First Time Voter

JWise Moments, Photo of the Day

Caroline Wise voting in an American election for the first time. Phoenix, Arizona

Exactly 60 days ago, on Friday, June 3rd, 2022, Caroline Wise became a U.S. citizen, and today, she voted for the very first time in America. She was mailed her ballot, but at least for this first vote, I knew she’d have to vote in person, and as this is a primary, I’ll wager that come November, she’ll want to vote in person for the general election, too. That’s about all I can really share about us stopping in at a nearby grade school for the occasion; maybe Caroline can share some of her thoughts?

Caroline here: I’ve lived in the States for 25+ years now, and for most of that time, my joke was “lots of taxation, no representation” because, as a resident alien, I couldn’t vote. And while I could conceivably have been voting in German elections, I decided not to since I don’t actually live there and didn’t feel I could properly assess the options. When you are a German citizen living in Germany, you are required to vote. Since the powers that be know where you live (you have to register your home address along with your tax information), they send you the invitation automatically. Nowadays, you probably have more options for absentee or early voting, but back in the day, I would show up at a local school, get a simple ballot, and put crosses into the circles with a pencil.

So, as a new citizen, I am excited to exercise my right to vote, even if this was just a primary election. I had waffled over dropping off an early ballot too long, so the plan on the day of the election was to go a little farther out on our morning walk and head to Paradise Valley Community College, which the election website stated was our closest polling site. However, on the way there, we saw volunteers setting up a polling site at Sunset Canyon Elementary, which made the process even easier. There was no line, and the check-in process was easy. We had told the folks there why this was my first election and received congratulations for my newly acquired status. Once our ballots were inserted into the counting machines, I even felt a bit emotional, which I had not anticipated. I felt proud about passing another milestone on the way to being a “real American.”

Brand New American!

JWise Life, Moments, Photo of the Day

Caroline Wise has become an American Citizen today here in Phoenix, Arizona

Seemingly forever ago, back in 1995, Caroline moved with me from Germany to the United States, the land where I was born. We arrived here without a clue what we’d do for our careers; we were ready for an adventure doing unknown new stuff. Over the ensuing years, we accomplished many things and experienced an amazing number of adventures. After nearly 25 years, we’ve grown confident in this endeavor while experiencing a resounding sense of joy. With the sense that life was traveling on the right track, it was time to throw some new conditions into the mix. What if Caroline were to auto-magically transform from a German into an American? Or maybe she could be both simultaneously?

First of all, why might she/we want that? A couple of reasons, really. As a tax-paying resident alien (green card holder) for all these years, Caroline is entitled to a lot more social security here in the United States than in Germany. However, that entitlement is tied to maintaining her residency here, among other factors. So, if Caroline wanted to take up retirement in Germany (or just wanted to stay outside of the U.S. for an extended period), she wouldn’t qualify to receive her social security without an address in America. This is one of the drawbacks of being a resident alien. Secondly, there are “luxuries” that come with being a U.S. passport holder, such as the certainty you can easily reenter the United States from abroad. Every time when we return to the U.S. from Europe or recently from Mexico we encounter that feeling of nervosity when we fear that somehow her reentry will be denied.

Caroline Wise has become an American Citizen today here in Phoenix, Arizona

If she could maintain her European status and also be a U.S. citizen, we would be free to make choices later in life regarding living options that wouldn’t be limited by how long visas allow one or the other of us to remain somewhere. This process, though, is not an easy one. I wrote back on September 21, 2020, that Caroline was applying for her U.S. Citizenship; what I didn’t mention was that she’d just received approval from the German government that would allow her to retain her German citizenship. So, here we were more than three and a half years into this process, and then on May 24th, 2022, she walked into the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Office to take the citizenship test and possibly be sworn in that morning.

Caroline Wise has become an American Citizen today here in Phoenix, Arizona

When I dropped her off, my wife was a German citizen; the next time I would see her she’d likely be an American citizen too. Or so I thought. As for me, I was sitting at a Burger King at the corner of the parking lot, sipping a coffee, and waiting as I couldn’t accompany her into the facility. Every so often, she texted me; she was pretty nervous.

