DADWAGON

So, some of you may have noticed that the New York Times this weekend featured a lengthy story about a lone father and his young daughter traveling on a budget in San Francisco. My day job: Whee!

This week, however, I figured I’d share (I hate saying “share” like that, but oh well) with you a few of the things that didn’t make it into the story (not because an editor cut them, but because I deemed them too digressive). The first is something I came to think of as the Traveling Dad Diet.

When you’re traveling alone with a very young child, meals are pretty much constantly on your mind. What am I going to get her next? Is it good for her? Will she eat any of it? And how am I going to find time to eat something myself?

About half the time in San Francisco, I was trying to get Sasha to eat normal grownup food. Pasta with meat sauce, rice and broccoli. And relatively good takeout food: El Farolito burritos, sure, but also the excellent margherita from Pizza Delfina, a Chilean beef empanada, and her very first PB&J, at the Toaster Oven. Most of the time, she did well. But not all of the time.

But since we were on a budget and because I don’t like to waste food, an odd phenomenon would occur: I would order a dish for myself—say, saag paneer at Udupi Palace—and feed as much of it as I could to Sasha. If I was lucky, a quarter of it would end up in her mouth. A quarter of it would end up on the table or the floor. And of the remaining food, I’d eat maybe half, partly because I was so stressed that I simply wanted Sasha to be fed and mealtime to be over.

Which, at first, was great! I spend way too much time sitting and writing, or sitting and eating, and not enough time on my feet. In San Francisco, I was eating less than half what I normally would, plus I was on the go constantly. Awesome! I could feel the pounds burning off.

Except… Too often I would get ambitious, and either order Sasha her own food at a restaurant or cook enough for two people. These always seemed to be the times that Sasha had no interest in eating, so all that extra would go down my throat, and I’d feel bloated and exhausted.

This, my friends, is the Traveling Dad Diet. It wears you out, both physically and mentally, and leaves you alternately stuffed and starving. At the end, nothing changes—you’re probably still fat. But it’s worth it all anyway.

As readers of this blog certainly know by now, the fellows over here at DadWagon are great lovers of art (please see this, this, and this, as examples of our finer sensibilities).

I jest. We’re barbarians. (Ed. note: Some of us more than others. And by that we mean Christopher.)

Maybe that’s why it gives me such pleasure to display the artwork of a good friend of mine. Amitai Plasse publishes these great sketches people on New York’s subways at his blog, Ami Underground. The style is decidedly minimalist—you try doing something fancy in between stations—but still manages to capture a bit of actual urban humanity. An accomplishment. Below are a few examples, all kid-centric.

If you want to see more, check out his website, or go see the movie about him. He’s famous.
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We at DadWagon are, of course, proud of doing what we do in New York (sometimes, um, overly so). So why are Matt and Nathan constantly fucking off to other places? The answer, of course, is work and sometimes weather.

It’s been no different this week. Nathan is in Northern California, confabbing with the conservatives. But his mind is squarely on the East Coast, whether it’s clucking at bad-dad-robbers in Philly, debunking the Boston Globe, cataloging crazy kid-names in New York schools, or pondering the joys of mid-century New York squalor-parenting.  There was also a somewhat overwrought discussion about the merits (or demerits?) of sending his daughter to a Harlem school where she would be the only non-black kid in her class. Relax, Nathan, the girl is four.

Matt, however, was in Rome, where he seemed more able to live in the present. Yes, he worried about how to commune with his daughter while he’s away, but he then spent the evening with a charming baby named Margherita Vittoria. And even though he finally outed the Frugal Traveler as being, in fact, a DadWagoner, we did not hear much of anything else from him this week. Attenzione, Carabinieri: if you find a bearded writerly type who has OD’d on slowfood and grappa, please alert DadWagon. We need him back.

Christopher  had some fine bits of media criticism to contribute: The NY Times’ sling-love story was insufferable, even before we knew that slings are apparently quite deadly. Not deadly, but just asinine, are the “stupid magazine specialists” behind a new food-for-dudes publication. Note to Mr. Bonanos: if trend stories make you itchy and the magazine industry has been overrun by asshattery, then perhaps it’s time to consider a new career. You seemed really impressed by dentistry: if we ever get Matt back, that would free up some time for night school so you can finally put that DDS after your name.

On a positive note, Theodore found a softer side this week. Sure, he started by calling a journalist a fucking moron on Monday, but that’s just like a standard morning ritual for him. The real stuff came later in the week. He praised Zach Galifianakis and lamented the passing of One of the Two Coreys. He had a great Q&A with power negotiator Roger Dawson about how to communicate with your child. Then, still quite moist, he thought sweet thoughts about Spring and shared with us a website he actually likes. It’s called Tiny Art Director, and, well, we like it too.

Hope you have an emotional weekend. We’ll see you on Monday.

Following up on yesterday’s trend story–and, I like to think, Dadwagon’s post–the Times’s Lisa Belkin notes that if you didn’t find enough “controversy” there, the baby-sling follies have taken a new turn. Now it’s a safety issue! Warning labels! Possible recalls afoot!

I can’t wait for the (inevitable) next turn of the argument: Are these products locally made? Cruelty-free? ARE THEY ORGANIC? WE MUST KNOW!