On Good Dinners

I’ve been reading through the back issues of the New Yorker my sister brought when she visited in June. (Now that we know when we’re heading back, I can’t rationalize making the suitcase space for them.). So far, my favorite back issue is from November 23, 2009, also known as the issue that came out just before Thanksgiving. It has me miss and think about the North American phenomenon of Thanksgiving, it has me miss my cookbooks, it has me think about favorite meals I’ve had. John Colapinto’s essay about eating with a Michelin guide inspector had me think about the nicer restaurants I’ve eaten in and the stars I would or would not give them. 

            Then Kent and I had our fifth anniversary, and we decided it was a good excuse to try Mosaic, Ubud’s only Michelin starred restaurant. I don’t know how many stars Michelin gave Mosaic, but I think it daring of them to consider a restaurant in Ubud for such a culinary benchmark. Not that Ubud is full of bad food; Ubud is full of great food and great restaurants, but not very many of them attempt a French inspired culinary experience, in fact not very many of them merit a dress code. 

            We had tried to go to Mosaic before, when my sister was in town with her friend Bryan. We thought we’d try it for lunch. We got past the parking lot security who waved security wands over us and checked our bags, we got past the door man who asked if we had a reservation, and despite our “no” still took us to the hostess at the podium who then told us that we couldn’t eat there because they don’t serve children under 12. She was polite about it; we didn’t hold it against them (we’ve eaten with our mobile tot), we just found it baffling that they didn’t say anything at the first two gatekeepers. But now at least, we understood that it was a restaurant worthy of hiring a sitter. 

            For our anniversary, in our island best (Kent in linen pants and a brown & white floral shirt he had bought that afternoon and me in my standard sundress) we showed up again without a reservation. The manager was very sweet, and took down all our information as if she was filling our FBI files; where we stayed, why we came, what we liked, what we drank – all, she said, to better serve us in the future (I think the FBI uses the same argument). We sat in the bar, me already with a properly made martini, and looked at the menu deciding between four set menus, and while deciding were served our first non-course – the canapés that didn’t actually count as one of our actual six – essentially popovers filled with parmesan, soft cheeses, butter and truffle oil. Just, you know, one of those little things you wish you could pull off at your dinner party or Thanksgiving but never actually do. 

            We each went with the Chef’s Tasting menu, so our actual courses started with crabmeat topped with cucumber foam and the wisp of pecan wafer. I felt slightly embarrassed, when the waiter cleared my plate and said, “Finished already?” 

            Tip #1: Never go to a fine dining restaurant when you are actually hungry. You must eat beforehand. 

            Still, the freshness of the crabmeat left me awed. Next, we had oysters flown in from France, with coconut milk, a wasabi cream, and chopped kiwi served on a bed of basil. I, more consciously, ate extra slowly. Oysters, like the foie gras and milk fed lamb that followed, tend to be hit or miss for me, but these were smooth and worth savoring on the tongue. I now saw why MFK Fischer wrote an entire book dedicated to the oyster. And the milk fed lamb was down right Northwesty – not at all typical of Bali or the region, except in terms of a few of the spices they used– served with black pepper, juniper berries, cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, a sprig of rosemary with a slice of pumpkin. Each bite released another infuse of spices and flavor, but none of it overwhelming the taste of the lamb. The foie gras was foie gras, exquisite and with morello cherries, but a little goes a long way. It’s not a dish I need to have every year or every three years. The goat cheese course was disappointing, in that it was the same goat cheese you’d find anywhere, and the chocolate dessert was indeed chocolate, but nothing that impressed the eye or wowed the palate. 

            Considering how one of the best features of our wedding was our four-course set menu for our guests (all 15 of them) and us, it was an appropriate dinner for our anniversary. Each course was served with precision, with just enough time in between; they poured the wine and water in just the right way, and served us our coffee and tea in the lounge with petit fours. 

            We ate in the garden; so sadly, it was too dark to capture any of our meal on film. But it was romantic, especially so, since it was our first really nice meal out together sans bebe since he was born.

