tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59776256817565546952024-03-17T17:36:01.949-05:004 Quarters, 10 DimesBecause this and four quarters will get you ten dimes.Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03463621516644789183noreply@blogger.comBlogger1900125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5977625681756554695.post-64949937913649314052024-03-17T17:35:00.003-05:002024-03-17T17:35:26.303-05:00News and Updates1. It’s St. Patrick’s Day, which is a strange holiday when a good chunk of your ancestry is Irish Protestant. It’s not really a holiday meant for me to enjoy, but I do anyway because it pleases me to do so and because it pleases me even more to annoy the sorts of people who gatekeep holidays. There is corned beef simmering on the stove and the place smells good. <br /><br />2. I am getting ready to meet with the Tax Person in the coming days. On the one hand, this means gathering up all the financial paperwork that I’ve been steadfastly ignoring since the last time I did this and trying not to let the incipient sense of dread that I feel whenever financial matters come up take over my life. On the other hand, I’m looking forward to handing all of this over to the Tax Person since last year went so swimmingly well. It’s such a wonderful thing to turn this all over to a trained professional – one who is professionally insured for liability if they make a mistake – and then just let them handle it. <br /><br />3. No, I don’t like paying taxes. Nobody does. But I do understand that taxes are part of the price one pays for civilization, and you can make whatever inference you’d like about the character of those who don’t understand that as far as I’m concerned. <br /><br />4. Speaking of which, it looks like we’re going to get a rerun of the 2020 election now that the primaries are effectively over. Der Sturmtrumper seems to be going all in on the Psychotic Dictator routine now, and far too many Americans are happy to celebrate this, convinced that only the people they hate will suffer. Folks, this is not normal. This is a full-scale red alert for the survival of the American republic. <br /><br />5. I have been trying to grade online discussion posts for three straight days now and so far have done exactly not a single one of them. It’s that time of the semester, I suppose. I will say that the first one – the post at the top of the page that I have to work my way down – made me laugh out loud, and three cheers to that particular student for having the gumption to say what they did. <br /><br />6. Perhaps I will bake something tonight. That was always my solution in graduate school, way back when, and if it didn’t necessarily solve any problems at least there were good things to eat afterward. <br /><br />7. I spent a good chunk of this week revamping a guest lecture for a friend’s course. It’s been four years since the last time I gave this talk – we were all logging in from home then, back when we thought the pandemic would be over by summertime – and now it’s a different friend teaching the class as the first one has retired, so there was some work to be done. It was fun work, at least, for certain values of fun that include academic nerdhood. I’m so there. <br /><br />8. Is anyone else puzzled by the new GOP campaign tactic of asking “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” because that just isn’t going to help them. Four years ago people were storing dead bodies in refrigerated trucks because the pandemic that der Sturmtrumper insisted wasn’t worth taking precautions for was so horrifying that we ran out of morgue space. Four years ago the economy was so bad that unemployment hit levels not seen since the Great Depression and oil prices briefly turned negative. Four years ago der Sturmtrumper’s literally jackbooted thugs in deliberately anonymous uniforms were assaulting Americans in the streets and kidnapping peaceful protesters. And it all led to the Trump Insurrection a few months later. Am I better off? Damn, friend, who isn’t? <br /><br />9. We’ve managed to catch a few Flyers games on television of late – they remain an entertaining team to watch even when they don’t win, as they demonstrated last night. I like when they win, but I don’t have any money on them. I just want to be entertained, and my but they do provide. My favorite Premier League team served up much the same “entertaining loss” experience as well yesterday – a game that went from 1-0 to 1-2 to 3-2 in the last sixteen minutes of play, with the final goal coming on the very last touch a full minute after stoppage time was supposed to have ended. Kim and I have even managed to watch an episode of Jodie Whittaker’s last season of <i>Doctor Who</i>, as we slowly work our way up to the new Doctor, whose name I have learned to pronounce but still can’t reliably spell. I’m looking forward to seeing what he does with the character. This all counts as a lot of television for me these days. <br /><br />10. Kim spoke to one of our neighbors earlier this week – a man who does odd jobs for a living – and it turns out that he was perfectly happy to remove the giant overgrown shrubbery in front of our house, and we were perfectly happy to pay him to do so. So now the house looks rather barren, but I am sure that soon there will be new shrubbery of some kind. I’m also sure the mint will grow back. It always does. <br /><br />Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03463621516644789183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5977625681756554695.post-74335205848511234462024-03-16T16:27:00.001-05:002024-03-16T16:27:42.974-05:00Time in a TubeI finished a tube of toothpaste a couple of days ago. <br /><br />This is not something I generally note, either here in particular or in my life in general. You’re supposed to do that now and then. For all that dental hygiene is a nuisance, it is also something that takes very little time and provides positive, identifiable benefits, so you grit your teeth (the better to brush them, perhaps) and get on with it. <br /><br />This is especially true for me, as I inherited my dad’s soft teeth and I suspect that the only reason my rate of cavities has slowed in the last few decades is that there’s not much room left for them to form anymore. I need all the dental help I can get. <br /><br />This particular tube, though, was something of a traveler. <br /><br />Last year’s Big Family Trip took us through any number of places, and you can only pack so much if you’re planning to do it all by carryon as we did. I figured we’d be in places where there were shops so if I found myself needing something I hadn’t packed or if I ran out of something that I hadn’t packed enough of, I could – through the simple expedient of handing over currency, either physical or digital – acquire it there. <br /><br />This is how I ended up with a small bottle of wood glue, purchased from the World’s Smallest Hardware Store in Irsina, Italy. It is very nice glue, and I highly recommend that shop for all your hardware needs should you ever be able to locate it. The guy there was very friendly and forgiving of my attempts to speak Italian. <br /><br />I ran out of toothpaste while we were in Prague. <br /><br />Fortunately there were, by my count, at least four little cornershops within five hundred meters of the apartment where we were staying, all of which sold the unheralded things that people need to get through the days. I wandered down to one of them and bought the smallest tube I could find (75ml), since I didn’t want to get stopped by airport security on the way back or abandon it in Prague unless I had to, and it worked just fine. <br /><br />I put my travel stuff away when we got home and it stayed there until December when I realized that I now had access to more normal travel-sized tubes and could take this one out for regular use. I put it in a safe place. <br /><br />Eventually I found it again, put it to use, and worked my way through it. <br /><br />It was a nice memento of a time and place, in a practical sort of way, and a good reminder of all the unassuming little details that happen in places where you’re just visiting. People live there. They do all the daily in and out things that people do, and you’re just visiting but sometimes you end up doing those daily things too. <br /><br />Every time I brushed my teeth these last few weeks I remembered a wet, grey city far from my home, a city I enjoyed with my family, where I found good people and good times, and that’s a nice thing to do twice a day. <br /><br />Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03463621516644789183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5977625681756554695.post-58168044564826634292024-03-12T18:01:00.003-05:002024-03-12T21:40:28.695-05:00DivestingWay back last summer I started a Project. <br /><br />I am a historian by trade and my main form of relaxation is reading. One of my favorite activities is to go to used book stores and see what I can find that looks interesting and costs me next to nothing. I tend to hang on to the things I acquire. And when you combine all of these things you end up at a place where my office is pretty much full to the brim with books, many of which I will never read again and which have no particular sentimental value. <br /><br />They were standing in the way of further book acquisitions, and so they had to go. Plus, being on the clearing-out end of my parents’ stuff did sort of bring home the idea that perhaps I should do some of that while I am still healthy to spare my children from the same task. At least some of the same task, anyway. <br /><br />So I went through the bookshelves and took out all of the ones that I didn’t see myself keeping. The “just in case” books. The “that might be useful someday” books. The “this wasn’t something I hated but neither was it something I plan to revisit” books. The “what the hell is this still doing on my shelves?” books. The “what was this book about again?” books. And then I took the books that I wanted to keep – many of which had been piled in corners or on the floor prior to this – and put them on the shelves, in a pleasing order. <br /><br />This did require a few bookshelf purchases, but by the end of the summer – for the first time since we moved into this house in 1996 – all of my books were out of boxes, off the floor, and accessible to the casual browser. <br /><br />The rest I put in boxes and stashed down in the basement. There were a lot of boxes. There they stayed while more pressing things occupied my time. Life is like that, I suppose. <br /><br />This weekend, though, it was Time. A while back a friend had recommended a bookstore in Madison that does a lot of community literacy work, so I called and asked them if they still accepted donations. “Sure!” they said. “Is it a big collection?” <br /><br />“Yeah, I suppose so.” <br /><br />“Well, if it’s more than 50 books that would count.” <br /><br />“Oh, my sweet summer child. This is 20 boxes of books.” <br /><br />“…?” <br /><br />“…!” <br /><br />“…” <br /><br />"If you took them out and repacked them there’s probably about 16 boxes worth that you can actually use,” I told them. “You can have them for free, but you have to take them all. That’s the deal. I just want them out of my house.” <br /><br />Thus are bargains struck. <br /><br />We drove up there on Sunday and eventually found the place – an unassuming brown building that looked more like a house than a shop – and wandered in. It seemed like a very nice place. If I hadn’t been dropping stuff off I’d have stayed to pick up more. Perhaps another time. <br /><br />I let the much younger staff people handle getting the books out of the van and into their shop, and eventually it was done. <br /><br />It felt pretty good, really. I hope they find new homes and new readers. <br /><br />And now I can buy more books to replace them. <br /><br />Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03463621516644789183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5977625681756554695.post-18237798544907539792024-03-07T13:08:00.003-06:002024-03-09T09:57:16.085-06:00Standard Legal Boilerplate - A Family StoryI’ve been trying to unravel a family story for the last couple of weeks. It’s one of those stories that I didn’t know a whole lot about when I was a kid, then slowly pieced together over time, and eventually fleshed out most of the details when I was an adult to get something coherent.<br /><br />And then it got weird.<br /><br /><i>-er.</i> <br /><br />Weird<i>er</i>. It was a pretty strange story right from the start in some ways.<br /><br />All of the principals in this story are long gone now as are most of the people who were even tangentially connected to them when these events happened, so I figure it’s something I can put down here. And honestly I find myself sneakily proud of my grandmother, the main person in the story, for living her life the way she wanted to live it, as best she could. <br /><br />So here you go.<br /><br />My dad’s side of the family was pretty small when I was growing up. There was my dad, of course. There was my grandmother (his mother), who lived with us for the last dozen years or so of her life. And there was my great-grandmother (my grandmother’s mother), who died when I was eight, which was why my grandmother came to live with us. I don’t remember her much – she and my grandmother lived in the last rowhouse before you got to the 69th Street Terminal, in Millbourne which was at the time a gritty little suburb of Philadelphia tucked between the city and Upper Darby, and mostly what I remember is an old woman in a bed and the fact that the front door faced the train tracks behind the house, not the street, so you could watch from the doorstep as the Market-Frankfort El rumbled by on its way to and from the terminal. It was neither elevated nor underground at that stage of the ride, as it would be at different points for most of its route. It was just a light rail line at one end of its journey through the city.<br /><br />That was it. That’s all of the people on that side of the family that I have ever met, even to this day.<br /><br />My dad, as far as I knew growing up, was an only child. I had no evidence to the contrary and no reason to suppose otherwise. Only children are a fairly common and unremarkable occurrence, after all.