After an hour and a half, a message was delivered to my phone, “Passed.”  Huge relief was felt between us, but her fingerprints had expired, and the resubmission would take another 60 to 90 minutes. We thought this meant she would still be able to attend a swearing-in ceremony on the same day, but as it turned out over 2 hours later, it wasn’t meant to be. She emerged from the building holding an invitation to an oath ceremony to be held at the District Court in Phoenix on June 3rd. Which brings us to today – and all the photos in this blog post.

Caroline Wise has become an American Citizen today here in Phoenix, Arizona

Since the venue was the U.S. District Court, I was able to attend the ceremony. About 70 applicants and their family members jammed into the courtroom and viewing gallery. Just before the ceremony started, volunteers were requested, and Caroline and two other applicants raised their hands without knowing for what. It turned out that they would be called on later to speak to the attendees about their experience as immigrants.

The ceremony included speeches (including a recorded message by the President), the all-important oath of allegiance, the national anthem, and the pledge of allegiance. I could tell that Caroline was close to tears because when it was her time to step up to the microphone, her voice was a bit shaky, but she pulled it off nicely.

After the ceremony, Caroline insisted I take her photo with the presiding judge, the Honorable Stephen McNamee, as a nod to her dad, Hanns, a retired judge of the German Federal Court of Justice.

Caroline Wise has become an American Citizen today here in Phoenix, Arizona

Not quite 30 minutes old as a new American, Caroline was registered to vote, and a U.S. Passport was applied for. Her social security card update will have to wait until we get her citizenship certificate back.

Our first stop was at the drive-thru at McDonald’s for a Happy Meal, followed by shopping for her first AR-15, while a pair of new yoga pants from Lululemon arrives next week. With all of those things done, she’ll really be 100% American. Please excuse this last bit of jest; it’s just my sarcasm to throw in some of the uglier American stereotypes, as she’d never wear yoga pants. [I might – in a yoga studio only, though – Caroline ^_^]

King Coffee Roastery

JWise Moments

Happy couple Nicky and Randy at King Coffee Roastery in Phoenix, Arizona

When the quality of life means nothing in the face of economic pressures to perform in the quest for greater and greater profits, the luxuries as perceived by those comfortable with a service will have to suffer as their favorite places of business give way to the corporatized franchises that pander to a banal population looking for conformity over something unique and different.

Ethan Cook at King Coffee Roastery in Phoenix, Arizona

Sure, tastes and attitudes change, but the sad disappearance of those places where friendships develop between customers and staff grows more and more common, or maybe I’m waxing nostalgic for something I’m imagining as I am failing to find those new mom & pop shops as I become fixated on the places I habitually return to.

As I take time to write this post in the closing days of the life of King Coffee Roastery on Union Hills Road in Phoenix, Arizona, I look fondly upon the relationships I’ve made with customers such as Nicki and Randy in the top photo, and I appreciate Mike, the owner of the shop, who gave people like Cross-Eyed Ethan an opportunity to overcome his sight handicap as he nearly always missed pouring various liquids into the cups they belonged but no one could say he wasn’t entertaining in some seriously strange way.

Dakotah Mein (barista) and Natasha Peralta (barista) at King Coffee Roastery in Phoenix, Arizona

The situation here a week ago was that the shop was going to close, and that was that. In the intervening days, a buyer happened upon the scene and while King Coffee in this location will cease to exist, something new will be taking its place. As far as the regulars are concerned, I’m sure that many of them will continue to frequent the shop as, obviously, it must have been convenient for them, aside from having a product they enjoyed. And maybe some faces will remain familiar as a couple of current employees might be able to stay on, such as Dakotah and Natasha.

Sadly, or maybe fortunately, Caroline and I will be traveling on King’s final day, so there will be no sad goodbyes, and now that we have learned about the transfer of ownership, there may not be much change of much at all regarding the idea of a coffee shop still operates in this space. Monday after our return could be an interesting moment when I meet the new owner and start finding out if the culture of my current favorite coffee shop will mostly remain the same or evolve. Mind you, evolution, in my view, is a good thing, while extinction is just bad news.

Caroline Wise at King Coffee Roastery in Phoenix, Arizona

After all the years of me coming to King, most often in solo mode, Caroline joined me in order to try a waffle that she had been admiring last week prior to our trip down to Ajo and Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. While I visit King to not only gab with other regulars but to try and get some writing in, Caroline enjoys the slow coffee at home on weekends, the quiet to read and knit, while somewhere in there, she carves out the time to call family in Germany so this is one of the rare days she hangs out with me at the coffee shop.

