“f” as in “frank”“f” as in “frank”

An author in the family

2009-07-16T19:30:00.001-07:00

Here I thought Jenn's cousin was just a law professor, but now I find out that he is about to become an author as well. The amazing part (for me) is that he wrote a book that I would have been unable to not buy even if I didn't know the author. A few years ago, I read Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson and sprouted a huge respect for the founding fathers, the American Revolution and history in general. I wish my history teachers had been able to show me the reality in their stories instead of a history textbook and some woodcut drawing. Anyway, the book is Unlikely Allies: How a Merchant, a Playwright, and a Spy Saved the American Revolution and it looks really good. Also, the success or failure of a book is now driven by Amazon presales (something I just learned) so if you know any history aficionados, pick up a copy or two, I can get it autographed.

2009-07-11T15:55:00.001-07:00

I'm not sure I like how these dicks are looking at me.

Funny AND Wrong...

2009-07-11T15:48:00.001-07:00

RIP Farrah Fawcett

2009-06-25T14:32:00.001-07:00

img1499, originally uploaded by Lincoln Topliff.

She may have been a bit bonkers in the later years, but there is no denying that Farrah was an icon. A few years ago (clearly prior to my marriage) I bought a vintage poster and lovingly mounted it under glass. The wood paneling and the angle was a special touch because that is how the poster would have been seen in its natural habitat in the 70's.

Remembering Heather

2009-05-13T20:07:00.000-07:00

apologies (for stealing) and credit to Heather's friends for these photos

12 weeks ago, my friend Heather took her life. I've written that stark sentence at least 10 times, the first part of the sentence reading "almost two weeks ago", "two weeks ago" etc finally arriving here. I hope to not get any further up the chain but life has intervened several times already and I still struggle with what to write. I would love to be able to impart some wisdom about how to deal with these things but I doubt I have anything new to say. I have been fortunate in my life not to have had to deal with memorials more than a handful of times. And even those were when I was very young, and concerned someone that was far removed from my life, or someone that didn't really want a memorial service (my family is apparently not the memorializing type). It stands to reason that this streak would not last.

I hadn't spoken to Heather in a few years, but we still exchanged Christmas cards. I met her through my friends Vicki and Whitney, who had each known her since college, before they got married. I've known Vicki since the sixth grade and even that much exposure didn't stop her and her then fiancé from inviting me to live in their apartment in San Francisco more than a decade later. As an unavoidable byproduct of our roomie status, they also introduced me to their close-knit cast of friends, who accepted me as a regular, or at least as special guest star with a traveling disco ball. I would see Heather whenever they all gathered at one of Vicki and Whitney's Pickberry vineyard parties, an American Cancer Society Gala, a La Barca birthday party, or on a smaller scale at a random bar celebrating our growing distance from 30. A decade ago, those gatherings were relatively often–when everyone lived in San Francisco–but it tapered off over time as families and distance made it more difficult.

Back then, I saw Heather outside of the larger group a handful of times when we grabbed lunch or bumped into each other through other mutual friends. I may (or may not) have kissed her during a fuzzy New Year's Eve when we were between others of significance but, honestly, that didn't put her in any sort of exclusive club. We made plans to meet up once when I was in San Diego and heard that she and her daughter had moved down there but those plans never came together. When calmly and rationally discussing baby names with Jenn (I may be rewriting history here) I suggested "Grace" and thought of Heather because her daughter is one of the only Grace's I knew of, but I considered that a vote for the name, not against.

My point is that we weren't close enough to share secrets, but we would have crossed a busy street to say hi to each other. I see or talk to Vicki, Whitney and Marilyn (another one of Heather's very close friends) fairly often so I knew about her impending divorce but I hadn't heard of anything of note beyond that, so getting 'that' phone call 12 weeks ago was a sudden, unexpected punch in the stomach for me.

Dealing with suicide, as I would quickly learn, is inherently different than dealing with other kinds of death. There is a conflict between extreme sadness for the person you lost and extreme anger at the person that took took them from you. Trying to resolve that these are the same person, makes the task as impossible as applying a rational thought process to a situation where, by definition, it doesn't apply. Losing someone this way robs you of most of the answers as well as a clear understanding of what the right questions are. Once you realize the futility of "why," you are left with remembering your friend and picking up the pieces.