<br /><br />My grandmother was not married at any time that I knew her and I never met any grandfather on that side of the family. I didn’t even find out my grandfather’s name until I was in high school and it made so little impression on my mind that it took me years to remember it again after that. My grandmother had a brother who married maybe three or four times but never had any kids, and a sister who had a son that my dad once described as “a toad, just like his father” so the son and his father both fell off the family radar long before I was born. The sister died before my parents even got married, something my dad blamed squarely on the stress caused by her husband and son. The brother died about a month after my great-grandmother did, but he had been running a motel in Florida for years by that point and I never met him. My mom only met him once, ironically enough at his mother’s funeral a few weeks before he died, and she said he seemed like a decent guy.<br /><br />My great-grandfather seems to have been created out of pixie dust and table scraps and even now I can find very little about him on the genealogical sites. Certainly no family came from his side that I ever met. I know he started life as a blacksmith and ended up working for a company that made railroad locomotives.<br /><br />My great-grandmother was the third of nine girls, and one of maybe two or three who ever had children of their own. My dad would tell stories of some of his great-aunts – especially Aunt Bertha (“Birdie”) who apparently had a sharp sense of humor – but by and large it was not a tight-knit family. “They weren’t dysfunctional,” my dad once told me, “but they weren’t close.”<br /><br />At some point in your life, as you get older, there is a little switch in the back of your head that flips over and you find yourself saying, “Huh. Genealogy. That sounds like fun.” I hit this point in my early 40s or so, and eventually I managed to flesh out my grandmother’s story and add to the pieces that I’d discovered growing up. <br /><br />Just a note, though, before proceeding. My grandmother led a very interesting life in many ways, and only some of them appear in this story. You had to know her.<br /><br />My grandmother, Beryl, married Russell in early 1929 and they would go on to have four children, not just the one. There was Robert, born later in 1929. There were James and Phyllis, born in the early 1930s, both of whom died very young from things that could easily be prevented or cured today. And there was my dad, born in 1939. Beryl and Russell divorced in 1940. Russell took the oldest kid, Beryl took the baby, and neither side spoke to the other again.<br /><br />Ever.<br /><br />Please understand that at no time in the ensuing eight decades before the last one died did any of the four of them live more than twenty miles from any of the others. They could easily have kept in touch. But they didn’t. <br /><br />The closest they came to doing so that I know of was a story my maternal grandmother told my brother of a day when she and my dad were in a shop in West Philadelphia, before I was born. At some point my dad took her aside and pointed to a man paying for his things at the cash register, told her that the guy was his father, and then just watched him walk out. This of course implies that my dad knew him on sight at least two decades after he’d left, which further implies a lot more stories that we’ll never know now. Much later, in a very different context, I asked my dad if he had ever thought about contacting his father. “No,” he said. “Never. What would I have had to say to the man?” Which is a fair question. Neither my dad nor his mother were ever really bothered about the guy that I knew of. He simply wasn’t part of their lives anymore and that was that. Nor was his son.<br /><br />Beryl remarried in 1942 to a man named Charles, and on those few occasions where my dad would tell stories about his dad, it was Charles he was talking about. Charles was the guy who was there for him when he was growing up, after all. My mom met him a couple of times when she and my dad first started dating in high school. She said he seemed nice and treated her well. Charles died in 1959, and my grandmother never remarried after that.<br /><br />That’s the story as I pieced it together from childhood stories and adult research. It’s got its odd moments, granted, but it’s fairly straightforward for all that.<br /><br />So far, so good.<br /><br />If you are going to do genealogy in this modern digital age you will end up on one of two websites, and probably both at one point or another. <br /><br />The big one of course is Ancestry.com, which is run by the Mormon Church. The Mormons have this interesting little theological quirk that says if you convert to the Church you have a spiritual obligation to go back and retroactively convert all of your ancestors. This occasionally gets them into trouble (such as when they repeatedly try to do this to all the Jews who died at Auschwitz, which is an arrogantly messed up thing to do to people who were murdered for the religion they already had) but it is also why they have the best genealogical records on the planet, bar none. It’s one of the things that the young Mormons can do for their missions when they reach adulthood – most of them go off to proselytize the heathens (i.e. us) but no small number of them go out and dredge the world for records that they copy and bring back to Salt Lake City. If you’re going to do genealogy online you’re going to work with the Mormon Church, and Ancestry is as close to a win/win as you get – you get access to all those records and can build your genealogy to your heart’s content, and they get access to more records that people upload on their own while paying for the privilege, which saves them on missionaries. I for one am perfectly happy to make this trade.<br /><br />The other is FamilySearch.org, which is basically Ancestry Lite. It’s the free teaser version of Ancestry that they use to get you hooked so you’ll move up to the big site and pay them their subscription fees, which worked like a charm on me so kudos to them for their marketing strategy. They do know their audience.<br /><br />So I dipped my toe into the genealogical pool and opened an account on FamilySearch, and it works pretty much like Ancestry does. You can put up a family tree that can be private or available for others to see, you can add documents and stories, and you can contact people who seem to be barking up the same trees you are. <br /><br />I ended up talking with a guy named Mike, who was doing research on Russell’s side of the family. Mike is some kind of nth-degree cousin of mine – if you go back five or six generations there’s a pair of siblings and Mike comes down from one of them and I come down from the other – and he turned out to be a pretty nice guy. He had a lot of information that I hadn’t seen before and I had some things that were new to him as well, mostly because I had the physical documents in my possession and had scanned them. We had a good conversation.<br /><br />At some point, though, he sent me a scan of a clipping from one of the Philadelphia newspapers. It’s pretty standard legal boilerplate, the kind of thing you’d see in the Public Notices section of newspapers back when newspapers were a thing, the sort of notice you’d have to publish for three consecutive weeks so your court case could go to trial. “Russell hereby notifies Beryl that he intends to sue for divorce, and if she does not respond by such and such a date judgement will be entered against her blah blah blah blah blah.” That sort of thing. Standard legal boilerplate, insert names and dates here.<br /><br />Except that it’s from 1962.<br /><br />Now, there are a lot of weird things about this, not least of which being that in 1962 Russell knew damn well where to find my grandmother. She was living with her parents, in the same house where she had been living in 1928 when she and Russell had started dating. Russell knew exactly how to get hold of her and advertised in the newspaper instead. <br /><br />As for the underlying issue, though, there are three possible alternatives here, each one funnier than the next and all of them entirely plausible if you knew my grandmother.<br /><br /><u>First</u>, Beryl and Russell really were divorced in 1940. <br /><br />In this alternative, Beryl did the whole Public Notification thing as above, got no response, had judgement entered against Russell as promised in the Notification, and never bothered to tell him anything about it. In which case Russell’s lawyer is about to make a very expensive discovery. I can see this happening, really I can. “Why should I tell him anything?” my grandmother would have said. “To hell with him and good riddance.” I can, in fact, imagine this in her voice in my mind even now. <br /><br /><u>Second</u>, Beryl and Russell were not actually divorced in 1940 and my grandmother was married to two different men for seventeen years. <br /><br />Again, entirely plausible. I come from a long line of people who had very little interest in or patience with bureaucratic niceties or legal requirements, and in an age where you had to do a fair amount of legwork to find records – physically going to the courthouse(s), searching through folders, locating paper documents, and so on – I can easily see my grandmother just cutting Russell out of her life, forgetting entirely or simply ignoring the entire issue of whether they were still married or not, and then going on to get married to Charles. Russell was over as far as she was concerned, paperwork or no. If Charles wanted to get married, why not?<br /><br />For corroboration of this basic attitude, consider that one of the first things that Mike did after we connected on FamilySearch was to send me all the information he had on my grandmother and ask me to check it for accuracy. I looked it over and said it was all correct except that he had her birthday wrong – it was August 9th, not August 10th. “But her birth certificate says the 10th,” he replied. “I’m sure it does,” I told him. “But I lived with the woman for a dozen years and her birthday was the 9th.” I’m pretty sure I know what happened. Either my great-grandparents filled out the form incorrectly because they couldn’t remember the date (it was a big day, after all) or just made a mistake, or they forgot about the form entirely and had to go back later to fill it out because some humorless official demanded they do so and then got the date wrong, and either way they couldn’t be arsed to change it. Beryl’s here, isn’t she? What does it matter what the form says?<br /><br />Also, this is the same family where my dad had to take three weeks of shore leave from the United States Navy to sort out who owned the family house in West Philadelphia. It had been in the family for generations by that point. The original owners had bought it in the 1870s or 80s, and then they died and passed it down and those people died and passed it down and no one ever bothered to change the title so it was still legally owned by people who had died several decades and at least two generations of residents ago. The taxes were paid and the property was well maintained, so what did the title matter? Sorting that out with the city was an experience, my dad said.<br /><br />So yeah, my grandmother being legally married to two different men and not giving a damn about it is absolutely within the realm of possibility.<br /><br /><u>Third</u>, Beryl and Russell were not actually divorced in 1940 and my grandmother was just shacking up with Charles. For almost two decades. In the 1940s and 1950s, when such things Simply Were Not Done.<br /><br />And yes, this too is entirely plausible. My grandmother was not terribly concerned with what other people thought of her life choices and by “not terribly concerned” I mean "not concerned at all." She could in fact be rather contrary about them. She was a pack-a-day smoker from the time she was 17, during the Harding Administration, to the day she died in 1986. She smoked Benson & Hedges Gold, which she would send me down to the local pharmacy to buy for her and which, this being the 1970s, they’d happily sell to a 9-year-old boy, and she once told my brother that the entire reason she started smoking was because someone told her not to. Also, she worked outside the home for her entire adult life, she went by her middle name and hated her first name enough that she somehow managed to avoid having it appear on her Social Security records, and she had a very clear moral code that did not involve her getting too worried about other people’s choices or understanding why they should care about hers. Seven years into her marriage to Russell she got hit by a trolley in West Philadelphia and, according to the newspaper story that appeared the next day, when questioned by the police she gave them her own last name (not Russell’s), an age that was several years younger than she actually was, and an address that turned out to be a greenhouse. What business of theirs was any of that? She was who she was, and I have to admit I have always admired her for that.<br /><br />The idea that she would decide that her personal life was not someone else’s to regulate or comment upon would have been entirely within character for her.<br /><br />I first discovered all this when Lauren was about sixteen, and her immediate reaction to it was “Wow. Grandmom was a <i>playa</i>!” And I suppose she was, in her time. She had game. She did what she felt was right by her standards, and if that wasn’t the usual practice of the day well that could easily be defined as Someone Else’s Problem.<br /><br />This story has percolated in the back of my mind for a number of years now, but for some reason I have recently been spending some time trying to get to the bottom of it. What actually happened? Which of these three alternatives is the one that they lived through?<br /><br />There’s nobody left to ask, though. <br /><br />Russell died in 1978 and Robert in 2019 or 2020 without any contact with us at all. My brother and I did look into finding Robert at one point – it’s astonishing what information you can find online if you care to search – but on further consideration it didn’t seem like a great idea (“What would we have to say to the man?”) and we let it drop. Beryl died in 1986. Both of my maternal grandparents died in 2000. My dad died in 2016 and my mom in 2021. They’re all gone and the web of stories and relationships in which they lived is gone with them. All that is left are the documents and photographs.<br /><br />None of these people made much of an impression on the genealogical websites that I can find. Some, but not much. There are census records, for example, but those stop at 1950. I have Charles’ death certificate, which does list my grandmother as his wife, but I have not yet found any marriage record for them nor any divorce records for her and Russell, not even in 1962. You can’t prove something by absence, of course, and it is always possible that the records are there and I’ll find them eventually. But all of these people remain to this degree elusive, confined to a time that has long since passed. My dad and my grandmother (and to some extent my great-grandmother) live on in my memories, of course, but the documents remain an as yet unexplored territory.