           

A day or so afterward, we talked about our dinner. I had told Kent about the New Yorker article on the Michelin guide, and confessed that I now saw the merit in the criticisms of the guide, and even, quelle horreur, of French cooking. The French consider cooking a science, with known processes and known results. This is essentially what the guide is assessing. Yet, as we each felt a certain lack in the meal, not to mention in the décor in the bathrooms (there was none, unless you count corporate office as a style), or  in taste in lounge décor, all we could pin it on was the lack of creativity. Certain dishes were absolutely perfect, and the ingredients were absolutely garden fresh (the basil my oysters had used as a bed was so fresh I put it on my bread with butter). But with the exception of the oysters, there was nothing that startled my taste buds or intellect with surprise. There was that certain je ne sais quoi that was missing, As we tried to put our fingers on what was missing, all we could come with was a certain love, passion or reverence for food, but that wasn’t quite it. It was traditional, it was expected, and it was good. But it was like watching a technically perfect Olympic skater who hated skating. 

            Kent admits, he prefers a good quality twenty dollar bottle of table wine over the hundred dollar subtly flavored bottle, and while I have had a lot of really good wine, I do have to agree with him. I also have to agree with him when he said that one of his favorite things about food is the element of surprise. 

            So while the meal was an experience of a lifetime, it had us think about the other meals we have loved in Ubud – where we can have good sushi, but amazing soba noodles, or that we’ve found a place that delivers a pretty great burger, the pizza here is unimpressive, but the fried eggplant is out of this world. 

            Next year for our anniversary, we might end up at a Michelin starred restaurant – especially as they are making their way into the bigger cities of the US – but we might also end up at a small neighborhood bistro or even roadside taco stand, all Michelin unworthy.

Looking for Home

We have purchased our plane tickets back to the states. We’ll be stateside September 9^th. Our return raises several questions, the big one is about where we’ll be living.

            Answer: We don't know.

Both our horoscopes indicate a lot of focus on home (maybe because we don’t have one?), creating home and finding a house. Our horoscopes also say this is not the time to settle, that we should get exactly what we want, and trust that things will out to our advantage. 

            Still, it is a bit nerve wracking to take a leap of faith with only your horoscope in your back pocket.

            Consequently, we’ve been doing a lot of soul searching for where we should live. I even asked all my facebook friends. 

            They answered the Netherlands. After researching Amsterdam and the quality of life to be found there, I now agree with them, except there’s a small issue about employment and visas. Still, it helped us identify the qualities we want in the city we end up in. 

            Stateside, our top choices are San Francisco and Brooklyn. I suggested the Canadian cities of Toronto, Vancover or Montreal, but while we’ve heard really great things about all these cities, Kent doesn’t really understand Canada. He says, if we live in Canada, we might as well live in the US. 

            I said, Canada is like the US, but with benefits, like National Health care and schools without No Child Left Behind. It’s like the US but with the Queen. It’s what the US would be like if we lost the war. It’s like the US but with an abnormal hockey obsession. Living in Canada, we could have half and half, and still be living abroad. Our cake and eat it too, so to speak. If we lived in Montreal, we could eat cake and speak French. 

            Because we do like (love) living abroad. While it will be good to spend some time in the states, we don’t want to stay there in the long term. 

            Kent’s parents asked us why. We said, isn’t the better question why would we want to? Granted, we are backwards in several of these questions, people ask us why travel so much? We ask, why stay home?

            Nonetheless, it is where we are headed for now. My pro-Canada arguments didn’t sway Kent.

            So, we’re back to San Francisco or Brooklyn. Occasionally, we think of spending some time in Portland. Maybe Seattle. Every once in awhile, one of us says, but oh, we loved living in Denver, didn’t we?

           

            The qualities we’re looking for? Progressive, forward thinking, International, and hip is what Kent says. 

            I want seasons. I want a reason to knit again. Plus, libraries, museums, parks, a city full of the arts, oh, and good take-out, not to mention good farmer’s markets that make it easy to eat as locally as possible. Naturally good schools (in the Waldorf/ unschooling/Montessori vein). Abundant bike paths. Good transit. Lots of innovative and creative small businesses. Does this city exist? Whether it does or not, we're looking.

Ode to Propane

In Bali, most stoves sit on the counter top and are fancier versions of the Coleman camping stove with a propane tank under the counter. An American owns the house we are staying in, so we have a traditional American type of gas stove (with oven! One of two I know of in Ubud!), yet the house still does not have a gas line – just a propane tank under the counter. Despite Kent’s warnings to Wayan, our house gardener, over the course of two weeks, that the tank should be replaced, we ran out of propane. 