Over the course of the next week, I did what I imagine most people do in dealing with this kind of thing. I cried some, I thought about Heather a lot, commiserated and looked for something to do to to distract myself and feel useful. Thankfully, Marilyn's "thing to do" is organize and she gave me some very welcome opportunities to help out a little. I found a place to quickly put together a memorial website that let people contribute pictures and stories (sympathytree.com should you ever need it). I carried the kleenex. I acted as the memorial "date" to anyone that needed it. I employed my best emotional defense mechanism (a misplaced sense of humor) to bring a few laughs to a place where they are welcome but don't come easy.

Marilyn told me later that she and Heather had lamented once or twice that the only times that all of the people you love get together are at your wedding and at your funeral. Sadly, you only get to go to one of those.

Heather had enough loved ones to literally fill two churches, which I found out by attending both memorial services. I made up for some of my previously mentioned lack of memorial service experience with the one-two punch of a service in Northern California on Thursday, quickly followed by a San Diego service on Sunday. That's two more than I would ever hope to attend, one more than I might have expected but just the right number to show me what a memorial can (and should) be by the contrast.

In retrospect, the best thing about the service in Northern California (Alamo) was that it dealt the initial "I can't believe I'm sitting in my friend's memorial service" blow. Every step in the process thus far had involved talking to friends on the phone or something that could have passed for a gathering of old friends getting ready for a baptism or a graduation. Sitting in that church pew, looking at a photo of Heather propped up on the altar, there was no denying what was going on. She was not going to walk in the door wearing a pink boa and a big smile. She was gone and she was not coming back.

The pastor spoke in vague terms about Heather's life, the sad truths about losing someone you love and bizarrely, another pastor spoke about someone else dying in the Hudson River and their family being glad that God was probably heartbroken (I think I missed the point) and then there was the letter from Heather's father. As a newly anointed father, the last part in particular struck me, forcing me to imagine having to write a letter that is, well, unimaginable. Other than the picture on the altar, it was the only part of the service that even suggested who Heather really was, the sum of herself and everyone that loved her. Ultimately it seemed like the Northern California service and the surrounding activities were mostly about what was wrong and sad in Heather's life, about the children and family that she left behind, about questions and answers that would never be answered or even asked.

The San Diego service was a different animal all together. It was both an infinitely happier celebration of the healthy vibrant person we all knew and a much much sadder experience that signified the end of something important.

Because it was on a weekend, many more people from all over the country had a chance to attend. I had forgotten how much I missed this circle of friends until one by one they appeared and I spent time catching up, showing baby pictures and remembering some key shared life highlights. It probably shouldn't have surprised me how much I enjoyed meeting other friends of Heather's that even if I had been given 50 more years, I might never have met. They all told happy and sad stories that felt like real memories. The San Diego people represented the breadth and depth of the friendships that Heather had forged over the years.

Just as the people are a key ingredient that make our lives complete, it was the speakers that really made the difference in services. For whatever reason, no one besides the pastors spoke at the first service and the result was something that looked and acted like a memorial but ultimately felt hollow and had little to do with Heather. So much more needed to be said to build a proper picture. Fortunately, Heather was an avid and skilled collector of people from the opening scenes of her childhood friendships to the final chapter of her story and this gave us all one last chance to know her better. I think even the people who knew her best, came out of the San Diego memorial knowing a little bit more about their beloved friend. I am in awe of the people that spoke in San Diego, each roughly representing a moment in the chronology of her life They are some of the strongest, most eloquent friends I can imagine a person having, their stories brought laughter and tears and did our friend proud.

A wise woman once wrote on her Facebook page (did I just write that?!), "I believe you should always go to the funeral". If I didn't know enough to believe that before, I certainly do now.

What cake do YOU see?

2009-05-04T07:02:00.000-07:00

I loved this granny-made cake for one of Grace's friends' first birthday. So much more is left to the viewer's interpretation than your average sheetcake.
If you are in the under 5 or over-65, you might see it as it was intended...a princess with a sugar-coated gown blinged out with gum-drops.
If you are, say, 39-ish and trolling the buffet for potato salad and devilled eggs, you might be surprised to look at the dessert table and see a six-inch high stripper with a frosting bra popping out of her cake as if it was a 60's-era stag party.
If you think like a 12-year-old boy, you might think "Cool! Octopus Barbie!"

Good Morning, Sunshine

2009-03-27T07:40:00.000-07:00

Sometimes a person can just wake up in the morning, see the sun come up over the horizon and think "That's how good I feel!".

Alternate Post: "Two Scoops!" Too obsure?