<br /><br />So for now it’s a story, or rather a set of possible stories, and there is something to be said for that as well.Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03463621516644789183noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5977625681756554695.post-65420559607424968792024-03-03T15:27:00.000-06:002024-03-03T15:27:01.677-06:00News and Updates1. Just in case you were wondering whether the climate isn’t what it used to be, in the last few weeks here in Our Little Town we were narrowly missed by the first tornado in Wisconsin’s history, then saw the temperature hit 73F (23C) before plunging to 13F (-11C) in less than 18 hours, the largest temperature swing ever recorded in that short a time in this state. We had about two weeks of winter back in mid-January and since then it’s been spring. Currently we’re back up to around 73F again – a temperature we normally see in May rather than the first weekend in March. We put the rabbits outside and opened up all the windows. Folks, the climate isn’t changing. <i>The climate has changed.</i> All we’re doing now is trying to figure out what happens next and mitigate the damages. <br /><br />2. I hope those third-quarter profit statements and the thrill of Owning The Libs was worth it to all the right-wing fools who made sure that nothing would be done to prevent this back when we had the time to do so, because there is no going back. <br /><br />3. In less critical news, I now have a lovely new work mug for my tea. For a long time I had one with the best line from <i>Game of Thrones</i> on it (“There is only one god and his name is death, and there is only one thing that we say to death: not today”) and I do still have it, but my brother gave me a new mug for my birthday back in December. It has a bright colorful design and underneath that it says “Joey No-Nuts” in cheerful letters. The fact that it is advertising an allergen-free bakery in Hoboken NJ rather than some doomed side character in in a 1970s Mafia film makes it just that much better. So far nobody has commented on it, but the year is young. <br /><br />4. This may well be the year where I don’t even get to a dozen books for my annual list. I’m currently about halfway through my third book – a mark I usually hit by MLK Day – and honestly it just doesn’t look like it will get any better anytime soon. We’ll see. At least they’re good books. <br /><br />5. On the plus side, we did finally send out the Christmas letters. Before March, even! One takes one’s victories where one finds them. <br /><br />6. It always grievously bothers me when I screw up as an advisor, because it’s someone else’s life path at stake. It happens – you can’t avoid it, in the long run, as we are fallible creatures we humans. But it bothers me. I try to do what I can to fix things, but still. It does keep me up at night. <br /><br />7. One of my students recently turned in an essay on the 1920s that spent a fair amount of time discussing the Ku Klutz Klan and that is the only way I will refer to that organization from now on. I have this mental image now of all those hateful little bigots with their pointy little costumes flapping behind them as they scurry about colliding with trees and falling down embankments trying to avoid the retribution of the just, and I treasure this, I really do. <br /><br />8. Every few weeks I get yet another nastygram from yet another account we have about them not being paid because we had to get new credit cards in December thanks to a fraudulent charge that appeared there and I’d forgotten to make the changes for them. Everything is so linked now. So I go to their website or call the number and get everything verified that yes indeed this is the proper procedure and not a pathway to yet more fraudulent charges and then I cross that one off the list until the next one appears. <br /><br />9. I have been trying to find information on an ancestor of mine to see if I can get to the bottom of a story that has at least three alternative narratives for what might have happened – each funnier than the next, really, and all of them absolutely plausible if you knew the people involved – but so far there is surprisingly little on the usual websites. Honestly, this is also absolutely plausible given the people involved. <br /><br />10. On top of everything else my cousin and I are now working on another Long Term Family Project and we’re having a grand time of it even though neither of us really has the time for it at all but that’s the nature of these projects I suppose. We’ll see how it turns out! <br /><br />Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03463621516644789183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5977625681756554695.post-25158933450306396962024-02-25T14:37:00.000-06:002024-02-25T14:37:54.999-06:00A Birthday in February<div>Friday was my father-in-law’s 70th birthday, which we ignored. <br /><br />There was a plan. Don’t fret. <br /><br />I’m not sure how much Daniel really noticed that we’d kind of skipped over the actual day, as we have celebrated his birthday as late as Labor Day. Holidays happen when you have time for them, after all. I’m sure he knew that something was up and was just waiting for it to snap into place, though. He knows us well. <br /><br />Because there was in fact a plan, as noted above, and for a number of reasons it couldn’t happen on Friday but it could on Saturday so Saturday it was. <br /><br />As always with our plans, it involved food. All the best plans do. <br /><br />In particular, these plans involved having Kim’s mom take him to dinner at one of those classic Wisconsin supper club places (you’ll recognize them immediately if you’ve ever been in one) not too far from their house by midwestern standards, and then we’d all surprise him there and Feast and Celebrate. <br /><br />Lauren couldn’t make it because it’s the middle of the semester and two family events in one week is pushing hard on the limits of what can be wedged in between homework and exams, but Kim, Oliver, and I drove up to the supper club, stopping at Costco because we’re addicts that way and of course we did. Justin and Chris were already there, and Rory and Amy joined us not long after that. <br /><br />And then we waited. They put us in a little back room where people were clearly expected to sit for dinner later – and, in fact, several people did filter in while we were there, which is why it was a bit puzzling that the lights would randomly dip every few minutes. Mood, I guess.<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZcpCQy1S65WWN3QH52ewExHI4UeKFOw7DO78fuRzDjzx-DBy8QnNb62ddjlGlxwo3SOyjFHvwjkRG1x7WNCECViaB0MKO4vfsGKSFNRC-kN6vHG4MKHy3nhsP611jwDmORCBiDFzgMta2KAwBkbgazNSnkBRrGDVJzpQhilhZUlGsraBAO_ZOuSXiKG0/s5712/IMG_0100.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZcpCQy1S65WWN3QH52ewExHI4UeKFOw7DO78fuRzDjzx-DBy8QnNb62ddjlGlxwo3SOyjFHvwjkRG1x7WNCECViaB0MKO4vfsGKSFNRC-kN6vHG4MKHy3nhsP611jwDmORCBiDFzgMta2KAwBkbgazNSnkBRrGDVJzpQhilhZUlGsraBAO_ZOuSXiKG0/s320/IMG_0100.HEIC" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFt8rGx3A8wIscHqOkt2flzl80BNOZcvRadVCA9b56Vl2ne0dlR_rndoNrzjPE26ppE0YM6AnOEjhzAtnlfRoMrjBw7gzJfJppyoeznPWYnXoeITbpNoLgN3wRKOlmWh8lSlVDVN4_CmDOFRa8OGAQZrNATwInsvk3ALthS_5sXVpZJ9CO5MnPNxr1kRA/s5712/IMG_0102.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFt8rGx3A8wIscHqOkt2flzl80BNOZcvRadVCA9b56Vl2ne0dlR_rndoNrzjPE26ppE0YM6AnOEjhzAtnlfRoMrjBw7gzJfJppyoeznPWYnXoeITbpNoLgN3wRKOlmWh8lSlVDVN4_CmDOFRa8OGAQZrNATwInsvk3ALthS_5sXVpZJ9CO5MnPNxr1kRA/s320/IMG_0102.HEIC" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfVXhPgPQ0L-pib8AsXUAI_ylj94A2GJs_y2ugZ8Iu9tH6bCNITcmS6qn8hhLQLb1mIiVhCbTXqexl-eILdXjMf5a5yhS0Lyzb1GasUJEqYOt-Ppkc5QFqPiBJVokSBRIBpDXK29HDjSY2V3voGGON-1KPNuLkzdWGI78RZ8DIVs5_DrTNPESdizJGUr0/s4032/IMG_0105.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfVXhPgPQ0L-pib8AsXUAI_ylj94A2GJs_y2ugZ8Iu9tH6bCNITcmS6qn8hhLQLb1mIiVhCbTXqexl-eILdXjMf5a5yhS0Lyzb1GasUJEqYOt-Ppkc5QFqPiBJVokSBRIBpDXK29HDjSY2V3voGGON-1KPNuLkzdWGI78RZ8DIVs5_DrTNPESdizJGUr0/s320/IMG_0105.HEIC" /></a> <br /></div><div><br /><br />Eventually the guest of honor arrived and we headed into the main dining room – a cavernous place specifically designed to make it impossible to speak with anyone except whomever you’re sitting next to, which enforces a certain intimacy if you think about it. <br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjRYI4dJw6dkl-rvG6O4yv7fdhhWteJ8M-XvE3-605Vu9r6GilV5o7bjZdJKyICC9MpUG8-AkDuxNYv2P9KNEIF1uoXB6b0pI1P2Q8X05yuhdPKWJioGATBjyM_R2tx-LiOAk8Y5Z5wz6gkFXOrLgLlQZGLswf45QwfqmBDYoCsxl2oyZLFpG9SwbEVyM/s5712/IMG_0106.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjRYI4dJw6dkl-rvG6O4yv7fdhhWteJ8M-XvE3-605Vu9r6GilV5o7bjZdJKyICC9MpUG8-AkDuxNYv2P9KNEIF1uoXB6b0pI1P2Q8X05yuhdPKWJioGATBjyM_R2tx-LiOAk8Y5Z5wz6gkFXOrLgLlQZGLswf45QwfqmBDYoCsxl2oyZLFpG9SwbEVyM/s320/IMG_0106.HEIC" /></a> <br /></div><div><br /><br />We chose this place because it served lobster and this is what Daniel wanted, and according to those who also had it it was in fact quite good. But you go to these places for the prime rib, which came out in a plate-concealing-sized portion and was also deemed tasty by those partaking. I’m not sure what possessed me to have chicken parmigiana in a Wisconsin supper club, but we’ll chalk that up as a lesson learned. <br /><br />Everything came with a soup and salad bar because of course it did. Quite rightly. Kim pointed out that you know you’re in a real Wisconsin supper club when the salad bar has bacon bits in a tub that you can just spoon out in whatever quantity you desire. Life is good that way. <br /><br />We had a lovely time, sharing a meal and wishing Daniel a happy birthday. You only get these big round numbers so often, and you might as well make it a party.<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIEY04qt9t3zdYKBfor6Ai_4-Y04rgdKlXECRLeL7156RQNwNx4PuNcTlHrIfmHTrMqzg3OApa2ozZD9n8i-Cn0fQoK3ZSP8jWSiHZv71RbGAc94UOOobI4nHE6g3jZlQqImJhkeYLXt1-482TIWTeciufoiutclGsXZRCujdHS0miJnjMkRG0OAdNkc4/s5712/IMG_0119.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIEY04qt9t3zdYKBfor6Ai_4-Y04rgdKlXECRLeL7156RQNwNx4PuNcTlHrIfmHTrMqzg3OApa2ozZD9n8i-Cn0fQoK3ZSP8jWSiHZv71RbGAc94UOOobI4nHE6g3jZlQqImJhkeYLXt1-482TIWTeciufoiutclGsXZRCujdHS0miJnjMkRG0OAdNkc4/s320/IMG_0119.HEIC" /></a> <br /></div><div><br /><br />If you go on your birthday and let them know, they’ll give you a very nice slice of cheesecake and your family can put candles in it and then sing Happy Birthday to you, and if you do that it is very likely that the entire restaurant will sing along and clap at the end, and of such small things are communities made. <br /><br />Happy Birthday, Daniel!<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivZT-dNJM-2aN2my0td3tDreZpStSS5zwlJJhu-J4kgp0KqvYeUH42o0SgQ7CUSAuSgkva87GvrJgPw9Ki4kcvyiGSxN3yVDyDn83nz4byq3aGSKJpDjww_MSFDsq9LtRmlDZjnkv0JAeTUhXhf04mbWT9pZyeYmIYEd72uYT3ACXRGYFJAnhzo5eZGJI/s4032/IMG_0137.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivZT-dNJM-2aN2my0td3tDreZpStSS5zwlJJhu-J4kgp0KqvYeUH42o0SgQ7CUSAuSgkva87GvrJgPw9Ki4kcvyiGSxN3yVDyDn83nz4byq3aGSKJpDjww_MSFDsq9LtRmlDZjnkv0JAeTUhXhf04mbWT9pZyeYmIYEd72uYT3ACXRGYFJAnhzo5eZGJI/s320/IMG_0137.HEIC" /></a><br /></div><div><br /><br /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03463621516644789183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5977625681756554695.post-53117557986152238132024-02-22T20:46:00.001-06:002024-02-22T20:46:55.730-06:00Merry Grittmas!<div>It’s almost the end of February and we’re still celebrating Christmas around here. Not that I am complaining in the least, though the people who are still waiting for our Christmas cards have probably given up on us by now. Fear not! All will be made whole, possibly by summer. <br /><br />Back on the Actual Christmas, Lauren and Oliver combined my Christmas present with my birthday present and got us all tickets to see my hometown Philadelphia Flyers play the Chicago Blackhawks, and a most lovely and fine gift that was! <br /><br />Of course having all of us go together was part of the gift. Why would I have wanted to go by myself? I genuinely love the fact that we enjoy spending time and doing things together. <br /><br />Yesterday was the game. <br /><br />This of course took some planning. Oliver, Kim, and I had to leave work early and get the car ready. Lauren took the bus down to Our Little Town after her chemistry exam ended and we picked her up at the station before jumping onto the interstate and heading down to Chicago. We didn’t run into too much traffic, oddly enough – rush hour in Chicago generally starts at 6am and lasts for 23 hours, in my experience – but between the getting ready and the finding of a meal that all of us could actually eat (i.e. not something that would likely be served at the United Center, however fine their offerings might be) we got into the building about two minutes after the game had started, and then when we got to our level I made a wrong turn that ended up with us walking about 90% of the way around the stadium to get to our seats, but eventually we found our spots and settled in. <br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYBBYWyThS1C1ZRBfYSeyRg-cnVT3-7DOqYl6YHYwUpywgDtibzueMQ5WqpEJmZRzI3wyMcw0Qcqxs7wEnzmQ8Ef2oMVe05r8k-wRpXohgBFrmNqjI9f-waKMl5wvYefn2xMixl9I454zQTJho7nANY_6tmTLjIEOIgezmYnsvJmSiXLWPdXyDhjtGjY4/s5712/IMG_0054.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYBBYWyThS1C1ZRBfYSeyRg-cnVT3-7DOqYl6YHYwUpywgDtibzueMQ5WqpEJmZRzI3wyMcw0Qcqxs7wEnzmQ8Ef2oMVe05r8k-wRpXohgBFrmNqjI9f-waKMl5wvYefn2xMixl9I454zQTJho7nANY_6tmTLjIEOIgezmYnsvJmSiXLWPdXyDhjtGjY4/s320/IMG_0054.HEIC" /></a> <br /></div><div><br /><br />We were literally in the last row of seating, way up top, and the view was magnificent. Plus this way we could stand up without worrying about blocking anyone else’s view, which is more than could be said for some of the people in front of us. I’m looking at you, Beer Sales Guy. I know it’s your job and all, but yeah. Down in front. <br /><br />The Flyers already had a 1-0 lead at that point – we heard them score about halfway through our walk around the stadium – but in the end it was a well-played game and we didn’t miss much. <br /><br />We were, of course, decked out in our Black And Orange finery because you have to rep your team after all. You always wonder how you will be received by the home fans under those circumstances, but it has to be said that everyone was fine. It’s a game. You’re supposed to have fun. The Blackhawk fan next to us was happy to take our picture, which was nice of him.