            Kent discovered the lack of propane when he went to heat up dinner. He sounded disappointed, as he came in and announced, “Well, no potatoes. No propane. Sandwiches for dinner.”

            “No potatoes? But what about the coffee in the morning?” I asked.

            No propane. No coffee in the morning.

In the morning, Kent teased that I was listless, that it took me much longer to get out of bed, that with no coffee I didn’t see the point. To some extent, he was right. Really, I was thinking of walking up the path fifty meters to the Mata Hari Bungalows, a half-hearted restaurant and bed & breakfast, to see if they had coffee. I was waiting until it was a decent enough hour, like maybe a little past 6:45 am. When I had told the owner that at some point we might stop by for breakfast and asked him what time they opened, he said, “Oh, we usually get up around six.”

            I thought, I’d be polite and wait until the restaurateurs were out of their pajamas.

            Despite my threats, I didn’t actually end up walking up the path for coffee. 

            Wayan, the gardener, was supposed to come early in the  morning. Kent sent Wayan a message the night before, saying he should come with a propane tank when he arrived at eight. But Kent didn’t hear back from Wayan. He didn’t think the message went through. Kent said that to impress upon Wayan the importance of our having propane, he would tell him that I was a dragon until my first cup of coffee. 

            “I’m not really a dragon am I?” I asked. Depressed maybe, or a little put out, but dragon seems a little harsh.

            “No, you’re not a dragon,” He said.

            “But I’m to be the fall guy on this one?”

            “Yes.” Kent said. 

            When Wayan arrived, he said he would take care of the propane tank, but that we would have to wait a bit, that the store was closed for the cremation ceremonies.  He speaks English well, but sometimes there are gaps.

            “They’re closed for how long?” I demanded.

            “Just until later.” He said. I was now beginning to understand the significance of Hanukah, and the point of celebrating the miraculous achievement of making oil last eight days. I wondered if the Jews used any of their oil for coffee or if they just used it for light. I wondered why more people weren’t Jewish, why this miracle was underappreciated. I thought about becoming Jewish myself.

            “Later.” I said to Wayan. I think my eyes turned yellow like a dragon’s; Wayan then looked at Kent.

            “I’ll take the propane tank now.” He said.

            We took Fyo to school, and we had breakfast at Bali Buddha, where Kent ordered a side of sausage and ended up with a side of salsa that the waiter swore was sausage.  I had two cups of coffee to make up for my late start.

            But that afternoon, we had our propane.

Ahhh...Neighbors

We’ve only been in Bali three months, but have had ample opportunity to acquire neighbors in the various places we’ve stayed. For the most part, we’ve been insanely lucky, meeting people we have things in common with and enjoy and remain friends with even after we’ve moved onto the next house we stay in. First, we had Jon and Sarah with their daughter Alula. Our houses were practically on top of each other as we could see and talk to each other from our windows. They were rather good sports and never minded my toddling son wandering around half naked, even when he walked straight into their house only to squat and pee on the floor.

In our next place, we met quite a few families we have enjoyed endlessly, but the neighbors we remember the most were a couple that came only for one night. They got in late afternoon, while we were at the pool. We didn’t actually see them arrive. But we heard them around 6:30. At first, it was subtle, that sound you think you hear but you have to crook your neck for a second and pay attention until you for sure hear the sound of other people having sex. It wasn’t much a stretch – as in Bali, many houses don’t actually have walls. You have curtains you pull across for nighttime privacy, and mosquito nets that hang over the bed. Mosquito nets and curtains, it turns out, don’t do shit to block out sound.

Kent was making dinner. “I think the neighbors are having sex” I said.

“Good for them.” Kent said. The sound of furniture scraping the floor got louder. The moaning and groaning got louder. It was no ordinary sex; it was Olympic marathon sex. It entailed moaning, groaning, yelling, screaming and I swear, at the end of two hours, they both were speaking in tongues and maybe even whirling like dervishes. Then all was quiet on the Western front.

“Impressive.” Kent said. I half expected him to hold up an Olympic score card grading their performance.

Instead, Fyo was our payback, as it was then that he discovered the two soup pots in the lower kitchen cabinets. He discovered he was strong enough to not just pick them up, but throw them on the brick floor. Again, thanks to the lack of walls in Bali houses, we safely assumed that all the neighbors heard our son playing his own soup pot version of the gamelan. He slammed them, threw them, and kicked them and then threw the lids after them.