Kicking me while I'm not down

2009-02-03T12:55:00.001-08:00

Every so often, someone emails a swift kick to my virtual ass to remind me that I started a blog and that they were kind enough to take a half a second out of their day to click "subscribe", the least I could do is provide some entertainment. Grace's blog gets all the love while weeds grow up in the cracks around my ignored "f as in frank" blog. It reminds me of my years of traveling when I would look at my journal, pick up a pen and then suddenly think of something easier and more fun to do. Journaling is something that I found myself doing when I was at some self-reflective, melancholy and probably lonely moment. When I go back and read those entries I wonder how I managed to drag myself out of bed everyday and once up, how I managed to get through the day without drowning my sorrows in a fifth of Jack Daniels, a four-pack of Bartle's and Jaymes wine coolers or whatever I could get my tragically sad hands on. And those were the best of times...

The truth is that Grace's blog is just much easier. I can write one paragraph, throw a picture of her with a goofy grin in the middle of it...

...and Voila! it seems like it was written by the love child of Shakespeare and Bill Cosby. It doesn't matter what I write because everyone gets the point: I love my daughter, I think she's cute, perfect and hilarious. Because I don't think of myself in those terms, writing about me and
what is going on in my head, is arguably..well...a little different. I can't just throw in a picture to make it work.

See, it's just not the same thing...

But I wouldn't have started a blog, if I didn't want to write, right? Whenever I get one of those subtle "get off your ass" emails I am reminded that there are people that might read something if I wrote it and one or two of those might enjoy it.

I have another reason for turning this whole thing up a notch...competition. My lovely wife started a blog and, as it turns out, is pretty damn good at it. I have to think that if she can put down the Tequila and Bon-Bons long enough to post about my hatred of pickles, then I can set aside my fear of committing words and desire do find something more fun to do long enough to lie about her liquor drinking and chocolate eating habits.

So thanks for the kick, I felt it loud and clear.

Remember to walk the dog...

2009-01-04T11:11:00.000-08:00

Are they served on a Sesame Street Bun?

2009-01-01T12:30:00.000-08:00

Would you order a slice of Big Bird or some Elmo with fries?

Comments (more) welcome (now)

2008-12-08T12:50:00.000-08:00

I figured out that I was not allowing people to comment anonymously. Since anyone reading what I am writing probably also would want to hide their identity, I have fixed that. Comment your heart out, Anonymous!

Thanking the Yous

2008-12-05T16:37:00.000-08:00

It was only a few days ago that I mentioned Leslie Harpold and her advice on creating a Thanksgiving feast for many. If you liked that, you should love this one. Her old writing spot The Morning News just reran her even more popular and useful piece about writing Thank You notes, so I thought I would mention it too. If you have ever received a gift, Leslie offers simple rules to follow to get that all important note out quickly.

'Tis the season, after all.

Death and the Morning Commute

2008-12-05T08:55:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting on a train on my way to work. I got a jump on the day due to an earlier-than-usual crying baby which brought me to an earlier-than-usual train. All advantages of that jump disappeared when the announcement came over the PA that there had been an "incident" with a "trespasser" and we would be delayed indefinitely, which is defined as 20 minutes to an hour. I don't know what I expect them to say when the train hits a person but the judgement in specifying them as a "trespasser" (which is standard) always seems a little crass.

The train got the go ahead to move closer and closer to the incident closer to the 20 min mark than the 2hr mark. We must have been the next train down because we had to stop to pick up the passengers of train 210 the one that hit the guy. Just before that we passed all the sheriffs milling about near the yellow tarp that almost covered the body. The passengers that we picked up are the regular commuting crowd and a whole lot of high school kids (damn, they are small) all on their cellphones telling friends and parents that "their train ran over a guy". I bet those kids will be the talk of the school for a few hours anyway until the story gets boring.

Weird morning all around. Weirder still when we passed the body and I mentioned it and said to the 60ish Portoguese (maybe) woman in the next seat that the day could be worse. She agreed and said "Yes, it could be raining".

Post of Thanksgiving Past

2008-11-26T14:23:00.001-08:00

I just ran across this post from Leslie Harpold in 2003. She was an amazing person that Jenn and I were just getting to know when she passed away suddenly in early December 2006. Her writing always makes me smile and if you have never read this one, today is the perfect day. If you like it, she wrote lots more and lots more was written about her because many people loved her .

http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/how_to/how_to_cook_thanksgiving_dinner.php

Happy Thanksgiving!