<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMSV2tqAqxZJxdppp0z3IZQoBjZRDHA_bIBkPD_U6bf-y16Pbg14clhaDVUQGITVVicgj3WLHPwV5uuHFHufHEZA63ZcgxsI8KLA-eeBKq7uS7iEeObKsJUoYObni5ztt-_cWNu_s31viwAOtG4_DEHawF5JeTx0gzzEhVh1jO1q3p_M2g_Wi6NjPsqBo/s5712/IMG_0042.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMSV2tqAqxZJxdppp0z3IZQoBjZRDHA_bIBkPD_U6bf-y16Pbg14clhaDVUQGITVVicgj3WLHPwV5uuHFHufHEZA63ZcgxsI8KLA-eeBKq7uS7iEeObKsJUoYObni5ztt-_cWNu_s31viwAOtG4_DEHawF5JeTx0gzzEhVh1jO1q3p_M2g_Wi6NjPsqBo/s320/IMG_0042.HEIC" /></a> <br /></div><div><br /><br />The first period saw the Blackhawks get some quality breakaway chances and tie it up at 1, but the Flyers dominated the second period, scoring twice to take a 3-1 lead. <br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkPzd7iXFmmaBDAld6ZGNjiKyfaY0WcyWf-aYJCsu0wrTwQG4TaL3f1ozEWUZDK-FCOmvE5hYPfOeGFVtBvyeooikvICw1Nf3wzK-VTvw4vyDqqGKgDStuBpregpocjAJR5jKx1Dfkb_SWGbbUqoq_ZeTCrMo7YTWR3tPy9p2G6Dt0aNBLs23uyX6_gSA/s4032/IMG_0046.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkPzd7iXFmmaBDAld6ZGNjiKyfaY0WcyWf-aYJCsu0wrTwQG4TaL3f1ozEWUZDK-FCOmvE5hYPfOeGFVtBvyeooikvICw1Nf3wzK-VTvw4vyDqqGKgDStuBpregpocjAJR5jKx1Dfkb_SWGbbUqoq_ZeTCrMo7YTWR3tPy9p2G6Dt0aNBLs23uyX6_gSA/s320/IMG_0046.HEIC" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW8plyW8qM7D_JI4kYw8XpNPOQqs3reBedkB7VAZo7pYdBfUQRXSsQoKAl1B7Dff5gC35LgFN6WS5_xnjHUIBQYJjd5sCccDMvrkyE7jvm61kU0B-fkBbE0WB2ujGC8GfQS9jwJpf8X2wW-nHxDFm1hy959-sMeWHB3msBIPnabBImZ3Phq8U3bFRxSJ8/s4032/IMG_0050.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW8plyW8qM7D_JI4kYw8XpNPOQqs3reBedkB7VAZo7pYdBfUQRXSsQoKAl1B7Dff5gC35LgFN6WS5_xnjHUIBQYJjd5sCccDMvrkyE7jvm61kU0B-fkBbE0WB2ujGC8GfQS9jwJpf8X2wW-nHxDFm1hy959-sMeWHB3msBIPnabBImZ3Phq8U3bFRxSJ8/s320/IMG_0050.HEIC" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGJrV9TMmB2s4kGrUEPX6N5RHc6w5kQwU9ZmwnwAfVHByizuPVhgFPa_8QndTigm_AYqZXOvvziPEbJYMvsHb64JYhFwA8_tkyHGSgzVvqdWWqDvAMTizbFITLOf9JrijPj6sa2rmvWwPTdbMYVAFO1SkentTHJcaTHX5gP22YX6OC8YvXXUN4dlVhL8A/s4032/IMG_0053.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGJrV9TMmB2s4kGrUEPX6N5RHc6w5kQwU9ZmwnwAfVHByizuPVhgFPa_8QndTigm_AYqZXOvvziPEbJYMvsHb64JYhFwA8_tkyHGSgzVvqdWWqDvAMTizbFITLOf9JrijPj6sa2rmvWwPTdbMYVAFO1SkentTHJcaTHX5gP22YX6OC8YvXXUN4dlVhL8A/s320/IMG_0053.HEIC" /></a> <br /></div><div><br /><br />Perhaps the most interesting hockey move of the night actually came from Connor Bedard, the Next Young Phenom who plays for Chicago and is perhaps the only bright spot in their dismal season this year. There’s a move you see in soccer when a player has the ball down by the opponent’s goal and he’s trying to fake out the defender with dazzling footwork while not actually touching the ball at all, and Bedard tried that with his stick on a rush up the ice before finally pulling the puck back between his skates and then shooting. If Flyers goalie Sam Ersson hadn’t made a spectacular save it would have been on the highlight reels all night. <br /><br />It’s always fun to see these things live. I’ve now been to four NHL games in my life as well as a few college and minor league games, and the energy in the building is something that never really translates to a small screen. Plus they play all sorts of silly games during the intermissions and timeouts. They had kids racing around the ice at one point and shooting pucks at tiny holes in a board in front of the goal at another. There was a song contest that ended up with the entire crowd singing <i>Living On a Prayer</i> long after the recorded music stopped. At one point they got someone to try to name all the NHL cities faster than a player could, which obviously didn’t work but the whole point was to get the rest of us to say that clearly we could have done that and to be honest that did work. <br /><br />Of course not everyone found the intermissions so interesting.<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUEs7XS01DbiTomeNzdWhldOmzN-lhV3retNR2WxzpE2exjUL5HGdraqlaGVZ2mZ6yiTzD3LxzPSQ5Tv38mT4zkJRfjfSFmoen9dn-JoqboD8VDKzav2GTPvKzd7vI79D447HE1ySo2w3jHGx6yqDHDcCrH06PA9541qLFTN2N0UpFei_a2ZoXseZKuxk/s4032/IMG_0072.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUEs7XS01DbiTomeNzdWhldOmzN-lhV3retNR2WxzpE2exjUL5HGdraqlaGVZ2mZ6yiTzD3LxzPSQ5Tv38mT4zkJRfjfSFmoen9dn-JoqboD8VDKzav2GTPvKzd7vI79D447HE1ySo2w3jHGx6yqDHDcCrH06PA9541qLFTN2N0UpFei_a2ZoXseZKuxk/s320/IMG_0072.HEIC" /></a> <br /></div><div><br /><br />The third period got a bit chippy as it became more obvious that the Flyers were going to win and Chicago tried to shake things up, but that's to be expected. As Garrison Keillor once noted, “The rules in hockey don’t say you can’t fight. They just say you have to sit down for a while when you’re done.” On the way out Lauren volunteered to take a photo for some Blackhawk fans who then returned the favor for us, and that was a very nice thing.<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6CbV4bg1XvkuMC1eyjcja2Won-S8XCaJygqPXSmekGE4RRvX2aKT4wppp1AdiFEInZbypT4P90hZg6xI1APGu-fACcWtwATt2UsbptyLPtIzjjbNF60a5UE3av2JWE8Xvydjya083ginh0D2q0kvuibvBPVK0fYIA-2LP91kEGftJzqD_ZlOKJY7cgwM/s4032/IMG_0075.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6CbV4bg1XvkuMC1eyjcja2Won-S8XCaJygqPXSmekGE4RRvX2aKT4wppp1AdiFEInZbypT4P90hZg6xI1APGu-fACcWtwATt2UsbptyLPtIzjjbNF60a5UE3av2JWE8Xvydjya083ginh0D2q0kvuibvBPVK0fYIA-2LP91kEGftJzqD_ZlOKJY7cgwM/s320/IMG_0075.HEIC" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq7ufz56Zv5exxD3RbI7cQP_H-xVofo-Cxrg1oRLzw88HvU5bvX-OOpgShW4QqijD0-Z7dYWsNZB9-9ueO-r4-FFJEnI_8DOsn3EqrpI7YzWuCkBjXLDsYHv954rbH8ZQ7VvCzpn99U1dEh01naMSgP7eaL32IGITzsl67nAPH16SyeMba5Otcohsvuuk/s4032/IMG_0078.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq7ufz56Zv5exxD3RbI7cQP_H-xVofo-Cxrg1oRLzw88HvU5bvX-OOpgShW4QqijD0-Z7dYWsNZB9-9ueO-r4-FFJEnI_8DOsn3EqrpI7YzWuCkBjXLDsYHv954rbH8ZQ7VvCzpn99U1dEh01naMSgP7eaL32IGITzsl67nAPH16SyeMba5Otcohsvuuk/s320/IMG_0078.HEIC" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6vf_vMMePMks4Aiek6nbW6pnVGyvutoF7vYGdPkcEdeqWVqBEy7_n7hDs4HmIeK2D00qDOJWN-XeGF7ddIl3ut3sl23Tkk8llM8ALECKRbwUN-LmkJjGheBkkPEqWPsK9P6gxBRx-Mnef9T3-_rxVOynoQFzfDw-tIbGgX3IrnNdldkgT6-TfNQp3VRw/s5712/IMG_0085.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6vf_vMMePMks4Aiek6nbW6pnVGyvutoF7vYGdPkcEdeqWVqBEy7_n7hDs4HmIeK2D00qDOJWN-XeGF7ddIl3ut3sl23Tkk8llM8ALECKRbwUN-LmkJjGheBkkPEqWPsK9P6gxBRx-Mnef9T3-_rxVOynoQFzfDw-tIbGgX3IrnNdldkgT6-TfNQp3VRw/s320/IMG_0085.HEIC" /></a><br /></div><div> <br /><br />It took a while to get out of the stadium from where we were, but again we got lucky with the traffic and made it home pretty quickly, all things considered. Today was a very tired sort of day, but it was worth it. <br /><br />Merry Grittmas! <br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3BmeSQGyKNx8a4wd4MWxZp-x9UWwu8p1S5FFPTMwRTpqx7rqoFZCyp-DpEB_03RtUJUpmGlE_bgd7mF3sd2TqOxY7_joDkIedJNrKNb7NOslAWTxpZiCEghxoz-90TCMGt3hE6klWi9A5syzoYDFnql_iObLzlGmUtLOSUiLOGfZ-TqSaBGO1F9JNVr8/s1400/Gritty%20Claus%202.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3BmeSQGyKNx8a4wd4MWxZp-x9UWwu8p1S5FFPTMwRTpqx7rqoFZCyp-DpEB_03RtUJUpmGlE_bgd7mF3sd2TqOxY7_joDkIedJNrKNb7NOslAWTxpZiCEghxoz-90TCMGt3hE6klWi9A5syzoYDFnql_iObLzlGmUtLOSUiLOGfZ-TqSaBGO1F9JNVr8/s320/Gritty%20Claus%202.jpg" /></a><br /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03463621516644789183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5977625681756554695.post-46690034251192058802024-02-11T22:14:00.001-06:002024-02-11T22:14:29.718-06:00Let the Game BeginWe spent much of our Super Bowl Sunday at a bookstore because that’s just how we roll. <br /><br />I’m surprisingly easy to shop for, really. I have a list of books that I hope to read in the near future, and if that isn’t enough there are always gift cards that can be exchanged for books. Last Christmas Kim got me such a gift card, and today was the day we decided to go spend it. <br /><br />And then some. <br /><br />We made a good haul, actually. I got a couple of books that were on my list and a couple of others that weren’t but looked interesting. My reading pace has slowed over the last couple of years as my working pace has sped up and the rest of the world has gone mad – it’s a bit of a distraction to watch your country spiral into overt Fascism, barely avoid a coup, and then to have an entire political party actively work to subvert everything that is good about your country while voting for the guilty bastard in the primaries. Takes up some energy watching that, really. I’d rather be reading, but there you go. <br /><br />So now I have some new books to try to take my mind off things. <br /><br />We did watch the game, though. You kind of have to. I’ve been slowly losing interest in American football for over a decade now – temporary bumps as my hometown Eagles did well now and then notwithstanding – and I really didn’t have much of a dog in this fight. Dynasties are boring and both teams could plausibly be labeled as such, Kansas City most recently and San Francisco over the long haul. I liked the fact that the San Francisco quarterback was the Mr. Irrelevant of his draft year (i.e. the very last player chosen) and I’ve got family in San Francisco, so I had a slight preference for the 49ers, but having the Travis Kelce And Taylor Swift Show on the Kansas City sidelines meant that if they won then the same right-wing halfwits who think treason is acceptable as long as it’s their guy doing it would freak right the fuck out, and for that reason alone I couldn’t really cheer against the Chiefs either. I could approach the game as a neutral and just enjoy it for whatever happened. <br /><br />Plus the ads are always fun. <br /><br />Super Bowl Sunday is also the day that no diet applies. According to the American Medical Association you’re legally allowed to eat anything you want on this day no matter what is on your MyChart, and you might as well take advantage of that fact. We had a festival of salt and fat and it was marvelous, but now it’s over and tomorrow there will be Nutrition again. I’ve reached the age where a significant percentage of what I eat is consumed for medicinal purposes. If I make it to the magical age of 80 I will live on aged cheese, Buffalo wings, and whiskey, but for now one must enjoy such things sparingly. <br /><br />It turned out to be a good game from a neutral’s perspective, closely fought and with any number of interesting plays, and if the Kansas City victory means we’ve got another year of Dynasty reruns in American football at least I’ll get to sit back and watch the fragile dudebros melt down over Taylor Swift and the vacuous conspiracy theories they’ve invented about her and that has to count for something. <br /><br />Merry Super Bowl to all who celebrate! <br /><br />Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03463621516644789183noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5977625681756554695.post-30114835229376203742024-02-07T17:21:00.000-06:002024-02-07T17:21:19.134-06:00A Good Week for PieThis has been a good week to enjoy big old piece of <a href="https://whatever.scalzi.com/2006/09/26/how-to-make-a-schadenfreude-pie/">Schadenfreude Pie.</a> Don’t mind if I do. <br /><br />For one thing, watching all the Fragile Dudebros melt down in puddles of impotent rage every time Taylor Swift’s name comes up on any form of media has been the funniest thing I’ve seen in months. The sheer volume of whinging complaints about two consenting adults having a relationship and one of them – the most popular recording artist in the world right now, as measured in tour revenue, and therefore an obvious focus of attention for any advertisement-driven entertainment industry such as professional sports – occasionally showing up on television during American football games beggars the imagination and delights the senses. The fact that this week was the Grammy Awards ceremony, where Swift set an all-time record for wins in her category, is just icing on the cake. Or whipped cream on the pie, I suppose. <br /><br />Dudebros! News flash: nobody outside of your self-reinforcing little circles is taking you seriously right now. Not a single person! And every time you complain you look that much more pathetic, that much more weak, and that much more like the cringeworthy poseurs that you are. <br /><br />Look. Dudebros. Guys. I’m having a great deal of fun right now at your expense, really I am, and I thank you for it, but you might want to consider being quiet now. It’s getting embarrassing. Not that I will stop being entertained by it for as long as you choose to keep it up, just that you should consider re-evaluating your life choices at this point.