“At least, we can lie and say it wasn’t us, but the temple next door.” I said, which we did except to the friends we knew who wouldn’t disown us.

Our house now sits in the middle of rice paddies. We do have neighbors; we have a house next door to us owned by some Australians who generally keep it rented out. Most the next door guests stay quiet as they come on holiday. Until this week.

This week, we came downstairs and as we savored our first cups of morning coffee, swore we heard a punching bag. Kent stood on the edge of the wall to peer over the fence.

“They are. They’re boxing. One is holding up those pads while the other one hits them.” It wasn’t even 7:30 in the morning.

I saw Wayan the groundskeeper for the house the next afternoon.

“I am so sorry.” He said. “It is noisy. There are so many of them. I think 15.”

“Fifteen people are staying in that house?” I asked. Dumbfounded. I didn’t think it was that big. “Do all them box? Or dive bomb the pool?” The dive bombing in the pool was our afternoon cacophony.

This afternoon I took a short walk with my son. We stepped aside as a parade of people walked by. They were white; I swore I heard an Australian accent. I eyed them down the path and peered to see if the beginning of the parade indeed walked into the neighboring house. It did. I stopped one of them.

“Are you staying next door?” I asked one who looked like kind of fatherish.

“We are. You’re here.” He said pointing to our house.

“Yes.”

“I hope we don’t wake you.” He said.

“Oh, we’re usually up by the time the boxing starts.” I said. He laughed.

“It’s them – the girls. They do it every morning where ever we are. Yell over the fence if it’s too loud. We kicked them outside, then still heard them, so we walk the loop.” The loop took an hour and a half to walk. I briefly considered my own hour and a half morning escape, but discarded the idea. I prefer to spend that time in my pajamas until I finish my coffee.

“You guys on holiday too?” He asked.

“Yes.” I said, “Until September. And you?”

“Two more weeks.” This was one of those moments I struggled with my composure. I am rotten at lying or trying to cover up my motives. I'm sure he could see in the lines on my forehead that I was only asking to find out when they would leave. I didn't want to be one of those witchy neighbors who demands library quiet, and I'm not - I love the sound of children playing. I don't even mind the sound of children swimming and splashing. But the punching bag? At seven am?

Inside, I told Kent I met the neighbors.

“Oh?”

“Two more weeks.” I said. As if on cue, the dive bombing in the pool began followed by the death metal playing (Can you call that music?.

“Two weeks? I thought it would just be a few more days, but two weeks?”

Two more weeks of punching bag pugilist antics, and dive bombing in the pool.

Oh, heaven help us. This probably is one of those things that we have to lump into our karmic debt.

Other People's Houses

In Singapore, we rented someone's furnished house for six months. Luckily for us, it was furnished nicely with beautiful things. Nonetheless, I brought some of my favorite things from home out of my suitcase. I didn't want to be one of those knick-knack people and it isn't like I have a collection of porcelain ducks, but I do have my favorite small things from home. I prop them up on the windowsill of the kitchen of where ever we're staying. As we travel, I add in the little things I pick up along the way. It's my version of the altars I saw in Singapore and that I see all over in Bali. Balinese altars generally have flowers, fruit and incense, while in Singapore I'd see some flowers but also mugs of black coffee and the occasional cigarette. My altars are a bit random and include things from various flea markets and occasionally things I find on the ground. We now have pictures of my little altars in several of our homes, and my little Eiffel Tower and pair of creepy yet cool hands are becoming a little like the gnome in Amelie.

The longer that I am away from home, the more I want our space that we're staying - even temporarily - to feel like home. I feel like Mary Poppins unpacking her carpet bag and tailoring her room to her tastes. They say the divine is in the details. I say it's the little things that make or break your sanity - and when I am constantly adjusting to new spaces, I find I can relax a little easier when my eye can rest on something familiar.