Haiku-ing

2008-11-24T17:40:00.000-08:00

A really good excuse for my lack of blogging has been the amount of work piled on me at home. This is not the typical husbandly duties like garbage removal service or protecting the family from dangerous flying insects (mostly moths) but the writing duties that I am assigned by the taskmaster at 13creative (who I married...on purpose). I am often asked to write some form of copy for Jenn's invites and projects. Today's (and Yesterday's) task was to write some copy for Sara Remington (our favorite photographer who did our engagement, wedding and Grace pictures)holiday mailer that will include fabulous food pictures and some chocolates in a box (it will look much cooler than I describe but I was not hired to write this description...yet). My solution was to go haiku as they wanted words that evoke emotional connection with food and obscure Japanese art form that I remember from 4th grade was the best I could do on short notice. I think they turned out ok...

Remember the food
Melting, sweet and delicious
The best of our lives

----------------------

Brown from the fire
Marshmallow melts chocolate
This night sticks for days

----------------------

The heat of the summer
Softening ice cream on cones
You have to lick fast

----------------------

Berries are lovely
Picked like perfect ripe moments
To squish with your tongue

----------------------

Warm smell of apples
Steams out of crust as it cools
Dinner please hurry

----------------------

Brownies are baking
My finger searches the bowl
For one final taste

----------------------

Both taskmaster and photographer went wild for them. In fact, Sara thanked me by giving me one back:

Grace is really cute
She makes the dinosaur screech
Watch out, she may barf

It's funny, because it's true.

Oh, yeah...blogging

2008-11-24T16:42:00.000-08:00

I was reminded of a couple things recently that are tenuously related like most of the things in my life.

The first reminder was from my sister. We had a family gathering and she casually mentioned that I hadn't been doing much with the blog since China. So I was reminded that I am a slacker. I'm a slacker with enough ambition to create a blog, enough confidence to announce to anyone that cares to listen that I am going to write things about my life, my world and my thoughts and then just enough slacker to allow weeks to go by with nothing said. Sorry, Christie...I am back on it now...

The other remindering was this morning. On my drive in NPR had a story about lobster and Thanksgiving that reminded me about my Thanksgivings past. My family was never, collectively, a huge fan of turkey (probably the amount of work + the amount of ceremony + the slim margin of error to get it right) but we do like our lobster. For many years, my family would spend our Thanksgivings out to dinner with the Duivens at a restaurant that served lobster and almost everyone would order one (Dad would often as not go for lamb because Mom won't cook it at home). Eventually, lobster became our turkey-of-the-sea and even when we would cook at home for the holiday, lobster would take center stage. Eventually, Thanksgiving moved from my parents house and the lobster tradition moved from eating them in November to dressing like them in October (see gratuitous Grace picture) and most of my parent's friends created a horse track Thanksgiving that is much less work and many more trifectas.

Even though it is now a ghost of traditions-past, I have always thought of lobster as a modern Topliff (ok, and Duiven) Thanksgiving tradition. Now that the all-knowing NPR points out that it was on the menu in 1621 at the First Thanksgiving alongside Wild Turkey and delicious eagle (which eventually beat out the Turkey to be the national bird and left our menus forever), I have to wonder if this tradition is genetic. While there were no Topliffs at the first Thanksgiving (on either side of the table), as far as I know, they did show up about 14 years later and settled in Dorchester Massachusetts so maybe our habits stretch back that far. Before Grace came along, I spent some time tracing the family tree, so I will have to look and hopefully get some of that down here. If someone reminds me...

Half proof of a half marathon

2008-11-07T15:29:00.000-08:00

The picture below only really proves that I made it most of the way through the US Half Marathon on Sunday. I am clearly on the bridge and I imagine by the thinning crowds behind me that this is the trip BACK towards the finish. I actually did make it, though I was moving none too fast for the last couple miles.

I remember consciously fighting the pained look from my face when I knew there would be a photographer but I was not always successful.

I am very happy to have made it and happy to take a week or two off from running. In the future, I will probably stick to more manageable 10Ks to avoid walking around like the recently vasectomized for days after.

Nega, please!

2008-10-29T21:18:00.000-07:00

The chinese word for 'yeah' like 'yeah, yeah, yeah' in agreement is 'nega' so everyone here says 'nega nega nega' a lot...sounds really funny in a way that would get one quickly beat up in oakland.

bye bye bejing

2008-10-29T21:07:00.000-07:00

It has been a long 10 days and I am finally heading home.

I can honestly say the have the best (and worst) duck feet I will likely ever try. Last night we had the best meal yet, partially because no one handed me a menu and made me choose the least weird-sounding thing. We had the famous and delicious "Peking Duck" (Beijing is the town formerly known as Peking) served in a formal, multi-course process. They are famous enough that they issue certificates for each duck. We ate #944579 and 80, though I am not sure if and how that is an audited since they opened in the late 1800's. We can just assume nearly a million ducks served. Maybe they should find the millionth duck and set it free.