<br /><br />We’ve still got four days before the Super Bowl and it’s only going to get worse for you and more fun for the rest of us. Just saying, is all. <br /><br />Speaking of re-evaluating life choices, yesterday der Sturmtrumper’s argument that he is above the law and should never be held accountable for anything he does no matter how wretched, vile, or stupid it might be ran into a judicial brick wall when a bipartisan 3-judge panel unanimously told him to go pound sand with a definitiveness that one rarely finds in legal decisions. <br /><br />Yes, indeed, fifty-seven pages of Sit Down And Shut Up, delivered by the US criminal justice system to its most famous criminal. It was the best thing I’ve read in weeks. Seriously – they should make a miniseries out of it. <br /><br />Of course der Sturmtrumper has already launched into his inevitable temper tantrum over the decision, flatly stating on social media that any attempt to hold him accountable to the law is (in his view) problematic, though he did not use that word, possibly because it has more the three syllables. His explicit position is a poisonous combination of “it’s not illegal if the President does it” and “I need to do crime in order to do the job how I want,” which is of course exactly the combination you need to produce tyranny. Speaking as someone who <i>literally</i> has a PhD in the Founding Fathers, this is precisely what the Constitution was written and ratified to prevent. Somewhere right now whatever is left of James Madison is spinning so fast in his grave that you could use him to generate electricity. <br /><br />I’m quite sure there is a Category-10 meltdown going on in his corner of the world even as I type, and really all I can say is that I wish every scrambled word-salad sentence and every misfiring condiment-throwing moment of it were being recorded for posterity because we’ve all had a very hard decade and we need something to cheer us up. <br /><br />Der Sturmtrumper has been treated with incredible and unwarranted leniency by the law all his life and even more so in the last few years, but slowly, and with any luck with increasing momentum as his world crumbles around him, the walls are closing in. Will this be the time where at last he can’t slither out of it unscathed? Possibly! One can only watch and hope, fork in one hand and pie in the other. <br /><br />Meanwhile the House GOP has ably demonstrated to anyone outside of their own self-reinforcing little circle (lotta overlap with the Fragile Dudebros on this one, just pointing that out) that they are both incapable of serious government and not at all interested in changing that fact. First, their attempt to impeach a sitting cabinet member for not adhering to an impossible standard of job performance that their own cabinet member in der Sturmtrumper’s administration couldn’t achieve either ignominiously failed. Given that the House GOP leadership went forward with this impeachment vote while openly admitting that they had no evidence whatsoever for high crimes and misdemeanors or indeed criminal conduct of any kind and that they knew very well this was an empty political stunt designed to rile up their base but would be dead on arrival in the Senate, this is of course the only responsible outcome. The fact that it got as far as it did is a damning indictment of the current state of the Republican Party as at best a lightweight irritant and at worst a subversive threat to the American republic. I already know that substantive policy is beyond them, but as a political move if you can’t even pull of your own empty stunt you really need to consider alternate employment. <br /><br />For good measure, they also rejected the immigration bill that the Senate wrote to the House GOP’s specifications and passed with a bipartisan majority. The Senate basically called their bluff, and the House GOP panicked. On the one hand, this bill was a Nativist nightmare designed to coddle right-wing white fears of Other People and it should never have been suggested in the first place. On the other hand, it meant that the GOP also rejected aid for Ukraine in its heroic fight against Russian invaders, which should tell you whose side the GOP is on. It’s not the American people’s side – overwhelming bipartisan majorities of Americans favor strong and continuing aid to the Ukrainians, after all, but the right-wing extremists who have taken over the GOP do not. Ever since der Sturmtrumper kowtowed before Putin at Helsinki it’s been clear that the Republican Party leadership favors Russian interests over those of the United States. Poor Julius and Ethel Rosenberg – born too soon. As a historian I know where appeasing dictators leads. Hint: get ready for a larger war that could have been prevented now but wasn’t. <br /><br />But for the moment the House GOP is left trying to justify rejecting their own bill without mentioning their current owners, and I hope they choke on it. <br /><br />Not enough popcorn in the world. <br /><br />Or pie. <br /><br />Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03463621516644789183noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5977625681756554695.post-22601529764325631762024-01-31T22:50:00.001-06:002024-01-31T22:50:18.717-06:00Adventures in TechnologyI finally caved in and got a new phone last week. <br /><br />It’s been a while. My old phone had reached the “We’ll give you fourteen dollars and a Happy Meal for it” stage of trade-in value, there were things that were getting harder to update, and I really wanted a better camera than the one I had. It had lasted a good long while. It was time. <br /><br />So I went to the Apple Store with Lauren, and we found a new one that did what I wanted it to do. I mostly deferred to her judgment on specs and such, since she is much better at technology than I am, but I got the camera I wanted and I was assured that it would mostly look and work like the previous phone only faster and with fewer random seizures. They even managed to port over my phone number into the new phone so I didn’t have to spend half a day trying to do that with the cell phone carrier. <br /><br />Win. <br /><br />But if you know anything at all about how this process works, you know that this was only the beginning of my odyssey. Because everything on the new phone had to be logged into again, even if I had no idea what the passwords were anymore. <br /><br />Fortunately I have this all written down in a Secure Place, one that it turns out was nowhere near the Apple Store so I had to wait until I got home to do this. It was a very Secure Place indeed, but eventually I found it and got most of the things restarted. <br /><br />And then I tried to do work and failed. <br /><br />Because it is a sad fact of modern academia that we can’t do our jobs without our personal cell phones that the university is not actually paying for – a fact that sticks in my head for some reason. This, of course, refers to the various MFA apps that we are required to put on these personal cell phones that the university is not paying actually paying for, apps we need to get into any of the various programs that we need to use on a daily basis. <br /><br />MFA, for those of you who are fortunate enough not to have to do this kabuki dance, does not stand for Motherfucking Apps, as you would think. No, it stands for Multi-Factor Authorization, a cumbersome process by which corporations, universities, and organizations of all types hope to achieve perfect digital security by making it sufficiently difficult to log in to anything that eventually nobody will bother to try and then they can just turn the computers off entirely and encase them in green-tinted glass for future generations to marvel at. <br /><br />I have three of these MFA apps, because nobody can agree on which one of these things to use. <br /><br />For one campus, I have DUO, which does have the benefit of working most of the time. I go to log in, it pings my phone, there is a short pause while my phone decides whether to tell me that it has been pinged or not (sometimes requiring me to close and then restart the DUO app just to remind it that it needs to be looking for something, and sometimes requiring me to start over from scratch), and then once the Yes or No buttons appear I tell my phone yes, it is I – taDAAAH! – trying to do my job, and then it lets me in. Sometimes I will get a survey later asking how much I enjoyed this experience and it will be all I can do not to respond. I am not making that up. <br /><br />For another campus, I have something called Okta, which as near as I can tell is mostly just DUO in a trench coat, though for some reason it has the “Yes it’s me” button and the “No, that’s someone else” button on the opposite sides of the screen as the ones in DUO and this has on occasion caused low comedy. Every time I log in to something that the app regards as new, such as a new phone, a new browser, a browser that has been closed and reopened, a computer that has been restarted, or a computer that just has a certain <i>je ne sais quoi</i> about it, I get an email announcing this fact. Okta is now the third largest sender of email in the United States, behind car warranty spammers and Ancestry DNA updates. <br /><br />For yet another campus I have Microsoft Authenticator, which requires no fewer than three log ins to function under the best of circumstances (again, I am not making that up) and which has a success rate only slightly higher than throwing liverwurst at the computer while uttering prayers to forgotten Mesopotamian gods. No idea which gods. Can’t remember. <br /><br />Only one of these apps actually managed to migrate over to my new phone without further attention while at the Apple Store. This meant that I only had to spend the better part of the next morning on the phone with two different IT departments rather than three, trying to convince them that I needed to get restarted on these MFA things (in the Samuel L. Jackson sense of the term) and that indeed I had the authorization to do so, which is hard to prove since you need the apps to do that. Eventually they sent me QR codes for my phone to scan, mostly I suspect to get me to go away, and then I was back in business. <br /><br />There are still a few things I need to resolve with the phone and I'm trying to figure out the camera, but for the most part I’ve managed to get myself back almost to where I was before I upgraded, and that pretty much sums up my entire relationship with technology really. <br /><br />Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03463621516644789183noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5977625681756554695.post-56112486065936915802024-01-30T18:25:00.001-06:002024-01-30T20:49:11.164-06:00A Game for the WatchingI may have to watch the Super Bowl. <br /><br />I wasn’t really planning on doing that this year. I’ve been losing interest in American football for a decade and a half, and while I will admit to being more interested when my own team is doing well the sad fact is that the Eagles folded like a wet paper tent over the last two months of the season and are now spending the winter trying to figure out what went wrong – a familiar spectacle, if you’re an Eagles fan. You can find the Super Bowl commercials online these days so that’s not much of a draw anymore, and the halftime shows have never interested me on their own. Plus this year the game will be a contest between Kansas City, which is just the latest version of New England except without the accompanying stench of corruption and which has played in twelve of the last fourteen Super Bowls (or something like that; the numbers get fuzzy after a while), and San Francisco, a team that already has more championships than they can count. <br /><br />Dynasties are boring. <br /><br />I probably would have wanted to watch if Detroit were in it – you can’t be that bad for that long and then make it to the championship game without generating at least some interest. But they too will be watching from their living rooms, which left me not all that excited to do the same from mine. <br /><br />But then TrumpWorld (tm) melted down into a puddle of childish butthurt and unhinged conspiracy theories, as they do, and now I’m finding it hard to stay away. <br /><br />Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock when it comes to American sports and culture, you probably know that Kansas City tight end Travis Kelce – the brother of Eagles center Jason Kelce, which automatically makes him a good person in my book – has been dating Taylor Swift for the last few months. She has in fact been attending games for most of the public part of their relationship. I suspect that as a relatively famous and reasonably wealthy person himself, Travis Kelce is one of the few people who can approach Taylor Swift on anything even remotely like an equal footing, and while I can’t say my world revolves around either of them I do wish them well. <br /><br />So here are your players: <br /><br />Travis Kelce: a very good football player who plays on a team that has been to the Super Bowl more often than not in recent years. <br /><br />Taylor Swift: arguably the most popular recording artist in the world right now, in the middle of a tour that has literally grossed billions of dollars already, and the focus of attention for an army of adoring fans. <br /><br />In other words, two famous and influential people at the center of their respective worlds. It really isn’t much of a surprise that they are dating if you think about it that way, and they are behaving as much like a normal couple as they can under the circumstances. They seem happy together so far. <br /><br />Naturally, the paranoid schizophrenics who make up the bulk of TrumpWorld (tm) are seething with insensate rage at this. <br /><br />Well, they do that at pretty much everything to be honest. Spittle-emitting rage is their default setting. But this seems even more screwed up than usual. <br /><br />This might be because Swift went onto her Instagram account in September to tell her fans to register to vote – a civic minded public service announcement of the kind that used to be considered a nonpartisan good, but which, in an age where the American right wing is now actively hostile to the very idea of democracy, was seen as problematic. It might also be because Kelce has appeared in advertisements promoting basic science (i.e. Covid vaccines) and American near-beer (Bud Light), both of which are anathema to TrumpWorld (tm) denizens for various reasons. <br /><br />TrumpWorld (tm) is now filling the airwaves and internet with such choice examples of psychosis as: <br /><br />1. Taylor Swift is an agent of the Pentagon. The source for this was Fox News talking head Jesse Watters, who thinks she’s a DoD psyop asset promoting NATO. I’m not sure where Kelce comes into this, but I’m sure he’ll tell us whether we want him to or not. Remember when right-wingers used to support the US military? Good times, man. <br /><br />2. Swift and Kelce are not an actual couple but are instead a nefarious propaganda show staged by that Machiavellian puppet master Joe Biden (whom right-wingers also routinely accuse of being senile, and good luck trying to point out the obvious stupidity of holding both of those views at once). This comes from, among other people, former GOP presidential candidate and wannabe dictator Vivek Ramaswamy, who once flatly argued that the Constitution should be ignored if it interfered with right-wing policies. <br /><br />3. Swift will come out at halftime to endorse Joe Biden. This is a direct accusation from Trumpanzee media figure Mike Crispi, who also believes that the NFL scripted the entire playoffs to make this happen. Crispi is allowed to walk the streets unmedicated, if you're wondering.