We do find some enjoyment in living in other people's houses, especially in the kitchen. In our last house, all the dishes in the kitchen seemed to have been raided from some church basement reception hall, especially the pressed glass punch bowl with twelve matching glass mugs. We found a set of china with servings for twelve (including tea cups and saucers and coffee cups), and twenty - I kid not - ashtrays.
In our current house, you see our favorite coffee mug above. The house itself is palatial, big enough to house an entire Chinese village if need be. It is full of Buddha statues; Shiva and Ganesha also sit propped up in the living room. There are enough floor pillows, candle holders and incense burners for a meditation retreat. In the kitchen, the stack of take out menus are only for the organic or raw food/vegan restaurants. But in the coffee cups, we found Tweety Bird, which just goes to show that even those on the path to enlightenment need a little humor now and then.
Another favorite thing in other people's houses is the bookshelf. In the last house we stayed, the bookshelf had an odd mix of Dutch classics, English classics, and New Age and meditation classics. Despite my Master's in British Literature, I have a few glaring holes in my reading. I atoned for some of this in that house, reading Jane Austen's Mansfield Park and George Orwell's Animal Farm and other things I should have read in the ninth grade. It was in this house that Kent started reading one of my all time favorites, Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. He didn't finish the book while we were staying there, so he took it. I replaced it with a copy of Dickens I had finished thinking it would go with the theme the house's owner had going.
So far every house we have stayed in has had a copy of Autobiography of a Yogi and The Course in Miracles. Just in case there was any doubt about the metaphysical slant of Bali's Expats. It's a little like in the States where every hotel room has a copy of Gideon's Bible.
I do think that it is the living in other people's houses that has me miss home the most, but now because I miss the place. I miss my things. Even Kent who tends to be a bit ascetic misses our things when it comes to our kitchen tools. We have grown savvy enough to travel with good kitchen knives if only because you will not believe what people use to cut bread with - it may be why The Course of Miracles is on the bookshelf, because it will take a miracle if those poor people have to chop a tomato.
I did kind of think I would transcend my love of objects, that when we got back to the States and went through our storage unit, we would be able to purge a fair sized portion of it figuring we lived a year with out it and didn't miss it, and we may still purge a lot. Before the purge begins though, I am looking forward to opening boxes of my cookbooks, my own favorite coffee cups (not a cartoon character among them), even my odd collection of pretty jars I used to keep my things in in the bathroom cabinet. And probably, after we unpack everything at home, and once again are surrounded by piles of our own crap, I will miss the simplicity of living in other people's houses.

Why Not Bali?

Bali is beautiful. Bali is the paradise mentioned in the Bible, I'm sure of it. Butterflies the size of dinner plates fly through our living room. Every afternoon, flurries of dragonflies dance in the air just outside our bedroom balcony. The sunrises each morning splatter the skies with innocent hues of pink and blue. The sunrises and sunsets are not like the violent bright Los Angeles skies, simply because Bali doesn’t have the smog that induces such intensity.

So why do I not want to live here? We were like almost every other Expat or traveling family we have met here: at some point we stopped by for a weekend, then we went home to get the rest of our belongings so could move in, acting much like stereotypical lesbians on a first date.

And I was one of them, not the first weekend we spent in Bali last November, but this visit we started mid-April. After six months in Singapore, I told Kent I was done living in hot climates. I had been fantasizing about Seattle, Sweden and sweaters since I arrived in Singapore and watched my zinc oxide sunscreen melt off my body. Upon arrival in Bali, it rained for four days straight. It actually got cool enough for me to put on a long sleeved t-shirt. I took it personally, thinking the tropical skies were atoning for the heated wrongs they had thrown down on me for the previous six months.

Even as the rain eased up and we hit some of the weather that Bali supposedly gets in their dry season, the heat still wasn’t as hellish as Singapore. Plus, in Bali, lush green rice paddies and trees that Singapore only has in its botanical gardens surround us. Sitting on my bedroom balcony with the afternoon breeze rustling the leaves is its own spa experience. We also found Fyo a great (and cheap) playgroup where for three hours and five dollars, he can finger paint and play with other kids to his heart’s content. And his school has a summer program. We also found a part-time nanny for sixty US dollars a month.

Our favorite thing about Bali? Honestly, I think is that it is tropical, a tad exotic but has several of the comforts of home, mainly great cheap take out and delivery. We can stuff ourselves silly on sushi, have a beer and it won’t cost over twenty dollars. In our current house, every week to ten days, we have ten coconuts delivered to our door. In the afternoons, the gardener (who came with the house) hacks one open and sticks the coconut water and meat in the fridge. I am drinking one coconut’s worth of water every day.