I'm blogging on my blackberry on the way to the airport so I can't see the pictures that I put in below but they should be shots of the tourist highlights that we saw over the weekend.

In there you will see the Emporer's Summer Palace which is a beautiful spot on a lake that couldn't help but include JetSkis in the US. There is also the Great Wall that sufficiently lived up to its name and included a mile long slide to get down.

MVI_1125
Originally uploaded by Lincoln Topliff

Remember pull tabs?

2008-10-28T18:20:00.001-07:00

I remember them from my parents' beer circa 1978 (not drinking of course, but I was trained to get them from the fridge and open them). After breaking off the tab on this can, I watched our waitress try to pry out the remaining part with her finger. Fortunately our frantic arm waves stopped her before she sliced the finger and caused the other thing I remember from the 70's....stitches.

The birds and the bees

2008-10-27T16:46:00.000-07:00

When she was a little girl and first learned of the birds and the bees, my wife probably said "Eeew!" or something to that effect. I'm sure that was nothing compared to the reaction she gave when I told her about some of the restaurants our hosts have shown us in Beijing. At home, the dish in the first picture would have launched 1000 lawsuits in a KFC, here in China it's what's for dinner...with a side order of baby bees.

When we went on one of our excursions last weekend, our friends passed the time by explaining how the people in the Guangdong Province eat really weird stuff. Stuff that would make baby bees look like popcorn (and taste like chicken). Fortunately that place is 1200 miles away...

People here loooove to take us to "fancy" Chinese restaurants so I spend time with a lot of menus full of scary pictures and strangely worded descriptions. As far as I can tell, there does not seem to be anything called "Sweet and Sour Pork" in China and "Kung Pao" is not a type of chicken familiar to any waiter I have met. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind a little adventure in my food and the likelihood of me ending up vegetarian for even one meal is completely trumped by the same denial powers that allow me to enjoy hotdogs at home. Eyes, beaks and heads (either in whole or in half), however, are Kryptonite to these powers and I really don't need to see what my meal was thinking when it crossed the road for the final time.

Resevoir Pandas

2008-10-22T14:20:00.000-07:00

I haven't seen any bat wielding pandas yet, but now that I know, I am watching.

Welcome (me) to China

2008-10-22T04:01:00.001-07:00

I'm in Beijing for business until next week. It's big, kind of grey and I don't understand what anyone is saying. Dining involves a lot of pointing, smiling and hope. For instance, I hope that was calamari last night.

First Post - Who is Frank?

2008-10-21T20:58:00.000-07:00

The title of this post is the first lie of this blog. It is obviously not my first post here. The first one was a nod to my wonderful wife. Just as she often "suggests" what I wear when I venture outside of the house (because one apparently shouldn't wear horizontal and vertical stripes together), she desperately wants this place to look presentable. We will keep working on that.

The title of the blog is a nod to my entire family that collectively have said this particular phrase countless times. The whole phrase is actually "T, as in Tom...O...P, as in Paul...L...I...F, as in Frank, F, as in Frank. No, not 'S'. Two F's. Frank...Frank". Passed down from generations of Topliffs, I have now subjected my wife to it and we will begin teaching the phrase on Grace as soon as she learns how to order things from the Pottery Barn catalog. Unlike her mother, Grace has the chance at parole if she can manage to marry someone with simpler name, but that is many years of frustration (on all of our parts) away.

The purpose of this place is to give me a spot to write about things that do not belong in Grace's baby book. Many people that have enjoyed reading about Grace have asked for more from me, this is my attempt at making them eat their words.

Enjoy!

-Brad

Good intentions, little time and same old wrong me.

2008-10-21T20:33:00.000-07:00

So I am starting this new blog and I wanted to get my posts up while I am traveling. Before I left for China I got into several minor battles with my beautiful designer wife over the look of the site. She even suggested that I just create one like I had with Grace's blog and switch it over later. NONSENSE! I can figure this out and make it look great!

Well, time ran out, the buzzer rang and I had to get on a plane bound for Beijing having totally failed to make a nice looking blog. Furthermore, I am jet-lagged enough that Jenn's idea now sounds like sheer genius. I can make a blog here and change it over to another place when I have more time to figure it out. The words will be just as poorly thought out in either place. Sorry honey...you were...what's the word..."right"