<br /><br />4. Kelce and Swift are only doing this to promote abortions, a fascinating bit of hallucination promoted by Trump Youth leader Charlie Kirk. <br /><br />5. Or, my personal favorite, which appeared on the far-right propaganda outlet OAN (“Because Fox News is too liberal!”), that Biden forced Taylor Swift date Travis Kelce as part of a larger deep state psyop campaign to brainwash children to focus on sports instead of whatever blasphemous version of Dominionist Christianity OAN is selling this week. As if American kids need help doing that. As if anyone could force Taylor Swift to do anything she didn’t want to do. <br /><br />And on and on. Really, it’s astonishing the depths of depravity that can be achieved by TrumpWorld (tm) when they put what they insist on calling their minds to it. <br /><br />On the one hand, this is conclusive evidence of a widespread and troubling mental health crisis that should be treated with appropriate seriousness by professionals. <br /><br />On the other hand, though, I do now feel obligated to watch the game, if only to support the happy couple. <br /><br />Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03463621516644789183noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5977625681756554695.post-11808064318202891342024-01-27T11:26:00.003-06:002024-01-27T11:26:59.761-06:00We Visit San Francisco: Seeing Other Places<div>We didn’t spend all of our time in San Francisco while we were visiting. Most of it, to be sure, and that’s appropriate since that’s where Geoff and Dave are and it’s a great place to visit, but not all of it. We did go further afield. And after a certain amount of time we left to go home, since we had airline tickets and needed to get back to our regularly scheduled lives, already in progress. That’s how these trips work, after all. <br /><br />On the day after the Cheese Party we went to Benicia. <br /><br />Both Geoff and Dave have vehicles, which is somewhat unusual in a city where parking spaces are harder to find than apartments. It is a very handy thing for such tasks as getting people to and from airports, though, as well as for going on day trips. We couldn’t fit the six of us into one vehicle as it turned out, so I went with Dave and everyone else piled in with Geoff. They took off fairly quickly while Dave and I followed at a leisurely pace, listening to jazz while crossing the new Bay Bridge which is a really lovely structure and cleverly lit. <br /><br />Naturally Dave and I got there first. <br /><br />We parked at the designated meeting point – a grocery store which had a coffeeshop inside of it – and went in to get warm beverages before heading across the street to a little park where we sat at one of the picnic tables and waited for the others to arrive. It was a bright sunny day and fairly warm by Wisconsin January standards (not sure about San Francisco January standards) and we enjoyed it. <br /><br />Once the crew reassembled we headed off into Benicia itself. We walked past the big church, which – it being Sunday morning – was actively being used for services so we didn’t feel it would be appropriate to go inside and gawp like the tourists we were, though apparently it is quite a sight inside. It was built from the hull of an old ship and this is supposed to be very clear when you look at it from the interior. Perhaps next time, though. <br /><br />Our first actual goal was to find lunch, which we did at a place that was a combination of bakery, sandwich shop, and general attraction. They make their own everything there, and it was warm enough for us to sit outside – a handy thing, since that’s pretty much where the only open seats were. <br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidUAWwbqnkckt9is560nNl0gpTqTeKUsFPGWCohd9ccJUuDtk1l8Vz1rekjQNTb01gniFN8Oh5gslJ6f0fJx-1q86aHm_bTcVMhQVAo9eZJ__XUCHcGJBxAID2wVniWX-Ed4ZKU7IWQJB9kUkEtkCjKu-ullh8cjdCImjNf8C6zdcIkDdSdWCQaxCxgUE/s6000/IMG_8536.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidUAWwbqnkckt9is560nNl0gpTqTeKUsFPGWCohd9ccJUuDtk1l8Vz1rekjQNTb01gniFN8Oh5gslJ6f0fJx-1q86aHm_bTcVMhQVAo9eZJ__XUCHcGJBxAID2wVniWX-Ed4ZKU7IWQJB9kUkEtkCjKu-ullh8cjdCImjNf8C6zdcIkDdSdWCQaxCxgUE/s320/IMG_8536.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPoLJs1bJM9DJyLZlB43-cqFJ0mK1bLPSDP_RAWzPaktAM8wzA-AvKFLFg7Wy6PgRKSsSiOGD00aDKSRgmeQQg4zI5eFVTerdyAy2pnvHLIAaEYgsGtpN3PxVK7O4EiNolGaEQcAtLSJB8TPxJJ7nQttut0NIw7pYF8OHqKOMp6p7SpG_EPF4kBuH3E_4/s6000/IMG_8538.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPoLJs1bJM9DJyLZlB43-cqFJ0mK1bLPSDP_RAWzPaktAM8wzA-AvKFLFg7Wy6PgRKSsSiOGD00aDKSRgmeQQg4zI5eFVTerdyAy2pnvHLIAaEYgsGtpN3PxVK7O4EiNolGaEQcAtLSJB8TPxJJ7nQttut0NIw7pYF8OHqKOMp6p7SpG_EPF4kBuH3E_4/s320/IMG_8538.JPG" /></a> <br /></div><div><br /><br />From there we wandered through the town. Benicia was founded in the 1840s, right around the time that the US was forcibly removing the top third of Mexico and incorporating it as the American southwest, and it served as the capital of California for a brief period in the 1850s. It’s a pretty town, with a fairly active main street that seems to have an unusual concentration of dentists from what I could tell but it was a lovely place to walk around. <br /><br />The first place we stopped to explore was the old state capitol. It’s a two-story brick building with a bored and friendly NPS staffer at the front door who was quite happy to see us and let us know all about the place. He asked if we were interested in the tour, which we declined on the grounds that it would be more time than we wanted to spend, but he said if we wanted a quick peek inside he’d let us do that. We were on our honor that if we stayed too long we’d sign up for the tour so we were just in and out, but it was a really nice site and if we get back there we will definitely sign up.<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXYBQ0bgwuYYWkGGxdwJOKQDhTP9efDm94EpP_DueORjCoB3uzbXc-gAdyo3IBIYtD3LO4gASSisThgDeuh2sdcMzG6K-47NUkiyvgF0cujf7JPZcG5CSTffzniBE2oOLj0RLgZxE_wisy7yZla3VCpug7cft5DXvDtUy659EfK7z0ZWUtEZTC1fOcK8k/s6000/IMG_8540.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXYBQ0bgwuYYWkGGxdwJOKQDhTP9efDm94EpP_DueORjCoB3uzbXc-gAdyo3IBIYtD3LO4gASSisThgDeuh2sdcMzG6K-47NUkiyvgF0cujf7JPZcG5CSTffzniBE2oOLj0RLgZxE_wisy7yZla3VCpug7cft5DXvDtUy659EfK7z0ZWUtEZTC1fOcK8k/s320/IMG_8540.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtvCBoTdmynjGKNdsHkj8IlG2qKSvJonVsTUz_g7bo-SXs6gEm6Sgc4AY7acE9PdB3DmqXAQkLhUY5Y9HvkpzXuoZfqVXqPCKvjVWvLtSQSLFZzwSEyqXq-BUU5MC1uMuCXI9mW0X8MP3gLy3BMQht8WmPJkYQJLXfVV3mprnVVXAaSsKehUrpUo83734/s6000/IMG_8542.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtvCBoTdmynjGKNdsHkj8IlG2qKSvJonVsTUz_g7bo-SXs6gEm6Sgc4AY7acE9PdB3DmqXAQkLhUY5Y9HvkpzXuoZfqVXqPCKvjVWvLtSQSLFZzwSEyqXq-BUU5MC1uMuCXI9mW0X8MP3gLy3BMQht8WmPJkYQJLXfVV3mprnVVXAaSsKehUrpUo83734/s320/IMG_8542.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQsGBphUEvou30SBvnQ59KESVpAMvzn3qipiONZjTSIOFvy8cUcMLshx5q3BVEdJhRs1B109NwRtX7LRMoKeI-wOPv698KSZD_WivF4UystR0qMJZXnWntX-g_ivBw22LQSy7bS7qbnnX6cB3Iv_nx0inXDAc_IOb1HscHIMvbjbBsTEhrIHpwL1B-p6c/s6000/IMG_8543.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQsGBphUEvou30SBvnQ59KESVpAMvzn3qipiONZjTSIOFvy8cUcMLshx5q3BVEdJhRs1B109NwRtX7LRMoKeI-wOPv698KSZD_WivF4UystR0qMJZXnWntX-g_ivBw22LQSy7bS7qbnnX6cB3Iv_nx0inXDAc_IOb1HscHIMvbjbBsTEhrIHpwL1B-p6c/s320/IMG_8543.JPG" /></a> <br /></div><div><br /><br />We continued on through some of the residential areas, and eventually made our way to the waterfront.<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAn2BDLqThgSl5rr1Y6OmwxFVvTPZgNHRYgLSFNXVGnubpUlPVJZfV19TwvwoVCawLE6LjE4xokyhqv1StvuXqCUYNMXO3zLzA1cGOrfPsjDp5xdATHa_kDRxNvBLJkeJO52pAH4PCms7AD9vRmKyuSjXxtYXbVDGUZDRQNYGxBMzr2AwD1_1BSU9iJOk/s6000/IMG_8549.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAn2BDLqThgSl5rr1Y6OmwxFVvTPZgNHRYgLSFNXVGnubpUlPVJZfV19TwvwoVCawLE6LjE4xokyhqv1StvuXqCUYNMXO3zLzA1cGOrfPsjDp5xdATHa_kDRxNvBLJkeJO52pAH4PCms7AD9vRmKyuSjXxtYXbVDGUZDRQNYGxBMzr2AwD1_1BSU9iJOk/s320/IMG_8549.JPG" /></a> <br /></div><div><br /><br />Benicia sits on an inlet that comes off the north end of San Francisco Bay (though it’s called San Pablo Bay at that point for reasons that probably made sense at the time) and you can just wander along the shoreline taking in the views. There are even benches there for just this purpose. It’s kind of quiet, but very nice.<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUfWqy94saJCf3gPOc45phlC35wgRxZ9REMfJWvfGwBkER8lo6ij4wi_uUojVYqMJf2-BZduEHLQW8LtIcbeENvWBwXE6HJG0sYzoYdQ9mrTfDjeA1lm8h4Nr6acNytBpiYXv01SAWFzo0YnipT9UbwLTDbfubTeTJcuytXS3TOQyQYUoFoYkWydHKo_c/s6000/IMG_8551.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUfWqy94saJCf3gPOc45phlC35wgRxZ9REMfJWvfGwBkER8lo6ij4wi_uUojVYqMJf2-BZduEHLQW8LtIcbeENvWBwXE6HJG0sYzoYdQ9mrTfDjeA1lm8h4Nr6acNytBpiYXv01SAWFzo0YnipT9UbwLTDbfubTeTJcuytXS3TOQyQYUoFoYkWydHKo_c/s320/IMG_8551.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5GWlQ0gtTumZJrLa9ZXiL8t4x-v2upLVZPNhBKNNkvo_CopXF8V8NF0Q5BsoAStPHeh9zKcTNZXYv2Ov1AvbUVsE1L3As6AzMwGtwPGjFA48gIeXASxujHouK3rJjC9MMtnjZ0HrNi7WyRqqZ0UbrMKVjsQ9S3vl1WcH_Hlxh4yuuDFTBbCGWSXnUD_g/s6000/IMG_8556.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5GWlQ0gtTumZJrLa9ZXiL8t4x-v2upLVZPNhBKNNkvo_CopXF8V8NF0Q5BsoAStPHeh9zKcTNZXYv2Ov1AvbUVsE1L3As6AzMwGtwPGjFA48gIeXASxujHouK3rJjC9MMtnjZ0HrNi7WyRqqZ0UbrMKVjsQ9S3vl1WcH_Hlxh4yuuDFTBbCGWSXnUD_g/s320/IMG_8556.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE_IG7t6vYGgekoQ7mMfrIHWMy-xWVvoKiKcwW9GQ5b35FnXwZtM76Wu1ofA1DnfVvmUJaal0h5zlWy4wi7qkFibqPixTjGx93jZMmbvzOB8yPZ4kM1c8BJIwdWnAh24C0pYnnlRx4rP6ZZZwxXOQvhyeDAa5LAUmSOzqrlK3ooqt-qlb_pNFWRknCD5k/s6000/IMG_8558.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE_IG7t6vYGgekoQ7mMfrIHWMy-xWVvoKiKcwW9GQ5b35FnXwZtM76Wu1ofA1DnfVvmUJaal0h5zlWy4wi7qkFibqPixTjGx93jZMmbvzOB8yPZ4kM1c8BJIwdWnAh24C0pYnnlRx4rP6ZZZwxXOQvhyeDAa5LAUmSOzqrlK3ooqt-qlb_pNFWRknCD5k/s320/IMG_8558.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimKxEcmC66do4mdwRnxD4HdKU6CLOZ6bog_x_D8tiL5gN5cnq2Al2rA1kvRqDGj66sjv1Qf_fZa__oFettT6uK_rPeuW0sRPRXDGlR0jXL_MKTn9Dl3XTkC1kWNPMBWjrJXTeJyR9IsZ_EABTujCo37nCbkflm8f3Xo4xo-gpzci8Qij1QM1TUl-ACUU8/s6000/IMG_8563.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimKxEcmC66do4mdwRnxD4HdKU6CLOZ6bog_x_D8tiL5gN5cnq2Al2rA1kvRqDGj66sjv1Qf_fZa__oFettT6uK_rPeuW0sRPRXDGlR0jXL_MKTn9Dl3XTkC1kWNPMBWjrJXTeJyR9IsZ_EABTujCo37nCbkflm8f3Xo4xo-gpzci8Qij1QM1TUl-ACUU8/s320/IMG_8563.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRu_0zjbAUumdc9dM803Mx8W7MY-X2PcGND2EgtRVLQ8jmDwRkhi3ky60Z3yJOQ3yshi63Nfwo852h0oWbHZ5mS5rvIsAAPwv2AjawRMJxW-aPcqGQmHVqsY85BFnBhS7fRimQC1fynG_UDKaRK7p8i7voQTqHY2ad4mEV34-1kACOxbzr2eKQoRpySco/s6000/IMG_8565.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRu_0zjbAUumdc9dM803Mx8W7MY-X2PcGND2EgtRVLQ8jmDwRkhi3ky60Z3yJOQ3yshi63Nfwo852h0oWbHZ5mS5rvIsAAPwv2AjawRMJxW-aPcqGQmHVqsY85BFnBhS7fRimQC1fynG_UDKaRK7p8i7voQTqHY2ad4mEV34-1kACOxbzr2eKQoRpySco/s320/IMG_8565.JPG" /></a> <br /></div><div><br /><br />Eventually we made our way back to the grocery store and headed off to Berkeley to visit Cracker. <br /><br />I’m not really sure how she acquired that nickname, but that’s how she introduced herself to me when we met a decade ago so that’s what I call her. She comes from an Old California family and we met her at the house her grandparents built in Berkeley a hundred years ago almost to the day, not long after the big fire that wiped out a good chunk of the town. It’s a neat old house with vivid 1920s vibes to it – white plaster walls, rounded doorways, brown wood trim. I love that style. Mostly we just hung out and talked about whatever came to mind, but eventually we got hungry and got takeout for dinner. All in all a lovely way to end a good day.<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHNhlpMb6n31ZiGyBiI37gQwS0vqZUdUtgPv3csObhwKeP4aaYLQgN401KDzCkw5aqqX8sG6OaLNRz9Ks0EOOmzmC-jONjPnFtBFQ1B9J5Vl5XZlGfCGAPE2JVJr4F9-hU2if7b-pvWEJTwnva9_3I3-_UohwBmlmjOSPspAvwOldKGCXLFZu2S28mjn4/s4032/IMG_1676.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHNhlpMb6n31ZiGyBiI37gQwS0vqZUdUtgPv3csObhwKeP4aaYLQgN401KDzCkw5aqqX8sG6OaLNRz9Ks0EOOmzmC-jONjPnFtBFQ1B9J5Vl5XZlGfCGAPE2JVJr4F9-hU2if7b-pvWEJTwnva9_3I3-_UohwBmlmjOSPspAvwOldKGCXLFZu2S28mjn4/s320/IMG_1676.HEIC" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgySEGxAKRcBtI8qXy1WZy4Qi-b7PhQQnWPKlAQICCCtQKN6gxR7NbzoR_Q1ocN9B8sAJcLlOiYiUOCgBGShbnPNbYlr813IJkvntDPkXjjLJyDTB06FjQvX7lOFMi6uxMQPOhCYFzPksFVCtTF7zjGq5v8Ezs9S0PEs-2oI3DUwQGXxwIjEwYrttKl_zo/s4032/IMG_1681.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgySEGxAKRcBtI8qXy1WZy4Qi-b7PhQQnWPKlAQICCCtQKN6gxR7NbzoR_Q1ocN9B8sAJcLlOiYiUOCgBGShbnPNbYlr813IJkvntDPkXjjLJyDTB06FjQvX7lOFMi6uxMQPOhCYFzPksFVCtTF7zjGq5v8Ezs9S0PEs-2oI3DUwQGXxwIjEwYrttKl_zo/s320/IMG_1681.HEIC" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKCGLuYmOhOYaRREAkiE92x-0d-NCtWWD2Isb2nZrcXX8tR5J-G0sRUnrs3sUhGkUzkpZP9uFDB09xx8QuwA-Z4hX-nNtL7NbwEY98397q-vtJP-YVbPoGhuqUDDE0fKeMThV39p-J_jOnChF4kqoBuxqdvpSzYH2zods65FFpOO3YB-yr4muo6Ho2lMI/s3088/IMG_4097.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKCGLuYmOhOYaRREAkiE92x-0d-NCtWWD2Isb2nZrcXX8tR5J-G0sRUnrs3sUhGkUzkpZP9uFDB09xx8QuwA-Z4hX-nNtL7NbwEY98397q-vtJP-YVbPoGhuqUDDE0fKeMThV39p-J_jOnChF4kqoBuxqdvpSzYH2zods65FFpOO3YB-yr4muo6Ho2lMI/s320/IMG_4097.HEIC" /></a> <br /></div><div><br /><br />The next day we had to fly home, but there was still one item on Lauren’s to do list for this trip so we stopped at an In-N-Out for burgers on the way to the airport. It was tasty, but I have to say that Culvers is better. This might be because I made the rookie mistake of ordering from the menu and I later found out that they only really have a menu for people who aren’t familiar with the place – you’re supposed to order other things and other styles and there are entire websites dedicated to telling you what these are. This strikes me as a bit more complicated than it needs to be, but so it goes. Next time I’ll know better.<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgarzTVaszZ2rv3lTBigDRbFT8VP49ejdP0xIw42IjhybOvEzf2j-GG_3QHvIU5vI5OtqjEJwEbAsP0SCe5V_-P4YpjsnamTeyPOewojoVfnV1CX1aKkTUcVRDhc5_-IlrEhn8t8-aAicWQgTIevltB6BoNEMERWhRWf1wxwfCVYVDKQzjXGWF_TZU4wVw/s4032/IMG_4103.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgarzTVaszZ2rv3lTBigDRbFT8VP49ejdP0xIw42IjhybOvEzf2j-GG_3QHvIU5vI5OtqjEJwEbAsP0SCe5V_-P4YpjsnamTeyPOewojoVfnV1CX1aKkTUcVRDhc5_-IlrEhn8t8-aAicWQgTIevltB6BoNEMERWhRWf1wxwfCVYVDKQzjXGWF_TZU4wVw/s320/IMG_4103.HEIC" /></a> <br /></div><div><br /><br />We got to the airport in good time and headed off toward our gate, which of course requires passing through the many-layered security process that is the standard experience for air travel these days. I made it all the way to the Full Body Scanner before realizing that I’d forgotten my phone in my pocket. This meant two things: one, I had to make a mad dash to the Stuff Scanner to put my phone in my little bin, which fortunately had not yet been ingested into the scanner. And two, it meant I ended up with the full “You Should Buy Me Dinner First” pat down that they give to miscreants who forget their phones in their pockets. Fortunately the only threat I pose to airport security is that I might trip over someone, so it all went well. <br /><br />One of the things that Kim was looking forward to in the airport was the Coffee Robot, and it turned out that not only was there one right by our gate but also we were there in plenty of time to make use of it. So she and Lauren went over and were suitably entertained by our future Robot Overlord. It was pretty good coffee, from what they said.