So again, why do I not want to live here? When did I change my mind? I must be insane. I do love it, and Kent and I are agreed that it will always be a favorite spot: one where we could easily have a home. Except then we think, why go to the trouble and expense of building our own house? It’d be easier to rent someone else’s for six months of every year.

I don't remember an exact moment I realized that while Bali may be a home, it will not be the home, or the place we have all our belongings plus two dogs shipped to (not that we haven't talked about it). It was just a feeling that slowly crept up on me as I rode my bike down our path with rice paddies on both sides, or driving past temples and roadside offerings. It started as a whisper saying, it's beautiful, but I don't know that this is it. Then the whisper became louder and more definitive, nope, this isn't home, at least not at the moment.

Honestly, at the moment, even though Bali is seeing the wettest dry season they have ever encountered (thank you global warming and climate change), I again am craving sweaters and Seattle-like weather. But I should explain myself – when I say Kent and I are not coming back in the fall, my friends here do look at me like I just announced I was going ice camping at the North Pole. Granted, these are also friends who tan easily and evenly. Friends as fair as I am kind of get it.

I can’t help it. I miss seasons – actual seasons. Not seasons that have been dictated by the Fashion Industry, where the only way you know it is December is because the Gap is selling sweaters even though the equator is within spitting distance. I miss the light that comes as one season transitions to the other. I can enjoy the heat, but my enjoyment is predicated on the fact that it doesn’t last forever and that before long, it will be cooler with the leaves turning colors and then, finally cold. Also, with seasons, come a wider variety of food in terms of fruits and vegetables, and foods that have to be savored, because next week might be past their peak. I find beauty, rejuvenation and even a higher quality of life in the ephemeral. The fruit in Bali is divine, but when you can get it all the time, it no longer startles your taste buds into ecstatic appreciation.
I also miss the movement of the sun – not throughout the day, but throughout the year as it makes the days longer and shorter. In Singapore, the sun rose and set at the same time every single day. It’s kind of creepy in a way. Every day is the same, much like Bill Murray’s Groundhog Day. In Bali, there is a slight difference, but not much. We’re only 8 degrees south of the equator after all. Occasionally, when I say this to a friend, they say, "Oh, I am so glad you said so. I miss seasons too."


In my defense, I can only say I am not wired for year around heat and tropical living. I come by it honestly given my family’s genealogy is primarily Scot and Swede. Also, I was raised in Portland, Oregon, which is known for its rain and mild weather. I have wished I was one of those people who can live in sun year round, but the truth is the constant heat wears on me after while. I can feel my skin protesting when I pick up the sunscreen in the morning. I must, I insist to my skin cells, you are fair and I just have had one sunburn too many. So I put on my sunscreen, and my skin cells roll their eyes. They feel tired and dry and like a snake’s skin before its shed.

When I was in Bangkok, I had my fortune told by a Thai fortune teller at the Wat Pho temple. I had been suspecting that I am just not wired for the heat. My Thai fortune teller confirmed this. He pointed to the sky and said, “This weather is not good for you.”
“I know.” I said.
“You need mild temperatures, cooler, close to mountains and water. Colorado is good for you. San Francisco is good for you. Hot is not.”
“Exactly.” I said.

I really don’t know how else to say it, except that it just feels like my body has to work harder to function, much like what many people feel when they’re at altitude. After living in LA for a year, Kent and I went to San Francisco – in September. We had to buy wool felt hats, we were so cold. But just walking outside, I instantly felt like I could breathe. This is probably completely wrong as I have no actual knowledge of the workings of the physical body, but it felt like the very cells of my body could relax and work efficiently.

So then, where to next?

Ah, this requires checking the horoscope. Do not laugh, it is eerie how often Susan Miller at astrologyzone.com is dead on. Sure enough, skimming our Capricorn and Aries horoscopes, the planets are in our home sectors. Time, Susan says, to create where we want to live, and not to settle, to choose only our first choice.

Needless to say, the brainstorming has begun. I pulled out the map. In my twenties, I would close my eyes and throw my finger down to see where it landed. Now, I have given guidelines, no place between the Tropic of Cancer or Tropic of Capricorn, in fact, nothing below 40 degrees latitude. This year, I want to experience fall and winter. I want a reason to buy boots.