Each time I order a coffee here, I earn a King Coffee loyalty point; the count had grown to over 300 when the imminent closing of the store was first announced. Today, I’m down to about 150, and it’s unlikely I’ll be able to cash them all in. When I started amassing points, I was reluctant to trade 9 points for a free 10th cup because I wanted to support the operation. On occasion, I’d throw another customer a free drink, typically a student, someone who could use the free gift. While I’d prefer to just let the points drift into the universe, Mike, the owner, encouraged me and others who’d done the same to use them before they closed up shop or changed ownership.

Roaster Mike at King Coffee Roastery in Phoenix, Arizona

Meet Master Roaster Mike, the Boss. Over the years, as I’ve relied on Mike to act as my version of the bartender therapist, he’s indulged me patiently by listening to the stories I was bent on sharing with him that likely rarely made sense and simply distracted him from getting work done. Sure, I did my best to ignore his gestures and silent pleas for me to wrap things up, but anyone who’s known me understands that I’m pretty adept at ignoring social cues and am able to continue going on for many minutes, never returning to the point of my discussion before I’ve totally lost the person. What I’m most amazed about regarding Mike’s resilience was that he’d often appear almost interested, and this could be after he’s already powered through what looked to me like a solid dozen shots of coffee and maybe a couple of espressos. How he himself didn’t blabber on, overwhelming my conversation is beyond my comprehension, or is this truly my superpower where I’m able to ignore all that might compete with me to tell me their story?

So, what was special about King Coffee Roastery that other coffee shops are missing? Well, my answer is going to go full-corn: it was love. Oh my god John, seriously, you are going for that cliche? Sure, many people visiting an independent coffee shop will say it’s that they aren’t corporate, or the coffee has a distinctive taste, or whatever. For me, hot, bitter caffeinated liquid in a paper cup and some wifi might be some generic lifeblood, but what other places are missing is the evolving flow of love that moves through places where, for a time, synchronicity opens a space in the continuum, and the people who move in and out of the front door are carrying something that lends a special air to the environment. Life in these places isn’t simply transactional; it is life-affirming, and I’ll be sad that this one has to give way to financial motives that have no room for love.

Val and Larry Watkins of Phoenix, Arizona

Speaking of love, I’ll close this post with a photo of Val and Larry Watkins with whom I’ve shared many a conversation over the years. This happy couple of more than 31 years, while not daily regulars, drop in at least a few times a week. Hopefully, if not here in a new incarnation of King Coffee, we’ll all continue to meet somewhere nearby in the following days and weeks.

A Note Regarding the Mundane

JWise Moments, Photo of the Day

Palo Verde tree in bloom Phoenix, Arizona

It’s allergy season, tax season, the approach of summer, and the space between those things and our travels. It’s easy to write about a trip somewhere as there’s a kind of excitement of going places, but what of these days when routine happens on a regular basis? Every day, we head out early in the morning, typically before 6:00 a.m., for a walk, and we suffer from the allergens that fill the air at this time of year. Every day, I think about doing the taxes, but I have until the 18th, so there is time. The air-conditioning is now on every day as temperatures have consistently been in the mid-90s here in Phoenix. It’ll likely stay this way, only much hotter, for the next four and a half months. Nearly every day, I find myself at a coffee shop at one point or other, typically first thing after dropping Caroline at her office.

I finished working out a two-week meal plan as we focus on the older things in our pantry and freezer that need to be eaten instead of thrown away; rarely do we ever throw food away. Writing about the once-a-week ritual of washing clothes is definitely of no interest for a blog post, but that kind of mundane thing is part of the mundane human maintenance usually glossed over. Gas is supposedly more expensive, and I guess it is, but that seems inconsequential in the scheme of things, considering I’m paying $45 a gallon for iced soy lattes at Starbucks in the afternoon on top of the $37-a-gallon Americanos I drink in the morning. But these details are just boring, maybe even hackneyed.

If I’m adequately busy and productive during the day, I’ll “reward” myself with mindless entertainment in the evening. This is either had by reading or trying to find something of some minor value on YouTube; the latter is typically a failure, with me plumbing the depths of stupidity and probably contributing to the rot accumulating somewhere in my brain that will show itself the older I get.