<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU6szhcChqnpTF_LZOMTXk0Ir2KecoylgKpbA342p-fg-_qAWUTMNiYKNisW5xbmA21yVH3NVMM54ISynFPpETFdePpaQL537VrYeilqYZrRUHRGLhL1eJDM37rm959LPD6UUHkRMHveZI5rDcFtAbh2CKwlxH6A2d0B8qEd_Nv8LGqZ8Aw84dEYpwBXY/s4032/IMG_0665.heic"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU6szhcChqnpTF_LZOMTXk0Ir2KecoylgKpbA342p-fg-_qAWUTMNiYKNisW5xbmA21yVH3NVMM54ISynFPpETFdePpaQL537VrYeilqYZrRUHRGLhL1eJDM37rm959LPD6UUHkRMHveZI5rDcFtAbh2CKwlxH6A2d0B8qEd_Nv8LGqZ8Aw84dEYpwBXY/s320/IMG_0665.heic" /></a><br /></div> <div><br /><br />The flight home was marvelously uneventful, and this trip was with an airline that allowed us to have carry-ons so we had some extra space for things. Finding the parking shuttle at O’Hare was a bit of a challenge but eventually we were safely in our car and hurtling up the highway, racing the snowstorm toward Wisconsin. It was still dry when we got home, and Grandpa quickly whisked Grandma off to continue the race up to their house – successfully, as it turned out. And the next morning we woke up to three inches of slush on the ground, which is how we really knew we were back in Wisconsin after all. <br /><br />Happy travels, all around. <br /><br /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03463621516644789183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5977625681756554695.post-22309701002644877352024-01-25T21:52:00.000-06:002024-01-25T21:52:26.044-06:00We Visit San Francisco: Seeing the People<div>One of the best things about traveling is visiting with other people, and we did a fair amount of that while we were out there. Some of it was just hanging out with Geoff and Dave, of course. We would have breakfast together (Dave makes a marvelous homemade granola), for example. I was usually the first one to hang out at the table – somehow I have become an early riser in my late middle age, and my parents would probably laugh themselves silly about that were they around to find out – and eventually everyone else would filter in. There were dinners as well – sometimes homemade and sometimes not. One night we got takeout from our favorite Pakistani place just around the corner, and also got takeout from a nearby sushi place. That’s the thing about being adults – if you want to get food from multiple takeout places at once nobody will stop you no matter how incompatible those cuisines are. Maybe they should but they don’t, and yet the sun rises the next morning without fail.<br /><br />Sometimes we just hung out doing whatever came to mind. It’s nice to be able to do that with people. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5pE1zvZkM9E_EXMWRC_vVaCNIpIezh_xkOpMOuFD2epy_9UoSW0TLlE6Pz9DDwe_6oMwCLUnEAS4Cu70Ddd3BQCO43m7cXcm1XrlEaxWl7rIYuH-EigV-45zf_yXXPSlNHC1CQUdPxcT_GlASedXLbu3wj7EHVs14BI15R5HG9ApBZoNzvbfXyn0SUAU/s6000/IMG_8511.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="6000" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5pE1zvZkM9E_EXMWRC_vVaCNIpIezh_xkOpMOuFD2epy_9UoSW0TLlE6Pz9DDwe_6oMwCLUnEAS4Cu70Ddd3BQCO43m7cXcm1XrlEaxWl7rIYuH-EigV-45zf_yXXPSlNHC1CQUdPxcT_GlASedXLbu3wj7EHVs14BI15R5HG9ApBZoNzvbfXyn0SUAU/s320/IMG_8511.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3B8s31wgq7DBGbpw5S6VbAF_0lG4IB6iSD5ZDJHNgX4AMTCXThr0S7uVo9e1Magawj6F7_zAtDK8UVc8EW30z59nxGsmXKaYSHJN2a8l_efGpK2XWkEJ3knAeJtS-cQ2fUjXeLhkEwz789M3E2o6ntZDvZPOmZwZ2TTFjb9FWQKVD_4q-lVFB50bqRyA/s4032/IMG_4075.HEIC" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3B8s31wgq7DBGbpw5S6VbAF_0lG4IB6iSD5ZDJHNgX4AMTCXThr0S7uVo9e1Magawj6F7_zAtDK8UVc8EW30z59nxGsmXKaYSHJN2a8l_efGpK2XWkEJ3knAeJtS-cQ2fUjXeLhkEwz789M3E2o6ntZDvZPOmZwZ2TTFjb9FWQKVD_4q-lVFB50bqRyA/s320/IMG_4075.HEIC" width="240" /></a></div><br /></div><div>There were also cats. Geoff and Dave have an elderly cat named Sniffy whom Kim helped with her veterinary skills while we were there, which Sniffy seemed to appreciate.<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiafqQtlkWBsIBLv6A8idMReJ6aYdVP3yzuAHSYYw3C6gRBQIv06NSuJEkTJo6ThnBFGa8CdLOqLq8aQUTQQrhlt1QJ931SZfm2dht7yDoDWMHVQdpdsv-ADR0NVlLZAibv-SH79cqPrxc8yR0B55GrxIhJJEl0AeXMKGDI685L9H17AHKLK79D9KveKuk/s6000/IMG_8412.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiafqQtlkWBsIBLv6A8idMReJ6aYdVP3yzuAHSYYw3C6gRBQIv06NSuJEkTJo6ThnBFGa8CdLOqLq8aQUTQQrhlt1QJ931SZfm2dht7yDoDWMHVQdpdsv-ADR0NVlLZAibv-SH79cqPrxc8yR0B55GrxIhJJEl0AeXMKGDI685L9H17AHKLK79D9KveKuk/s320/IMG_8412.JPG" /></a> <br /></div><div><br /><br />It must be said that the cats back home in Wisconsin were a bit less thrilled, however. Midgie was still adjusting to the lack of Mithra (at least we think she was – she’s kind of sweetly dim even by cat standards so it’s an open question how much this change has really occurred to her) and was at the same time confronted by David S. Pumpkin – Max’s cat, whom we were watching over semester break. DSP, as he is colloquially known, is normally a pretty friendly cat but he gets a bit stressed in unfamiliar environments that smell like other cats and the upshot of it was that one morning Oliver sent us this.<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLR6fBqC9Eq8sIme9ZBF36DCNyz_lwf2Kp-qWs8tufj_YMmhX6SOm8Q-AkE1QJ5QLLw6HdOJVf3f0sZ9gi5fWLV8E_iMWfVhhANq-qiuixtroETlA-7bd9ubJ4YM4di32SFB7oAoL_4CGWC_yqW8yj4kb8e1LXHdhZwcuVPkbBIygNi0DqwBxfBIP5Reo/s2778/IMG_0629%20copy.PNG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLR6fBqC9Eq8sIme9ZBF36DCNyz_lwf2Kp-qWs8tufj_YMmhX6SOm8Q-AkE1QJ5QLLw6HdOJVf3f0sZ9gi5fWLV8E_iMWfVhhANq-qiuixtroETlA-7bd9ubJ4YM4di32SFB7oAoL_4CGWC_yqW8yj4kb8e1LXHdhZwcuVPkbBIygNi0DqwBxfBIP5Reo/s320/IMG_0629%20copy.PNG" /></a> <br /></div><div><br /><br />Midgie was okay though slightly scratched. DSP was mostly just annoyed. Oliver managed to calm things down pretty quickly and it all went back to whatever counts as normal in our collective lives these days. It’s hard to be a kitty in a strange place, and harder still to watch over one. DSP has returned to Max now that the semester has started again, and both cats are happier for it. <br /><br />Cats aside, we also got to spend some time with good humans as well. <br /><br />We spent most of a day with my friends from college, Josh and Sarah, for example. They live not too far south of San Francisco and were willing to trek up into the city to see us, for which we were grateful! They picked us up one morning and we went down to the Embarcadero to wander around and catch up. This is the best way to visit, I think – just spending time together without any particular agenda. We walked along the waterfront for a bit and found both sculptures and crabs, which is an interesting combination when you think of it.<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilPBOI7M6D1i-14Lg7ZnL3_faz23UzzBL0OXK5nU8aJkDtxSqhrReOatwQaBKK3vX74dj7yRxQqEY0Drt5UQ7hHle6aEbldmE1SwO7YdKByHpMTiJ1-oDf4STMIzXMMZ1UE7puIsxZ0tRRCGUn71b7EEVSM-29lmIi4WltLERvyy7E-JA4bULRVqOAs2I/s6000/IMG_8469.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilPBOI7M6D1i-14Lg7ZnL3_faz23UzzBL0OXK5nU8aJkDtxSqhrReOatwQaBKK3vX74dj7yRxQqEY0Drt5UQ7hHle6aEbldmE1SwO7YdKByHpMTiJ1-oDf4STMIzXMMZ1UE7puIsxZ0tRRCGUn71b7EEVSM-29lmIi4WltLERvyy7E-JA4bULRVqOAs2I/s320/IMG_8469.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv_R64zeSvM7tVZ8MhwxdNRPIbsTlJ86ftE3_-WcBzUVunU69w8MfdzsgfbMe9-uH7HGrO3aZPaW2IuwIEv8UOkjKsJoCqVgUD7zeG3p_HNddxmubU1hKC7p7tiMqhCM5MTZxUfg5LoiDXrpGRiczvbIkblblhuU3QXhHC0Ajp7YG0KUdpPOrlw3sCEzE/s4032/IMG_5395.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv_R64zeSvM7tVZ8MhwxdNRPIbsTlJ86ftE3_-WcBzUVunU69w8MfdzsgfbMe9-uH7HGrO3aZPaW2IuwIEv8UOkjKsJoCqVgUD7zeG3p_HNddxmubU1hKC7p7tiMqhCM5MTZxUfg5LoiDXrpGRiczvbIkblblhuU3QXhHC0Ajp7YG0KUdpPOrlw3sCEzE/s320/IMG_5395.HEIC" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj98Nbv6YI4MZshnuPZIOibOwFTClOTRe2GFxG8lCdTBg5mQAapDx6imSqvpLkqqJz82T6Z2PjULXrMNeuzIBOzeYzkL1zCFtk60Ry2NjQ5dBbDrMsNJM4It8Bhx1cltqmhKNDZ7lg52cQMQFI-yH8UUAmsaj9jHZDtBwSDynVQVaterKVQmuftm9UQV-c/s6000/IMG_8462.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj98Nbv6YI4MZshnuPZIOibOwFTClOTRe2GFxG8lCdTBg5mQAapDx6imSqvpLkqqJz82T6Z2PjULXrMNeuzIBOzeYzkL1zCFtk60Ry2NjQ5dBbDrMsNJM4It8Bhx1cltqmhKNDZ7lg52cQMQFI-yH8UUAmsaj9jHZDtBwSDynVQVaterKVQmuftm9UQV-c/s320/IMG_8462.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6ACYe5tX9ksk1E3IOQOARX_ic4ys3DGZ18NX8Q2y_v6hCDc9klFv-vwSGuGQ_yRLSBwY50298UvqsZtBi0_goLlN-rY5uFDDIpRbWppHoYv9kDdks_92oJSXXClNEE1qWFU43xo9O1tI7kr3Sxi_LPigZeaEpRFVD8WGFnX4tk8pCs-nKhQ1cQ97TDkw/s6000/IMG_8466.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6ACYe5tX9ksk1E3IOQOARX_ic4ys3DGZ18NX8Q2y_v6hCDc9klFv-vwSGuGQ_yRLSBwY50298UvqsZtBi0_goLlN-rY5uFDDIpRbWppHoYv9kDdks_92oJSXXClNEE1qWFU43xo9O1tI7kr3Sxi_LPigZeaEpRFVD8WGFnX4tk8pCs-nKhQ1cQ97TDkw/s320/IMG_8466.JPG" /></a> <br /></div><div><br /> </div><div>And then we found Red’s Java House. If you are looking for a place to sit by the water and enjoy a reasonably priced and tasty beverage with friends, look no further, dear reader! Also, they have great signage.<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb1ryxaXZZ2eXStLnZquj2oa4S_bbHLfd7oMwgR-n7-d7SF-vPc6VYOgYSfhZ48CO65m8BGTxrmVXWy66fLVFq3fKfXWKnxjmwl9RrNR80aK_MspGtowPRQPxJqbgLZBF2DZRYcT8qp4ry5soWWO3g1EA2eD1pHlsCndIS1WuCwrxWDq7c1UuG7nKoA0k/s6000/IMG_8477.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb1ryxaXZZ2eXStLnZquj2oa4S_bbHLfd7oMwgR-n7-d7SF-vPc6VYOgYSfhZ48CO65m8BGTxrmVXWy66fLVFq3fKfXWKnxjmwl9RrNR80aK_MspGtowPRQPxJqbgLZBF2DZRYcT8qp4ry5soWWO3g1EA2eD1pHlsCndIS1WuCwrxWDq7c1UuG7nKoA0k/s320/IMG_8477.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXthTRc40u5BUzHA7wHz2WrBfxNXwvoAJIHlBAu-Yh2dXbvUvCOUyc74qI0sP5-Nv-AlWhq-6Tu3xnKKoyyAf4M27c8iskMr4SOslT9NXaCYlaYf508dNvr0-8onXlOJ7BIsHt9Es3wD_OkM3Sk1URcxungluN0bYv9UaSAnbvan-wGRrOuqaMnXCDBpA/s6000/IMG_8474.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXthTRc40u5BUzHA7wHz2WrBfxNXwvoAJIHlBAu-Yh2dXbvUvCOUyc74qI0sP5-Nv-AlWhq-6Tu3xnKKoyyAf4M27c8iskMr4SOslT9NXaCYlaYf508dNvr0-8onXlOJ7BIsHt9Es3wD_OkM3Sk1URcxungluN0bYv9UaSAnbvan-wGRrOuqaMnXCDBpA/s320/IMG_8474.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjG-kAnZgnQ2y8JUdn4bxKpqN9jteTnBuSowInnabE4EHwIvivVFysJfFO5_7izJHsIqN9alW96vS9h8PEF22Aey60Ef6nrXW2wekvOcJ_g89_cqRA2dwaa5IhuIlkgVA34-oBGo_2OqQperxU65OV-xRJ4PaLe4qF3k4Ogsdbrbvz0972IUrw2QSchXQ/s6000/IMG_8475.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjG-kAnZgnQ2y8JUdn4bxKpqN9jteTnBuSowInnabE4EHwIvivVFysJfFO5_7izJHsIqN9alW96vS9h8PEF22Aey60Ef6nrXW2wekvOcJ_g89_cqRA2dwaa5IhuIlkgVA34-oBGo_2OqQperxU65OV-xRJ4PaLe4qF3k4Ogsdbrbvz0972IUrw2QSchXQ/s320/IMG_8475.JPG" /></a> <br /></div><div><br /> </div><div>We wandered around the Ferry Building, which is now more of an artisanal mall than a working transportation hub, and then we went inland a bit to a nearby restaurant for dim sum. It was one of those places where you sit down and the servers wander by pushing carts full of food and you just sort of point at things even if you don’t really know what they are and they hand them to you and add them to your total and you end up sharing them all around because that’s kind of the point of it all. It was remarkably tasty, and there is nothing better than good food in good company. <br /><br />Our final stop with Josh and Sarah was the Botanical Gardens, which is full of Nature in various forms, not all of it botanical.<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNfmttIAL_76HgBBkwzN0c6dXz13duAj54ugoRbPm8ndbrGu3X0K9caXp2FpY8C4fGR7iiUWECwi7W9EDmVKf1Ijg9-1yYKRqheyBPZPfYiRopYzUReARDEk6QrUKaaKZTGw1r7z_64AG_Biyn9wA5zYwyp0B-XEFSkS_u1s3aELw5MsTEYJFWojpdkCI/s6000/IMG_8484.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNfmttIAL_76HgBBkwzN0c6dXz13duAj54ugoRbPm8ndbrGu3X0K9caXp2FpY8C4fGR7iiUWECwi7W9EDmVKf1Ijg9-1yYKRqheyBPZPfYiRopYzUReARDEk6QrUKaaKZTGw1r7z_64AG_Biyn9wA5zYwyp0B-XEFSkS_u1s3aELw5MsTEYJFWojpdkCI/s320/IMG_8484.JPG" /></a> <br /></div><div><br /><br />We spent a while wandering through the various sections of the place, which are organized by habitat and well signed so you know you’re looking at a specific sort of plant rather than just some random greenery (a necessary feature for me, whose ability to discern different forms of plant life is limited to “Is that a tree or not?” and even then there are blurred edges) and we hung out on benches occasionally, chatting about <i>The Great British Bake Off</i> and B. Dylan Hollis. <br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUJEd8VwjLwDRBBHtNs2ldCVQrtrXjEcY3x89PTIYTJ4q7KD40hs2FP0U5JXblXvUu8tBpbZiabcUXgycn8GPjMC6U-GrtNGwxBfscOdfO2N8HbouA_K3238u5d2BnSScq8IyfpVRhNIOXvtoZV5JVLIaI_LHR6W7sJl_bSFvdHIBjfIzjeQotVfs_x6I/s4032/IMG_0635.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUJEd8VwjLwDRBBHtNs2ldCVQrtrXjEcY3x89PTIYTJ4q7KD40hs2FP0U5JXblXvUu8tBpbZiabcUXgycn8GPjMC6U-GrtNGwxBfscOdfO2N8HbouA_K3238u5d2BnSScq8IyfpVRhNIOXvtoZV5JVLIaI_LHR6W7sJl_bSFvdHIBjfIzjeQotVfs_x6I/s320/IMG_0635.HEIC" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaQgRekyPNQrma7awxp9nNRw0hbhlD8GUVEGEfIl1-GVuk2ZW8dNOHNbIagM_1waFK5NMyGU6kkWU6E3IuGsXFK5qtsbLEaND4qaMJjL3a4KvVfWO2zD72tBQ8OXeu8j373kpS-NBkeuz8vtkFBrxJr7BtFh74NVSo3Hh8PCUs1VfXdXCVFBq7xfK0lX0/s4032/IMG_5400.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaQgRekyPNQrma7awxp9nNRw0hbhlD8GUVEGEfIl1-GVuk2ZW8dNOHNbIagM_1waFK5NMyGU6kkWU6E3IuGsXFK5qtsbLEaND4qaMJjL3a4KvVfWO2zD72tBQ8OXeu8j373kpS-NBkeuz8vtkFBrxJr7BtFh74NVSo3Hh8PCUs1VfXdXCVFBq7xfK0lX0/s320/IMG_5400.JPG" /></a> <br /></div><div><br /><br />The other big social event of our trip came a few days later when Geoff and Dave hosted a Cheese Party For the Cheeseheads at their house. We spent the previous day and much of that morning preparing for things – making cupcakes and arranging all of the various cheeses, some of which we brought with us from Wisconsin, gathering ice from a nearby store, and so on. It was a lightly rainy day so we didn’t get to spend as much time as we wanted out on the back porches, but you could still go out if you wanted to and enjoy the view.<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtSA6LsPJ7YKmd9HZosB0pKKtJkDQHyL9uS_B2HjxpTcSkq2lLvdrnmj-IQB8dZ1mGXyYNea2QrDDQl8QimHqzy8OFRmOs63UL5fFwFlBZxg0HGfrdzR67UQPHQg3NYaF16otQoh_JfzYmTo7QDQwc3KZThGQGGHpS6nKFOVMAHq7yYe1Qh48bSQSdQR0/s6000/IMG_8518.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtSA6LsPJ7YKmd9HZosB0pKKtJkDQHyL9uS_B2HjxpTcSkq2lLvdrnmj-IQB8dZ1mGXyYNea2QrDDQl8QimHqzy8OFRmOs63UL5fFwFlBZxg0HGfrdzR67UQPHQg3NYaF16otQoh_JfzYmTo7QDQwc3KZThGQGGHpS6nKFOVMAHq7yYe1Qh48bSQSdQR0/s320/IMG_8518.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVVAnhGVrExZFnRwOKmCO_Jz193YitceZtJIr0ezIo9wXMHpzRrEx3e9JHoTyZB0IcmNIvCvc4OyQvwa0DE1ic5uR9PNouqIv7EIEqcJQPoUtj8ag-0cXD8-ZxPaQHtmdnFbgRA6aXEgsoxuky-VzEnzGVN4qEsRqqXW-PCXdw18YyLPo2UJV3ZKPzC2I/s4032/IMG_1638-1.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVVAnhGVrExZFnRwOKmCO_Jz193YitceZtJIr0ezIo9wXMHpzRrEx3e9JHoTyZB0IcmNIvCvc4OyQvwa0DE1ic5uR9PNouqIv7EIEqcJQPoUtj8ag-0cXD8-ZxPaQHtmdnFbgRA6aXEgsoxuky-VzEnzGVN4qEsRqqXW-PCXdw18YyLPo2UJV3ZKPzC2I/s320/IMG_1638-1.HEIC" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2NLswngSt7lMjLTvH_AonpFG-8bzF7fUpkisTAP9Yfb4taljHofCzmstalDrnXwF6xFIA2y4qzS-mVC3YcJaFRGcsOpyaGW7kPj5zq6rIx-0FCq44WTK8ErjnicCTdpO6rMa0EqVma-nH3qD6oWHWDGnACaS1vPd3pdSuHwu7633ocbKIasxockofZo8/s6000/IMG_8512.