity, petty selfishness, and general assholery, my parents actually did me an unintentional favor.

But the greatest irony in all this is that my parents wanted to pretend I did not exist, yet through their deaths, I inherited more than they could have ever given me.