This quick burst of the mundane already needs to come to an end as here at 5:00 p.m.; it’s about time to go pick up Caroline and deal with the traffic of getting home. Our dinner of crockpot beans is finished, so there’s no real culinary excitement going on there unless you are a bean aficionado like we are, in which case we are dining on Lina Sisco’s Bird Egg beans cooked long and slow with bacon and onion. So, maybe not everything is exactly mundane today.

That Was Then This Is Not

JWise Moments

Driftwood Coffee in Phoenix

Go places or don’t, read or write, dream or die. The routine, sad to admit, is only mixed up when I opt for a different coffee shop, I’m in a different book, or I demand I do something I’ve been neglecting, such as writing a blog entry after a long break. Feeling like it’s been a long time is not the same as really having been a long time. I checked and saw that I posted a list of things just six days ago, but that was a list, not a blog, in the sense that I want to interpret it. Though this is easy enough to contradict even before I even make my point, as the blog post should share something personal to me, is that really possible? You see, the last post about our diet is certainly something personal, and among some subset of people who live in Phoenix, Arizona, and enjoy food diversity, it is maybe nothing out of the ordinary and then, on the other hand, the majority of Americans would consider us culinary freaks.

This last statement is based on empirical evidence gathered while observing my immediate vicinity when, in one tiny slice of time, I find myself in a situation in which I am in the minority, ethnically speaking. Of course, this is easily proven by taking myself to a “major” supermarket where I find myself in a sea of similarity.

Coffee shops are like seas of similarity, too. As I focus my photos on my isolated work setup, there are the obligatory tattooed baristas, man-bun-wearing big bearded hipsters, a homeless person, two people talking shit about the friend they each talk shit about the other with, the random man in a suit (I’m in Arizona where people don’t wear suits), four to seven computers open for work each with their white illuminated Apple logo, and someone like me (an arrogant wanna-be writer looking in disdain upon these empty souls trying to find a viable way to spend part of the day that would otherwise be empty and devoid of meaning).

Black Rock Coffee in Phoenix

And then the next day, I do it all over again, except now I’m further along in the book I’m reading, or maybe I’m editing the embarrassing piece of writing while I’m leery of sharing the same old thing I’ve lamented about 45 other times or maybe it’s 55. I am not sure because I don’t track my worn-out threads because admitting with precision how repetitive I might be could derail my efforts to fill a space so few eyeballs will ever discover.

Is it ironic that this act of attempting to blog is a disruption to reading The Age of Disruption? Well, maybe not if you consider that I’m also reading Radical Animism by Jemma Deer (it’s on-screen), and if I consider that my blog post is a kind of object in nature, then these words take on an animism; so maybe taking a page from her book to tell some story or other is in line with adding to the realm of our earth.

Should you, at this point in this pointless entry, be wondering what this has to do with the title of That Was Then This Is Not? Well, the beginning of this post about whatever I was writing then is not where I’m at now, so maybe you follow that what I wanted to say was I don’t really have anything at all to say.

The Plum In the Golden Vase

JWise Moments

The Plum In The Golden Vase

Back in April, I was posting about a book titled The Plum In The Golden Vase and how we’d just started volume 4 of the 850,000-word mega-book. At the rate we’d been reading it, I figured we had until 2025 before we’d finish it; well, I was wrong. Tonight, we closed volume 5 and put to rest its myriad of characters that had lived with us for ten years. It was never our intention to stretch a title out for such a lengthy period of time, but now that it has happened, I think our fondness and familiarity with the story will have us grieving its end.

I believe that the reason we picked up steam was that volume 4 ushered in the demise of our central character while volume 5 took down those corrupt minions that lived off the excesses that were exemplified in the previous chapters of the 100 chapters this book covered.

So, the main takeaway from reading such a long work over many years is that I believe everyone should pick something of this extraordinary length and read it slowly enough that it lives with them for years. Sure, we get attached to characters in much shorter works, but to live with those featured on so many pages year after year, they grow over time in our memories and, in some way, become family.

While we’ll be jumping into The Water Margin, a.k.a. Outlaws of the Marsh, soon, we’ll take at least a short break from classical Chinese literature to indulge in French literature via Marcel Proust’s In Search Of Lost Time, and once we gather some serious traction with its 1.2 million words, we’ll be folding The First Crusade by Peter Frankopan into the mix.