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2NLswngSt7lMjLTvH_AonpFG-8bzF7fUpkisTAP9Yfb4taljHofCzmstalDrnXwF6xFIA2y4qzS-mVC3YcJaFRGcsOpyaGW7kPj5zq6rIx-0FCq44WTK8ErjnicCTdpO6rMa0EqVma-nH3qD6oWHWDGnACaS1vPd3pdSuHwu7633ocbKIasxockofZo8/s320/IMG_8512.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXmA4n3KukUwBq9XEmWNT0vf-Rfeg_rwLfNtUR6CPMI9jSNgWtLCoCgxzJ3agNHNzrTVQlMtzVZYbEK95AVCS0FGJmKLaDxQaZ0YLtIetAGC6DJoZ4ea9CKwfxlUAFcfnmXAhSLpxXo-h3BMgTuZmvptRYZ4wYDldJTYTIlyWfu1SFsIG_kAgL-TXNiCI/s6000/IMG_8514.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXmA4n3KukUwBq9XEmWNT0vf-Rfeg_rwLfNtUR6CPMI9jSNgWtLCoCgxzJ3agNHNzrTVQlMtzVZYbEK95AVCS0FGJmKLaDxQaZ0YLtIetAGC6DJoZ4ea9CKwfxlUAFcfnmXAhSLpxXo-h3BMgTuZmvptRYZ4wYDldJTYTIlyWfu1SFsIG_kAgL-TXNiCI/s320/IMG_8514.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwJrDbieQjChfaCCZy8PiuU2K2b6Y5N_iJOnU3UyjA8jwadkZTQC8xy6ADSN2wc62x8l0dFxifFufpg0MbhXYI24BRN-QvuOTKZSGnLnDoYs32GkEFL_llsjSmNuPvl8jLt1enab_mHIE4Bn0qzrrqISfPMR9kftVBn93VAykBF71dEcRbe7O6d9mx5r8/s6000/IMG_8527.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwJrDbieQjChfaCCZy8PiuU2K2b6Y5N_iJOnU3UyjA8jwadkZTQC8xy6ADSN2wc62x8l0dFxifFufpg0MbhXYI24BRN-QvuOTKZSGnLnDoYs32GkEFL_llsjSmNuPvl8jLt1enab_mHIE4Bn0qzrrqISfPMR9kftVBn93VAykBF71dEcRbe7O6d9mx5r8/s320/IMG_8527.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE-um_w-61n6erou8n5o-Z1HxqJii08QZgqMTPLqXmlLmHFqIGfXx4bSrWHyNp7j9yZ_DK0ZnqLq8DocltxfMtlg9XqYb8V7D9AB-wlrQnoblYSTaB1oqUp7PFOKOn7qEWm_2Ak4jupljnpwqerKoSldDAo5mKlW1W51Aan69i8NPWof6nJnw3csf0THk/s4032/IMG_1646.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE-um_w-61n6erou8n5o-Z1HxqJii08QZgqMTPLqXmlLmHFqIGfXx4bSrWHyNp7j9yZ_DK0ZnqLq8DocltxfMtlg9XqYb8V7D9AB-wlrQnoblYSTaB1oqUp7PFOKOn7qEWm_2Ak4jupljnpwqerKoSldDAo5mKlW1W51Aan69i8NPWof6nJnw3csf0THk/s320/IMG_1646.HEIC" /></a> <br /></div><div><br /><br />Of course, the star of the party was the food. Geoff converted an entire dining room table into a vast charcuterie board, and I learned that the secret to this is to cover the table with plastic wrap beforehand so you can just lift it up and everything’s clean when it’s over. Genius! It was quite a spread of cheese, sausage, chocolates, and cupcakes.<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzQoAZIaETvIFHuYb05ytkRWuO6jT_XdtcuPnzbfEZiSVIC5enOm7vFwQkarKepoCOc-Ig4auGNoq5mjnpwNOsu6-2O5QKM9xq61cmliVfxJ1p0GlLzZphyIxQKCRtihct4yl87_8xxPOh2DgEJC30Yad1uWjFuyY3U7uY52gx6E0tGmHBXfkEk1Oa5U0/s6000/IMG_8525.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzQoAZIaETvIFHuYb05ytkRWuO6jT_XdtcuPnzbfEZiSVIC5enOm7vFwQkarKepoCOc-Ig4auGNoq5mjnpwNOsu6-2O5QKM9xq61cmliVfxJ1p0GlLzZphyIxQKCRtihct4yl87_8xxPOh2DgEJC30Yad1uWjFuyY3U7uY52gx6E0tGmHBXfkEk1Oa5U0/s320/IMG_8525.JPG" /></a> <br /></div><div><br /><br />It was a good-sized crowd in the end. Josh and Sarah came by again, which was lovely. We hung out with Geoff and Dave’s friend Cracker, whom we’d met years ago and had hoped to see again. And there were a pile of other friends whom we didn’t know before but now we do and you can’t ask for more than that really – I think the person I spoke with most was named Angelo, and we enjoyed discussing genealogy and related points over our cheeses. Good food in good company, once again the theme of events. It gets no better than that.<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAL82z3Wh8lnc-V8u5epcMlnF9XgBOd2mJ1JsHq-8BXUGhWdXCWOnf-P6uh1xZ2_5aesRO-Kt4b3QjXxevvFOSslhL2c9V8TaHPYzaQsv6UvRr3G8PaI7YEqwIKXAt8YQH6yAfEazjtNr7ZE75iIetu6eWCSyycON3iaRbbv2lAsZjTnWsOtav4SwfvqM/s4032/IMG_1652.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAL82z3Wh8lnc-V8u5epcMlnF9XgBOd2mJ1JsHq-8BXUGhWdXCWOnf-P6uh1xZ2_5aesRO-Kt4b3QjXxevvFOSslhL2c9V8TaHPYzaQsv6UvRr3G8PaI7YEqwIKXAt8YQH6yAfEazjtNr7ZE75iIetu6eWCSyycON3iaRbbv2lAsZjTnWsOtav4SwfvqM/s320/IMG_1652.HEIC" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRHjZpiu4IRzBW8gLI8YEwlyVBPMPclf2zwjFrO3ifaK1SCYSmW0ZRMI6XmGk38TSwWekWzcJQ8ACUehICBbiUFVkJ20z7GOB-b2KeinoGMBzzQ50uxriPALjMY052DbXbKFTEBbI9kMmlnqFQVO8knKnbpIvCxJT1GPSRXMNEtjrCSsaa9KOTCxXeCbg/s4032/IMG_1653.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRHjZpiu4IRzBW8gLI8YEwlyVBPMPclf2zwjFrO3ifaK1SCYSmW0ZRMI6XmGk38TSwWekWzcJQ8ACUehICBbiUFVkJ20z7GOB-b2KeinoGMBzzQ50uxriPALjMY052DbXbKFTEBbI9kMmlnqFQVO8knKnbpIvCxJT1GPSRXMNEtjrCSsaa9KOTCxXeCbg/s320/IMG_1653.HEIC" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaVBZ5EjoKM4DUz7rzYxJMCCpXvsa_dor1PHoCWCgXhRvoS3FlHFXVEtKxEBj4KngRQTBUp16yI7571xy97ZnYlR68WmrTAQK7SVPKdKeFubWq55UHIc3-C2MovZhHIFZG6_xqRSTIplwfg_gfMI7qBBVsiLo8tLyQ1FvkU7hnQHsvqyBvWENZ1OjEvYo/s4032/IMG_1654-1.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaVBZ5EjoKM4DUz7rzYxJMCCpXvsa_dor1PHoCWCgXhRvoS3FlHFXVEtKxEBj4KngRQTBUp16yI7571xy97ZnYlR68WmrTAQK7SVPKdKeFubWq55UHIc3-C2MovZhHIFZG6_xqRSTIplwfg_gfMI7qBBVsiLo8tLyQ1FvkU7hnQHsvqyBvWENZ1OjEvYo/s320/IMG_1654-1.HEIC" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsHzwhn4hUPl-KlBYBtb1kIgoNdbGwcj6EaKFwjZMqts38N5m-qR3GdgTa2eK-YAyjd4SGtsmyrKHNd2vSV9WyaER5LNkNfX64iQzrEhZ65JWAGbrVDM73u3DHUdBeOTy-w92TMWYHTfVW4ZUnSFHfXDrS7b9p9-bKRXaORDA6JtKa-Glc2KWho4HirO4/s4032/IMG_1658.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsHzwhn4hUPl-KlBYBtb1kIgoNdbGwcj6EaKFwjZMqts38N5m-qR3GdgTa2eK-YAyjd4SGtsmyrKHNd2vSV9WyaER5LNkNfX64iQzrEhZ65JWAGbrVDM73u3DHUdBeOTy-w92TMWYHTfVW4ZUnSFHfXDrS7b9p9-bKRXaORDA6JtKa-Glc2KWho4HirO4/s320/IMG_1658.HEIC" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxPto-YAiCzRZlvhF4EAxjGCH9DNM9QSDVJjGzfLFa3gd4GFd6VITFwoHu1ErkKUTgJ5TFZ6jlkr9ozx8AVPYsiv81tBYx3ZGQSnuPl_3OLKz-7kcvwJM_kmpf37LHnxBbVujmIQF4LgtxVQ-AnfQe2eVYUL27O93nEer4bSr0SuURZ8qFadY0HD-lbzw/s4032/IMG_1662.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxPto-YAiCzRZlvhF4EAxjGCH9DNM9QSDVJjGzfLFa3gd4GFd6VITFwoHu1ErkKUTgJ5TFZ6jlkr9ozx8AVPYsiv81tBYx3ZGQSnuPl_3OLKz-7kcvwJM_kmpf37LHnxBbVujmIQF4LgtxVQ-AnfQe2eVYUL27O93nEer4bSr0SuURZ8qFadY0HD-lbzw/s320/IMG_1662.HEIC" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiksx504fBPRKKU9W7VawMUuleewBHQtpNqGh_kv9Q0nJZbVYs94Z4KAu95aXR_h_jbxqD7m-miBWYo9WW35UV7b-DdDlLjfyutLm3f9u_nW1PoDeDmR0xYjhEZ6qh8EK0e5fthlVIMnlyQeze1057GC1ZWQaMBPWWx0eDLyHLMiXIMyW4VBKnzh1FwOg/s4032/IMG_1663.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiksx504fBPRKKU9W7VawMUuleewBHQtpNqGh_kv9Q0nJZbVYs94Z4KAu95aXR_h_jbxqD7m-miBWYo9WW35UV7b-DdDlLjfyutLm3f9u_nW1PoDeDmR0xYjhEZ6qh8EK0e5fthlVIMnlyQeze1057GC1ZWQaMBPWWx0eDLyHLMiXIMyW4VBKnzh1FwOg/s320/IMG_1663.HEIC" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidXEOxAWkhF9hYDVPQLccb0eic_3TuJAgRgnGaDX97PFPn86fztsLYkpteyplC-ChEVtuiaS2g4cdNmB37U0_c0tNLHbrn5U4DXvI1qa2yuU7nC3jRR-kao8J8tGKQEzPtYNnmvfMLISBdDDWs334upMgiEcd1p-YvwS4ug_tIiqqsBTBL4aunEba5Xgg/s6000/IMG_8523.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidXEOxAWkhF9hYDVPQLccb0eic_3TuJAgRgnGaDX97PFPn86fztsLYkpteyplC-ChEVtuiaS2g4cdNmB37U0_c0tNLHbrn5U4DXvI1qa2yuU7nC3jRR-kao8J8tGKQEzPtYNnmvfMLISBdDDWs334upMgiEcd1p-YvwS4ug_tIiqqsBTBL4aunEba5Xgg/s320/IMG_8523.JPG" /></a><br /></div> <div><br /><br />There was no particular dinner that day. We just spent the day grazing on cheese and sausage, thus bringing a sense of Wisconsin to the West Coast. Works for me. <br /><br /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03463621516644789183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5977625681756554695.post-65516884512991470962024-01-23T21:43:00.002-06:002024-01-23T22:36:55.337-06:00We Visit San Francisco: Seeing the Town<div>We took one more trip over our semester break, which seems like a very long time ago now, mostly because the world is in such a constant state of crisis that it’s hard to keep track anymore except that when you actually look at a calendar you realize that it was more than recent and this makes you question your grip on events, or at least it does for me. Your mileage may vary. But the bottom line is that not long after we came back from visiting family in Tennessee we left to visit family in San Francisco. <br /><br />It's good to have people to visit. <br /><br />Kim’s brother Geoff and his husband Dave have lived in San Francisco for a while now and it had been far too long since we were last out there. Kim, Oliver, Lauren and Fran were there in 2018, but I hadn’t visited since 2014. So we decided that yes we’ve been doing a lot of traveling of late but one more trip wouldn’t be too excessive (or if it were that wouldn’t be so bad) and off we went <br /><br />In fairness, it must be said that Oliver thought it would be excessive and since he and Dustin had gotten back from the UK maybe 72 hours before we left for Tennessee he did have a point, so he stayed home and took care of the bunnies and our remaining cat. We ended up taking Kim’s mom with us instead, and it worked out just fine for everyone.<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKs9KjxdrgYOI4ZLUEekf5YaNvjeGgY3HeGxT6yhdMRwa3hIw1jCrIWAQmTRAaQ9MJqB8qTZycklgXPmuYlmh4869yLWa0rY5x4iNxURKBbbREDvRxM6S1AMzx7sS_Bg1hsN5cyohKVTVLVWfcVVrW9DY1Ypndz3vIsfto5XpxQvkVUbAAmd_f49W3f7Y/s4032/IMG_0595%203.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKs9KjxdrgYOI4ZLUEekf5YaNvjeGgY3HeGxT6yhdMRwa3hIw1jCrIWAQmTRAaQ9MJqB8qTZycklgXPmuYlmh4869yLWa0rY5x4iNxURKBbbREDvRxM6S1AMzx7sS_Bg1hsN5cyohKVTVLVWfcVVrW9DY1Ypndz3vIsfto5XpxQvkVUbAAmd_f49W3f7Y/s320/IMG_0595%203.HEIC" /></a><br /></div><div><br /><br />We had a grand time. <br /><br />We flew out of Chicago on an airline that somehow made it cheaper to have checked luggage than carry-ons, which is a nifty bit of accounting when you get down to it. They also wanted to charge us to pick our seats. We’re all adults, though, so we didn’t feel any great need to make sure we would be in specific locations so we left it to the luck of the draw. I ended up sitting in the middle seat between a couple of people who did their best to pretend I wasn’t there, as is proper on airplanes, and I read my book and tried to keep to my assigned space. This gets harder to do every time I get on an airplane as my assigned space keeps getting narrower even as I get wider, but so it goes. <br /><br />Dave picked us up at the airport and we headed back to their house in the Mission District. The Mission is about as San Francisco as it gets while still mostly speaking English. Not entirely, as that would be rather drab and unrepresentative, but mostly. We hung out at their house for a while and then he took me and Lauren to a pharmacy to pick up a prescription that we’d had transferred for the duration of the trip since we had forgotten the actual meds at home. <br /><br />Pharmacies are pharmacies the world over and nothing happens quickly when you’re in any of them so eventually Dave drove back home while Lauren and I occupied ourselves by exploring the bodega across the street and the drink stand on the opposite corner. By the time we got the meds it had mostly stopped raining and we walked back to the house, taking in the city as we went. <br /><br />San Francisco is a great city to do that. There’s a lot there. It is a cacophony of languages and little shops, flooded with people and interesting things to see. It has an odd reputation these days but it remains a place I enjoy, especially when you have people to share it with. <br /><br />We did a lot while we were there. <br /><br />For example, Kim, Lauren, Grandma, Dave and I went to Chinatown because you have to go to Chinatown when you’re in San Francisco. It’s the law. These days it’s a lot easier to get to than it used to be because there’s a brand new subway station right there, and it really is lovely if you like that sort of thing. You should always use public transportation in cities since that’s how you get to know a place. Being isolated in an Uber Bubble doesn’t teach you anything.<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-bXjlQICcRNxHeZ3ZqZo6dh3nG4GIMCwnVknU67NYe6Vr43EnhyphenhyphenWtCVMhWsVkyhNzO76rzMMrGQ2ddUwVsyxuS9MINfwnpOA4gaBhW3NqqfCEcW3G8MtVx1z49XsOV7l87qF80vuff699Lgeb1A0IVvGo4c-KQsZgvaihc1TZO5RUSJqIW3bAgT3T7ac/s6000/IMG_8419.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-bXjlQICcRNxHeZ3ZqZo6dh3nG4GIMCwnVknU67NYe6Vr43EnhyphenhyphenWtCVMhWsVkyhNzO76rzMMrGQ2ddUwVsyxuS9MINfwnpOA4gaBhW3NqqfCEcW3G8MtVx1z49XsOV7l87qF80vuff699Lgeb1A0IVvGo4c-KQsZgvaihc1TZO5RUSJqIW3bAgT3T7ac/s320/IMG_8419.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL2JdMuEnRv5mZL5-cs1hF5mRbivNOOd8l0Ab1ARFxpudgCNDsiXlK7HBX-tUCnjbqPAmdCgWHrWQ3sb1HdEjpjsaVR22lExZUk6fxPRqio65klhPs_XaMZFH2ZWN8vbU70M7UcZif0HqTnPYmFhO7NP2cKKo98Hj0Sc2T47KruSTtqDcuLHsNbPIXv-s/s6000/IMG_8422.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL2JdMuEnRv5mZL5-cs1hF5mRbivNOOd8l0Ab1ARFxpudgCNDsiXlK7HBX-tUCnjbqPAmdCgWHrWQ3sb1HdEjpjsaVR22lExZUk6fxPRqio65klhPs_XaMZFH2ZWN8vbU70M7UcZif0HqTnPYmFhO7NP2cKKo98Hj0Sc2T47KruSTtqDcuLHsNbPIXv-s/s320/IMG_8422.JPG" /></a> <br /></div><div><br /><br />Chinatown is a riot of colors and foods and sounds, and like most of San Francisco it sits on a 45 degree angle. San Francisco is a triumph of urban planning over geography, and I’m not sure who it was who decided to put a grid system of streets on top of that much vertical topography but I would like some of whatever they were drinking at the time just to see the new wavelengths of light that apparently become visible when you do that. We walked around the area for quite a while, taking it all in and making random stops at all sorts of establishments, though in the end we opted not to wait to see the fortune cookies being made at the factory because there was too long of a line and we know what they look like in the end. <br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsGxsXeGS6lxyrdALmeJzcsttJHyamQqWaYpVNdlfl3cdketKCTMwNewpRHgOFtr-QXggFUAqF1uys5n6YoElcgwiEmr-QzuwYy-bKrpRDy6Hy-PLCoY0b4usmxQbcZ5tfoHGLk_DYULu_UX2m7jQQ966v0ufuuUlVbWSImanCc6hGXPlvBnzZNFvucTk/s6000/IMG_8430.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsGxsXeGS6lxyrdALmeJzcsttJHyamQqWaYpVNdlfl3cdketKCTMwNewpRHgOFtr-QXggFUAqF1uys5n6YoElcgwiEmr-QzuwYy-bKrpRDy6Hy-PLCoY0b4usmxQbcZ5tfoHGLk_DYULu_UX2m7jQQ966v0ufuuUlVbWSImanCc6hGXPlvBnzZNFvucTk/s320/IMG_8430.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu5U7fkVV4QDdER4ntPa1kY2Vl7wEa5qrANJ91g-HJdJnJkZf3Lo8uydb3AhWwhR8veJ-I28KhNvndzDr9EKNV3ZQOtufgIDnMrPGrsiOUrtt3dvb_vOIPtQpGZWYv3iCyfjcrjOS6EXuQH9o6a6Y8-G-cU4AbokwrISGrB6ns1x9iMAVIXd0P3OzINEY/s6000/IMG_8434.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu5U7fkVV4QDdER4ntPa1kY2Vl7wEa5qrANJ91g-HJdJnJkZf3Lo8uydb3AhWwhR8veJ-I28KhNvndzDr9EKNV3ZQOtufgIDnMrPGrsiOUrtt3dvb_vOIPtQpGZWYv3iCyfjcrjOS6EXuQH9o6a6Y8-G-cU4AbokwrISGrB6ns1x9iMAVIXd0P3OzINEY/s320/IMG_8434.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTIiwk1TpgZP8XDGM6H9JkiuPNFruw_1lEMNVx_m5BBTV1U364La4SCgf0Cx1mr9BOkpNi7o_6ypCvWjFVOiG_7Ibfr_2LV2MiLS7F_gYDIKPBY9tuDzHFGO5RZ9BQENmOauVJFHdNxjH4UZ4THDHreq-qku8ls3oAyvnJv8bDNL0oKuxbhwv8SV_-Eto/s4032/IMG_0611%202.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTIiwk1TpgZP8XDGM6H9JkiuPNFruw_1lEMNVx_m5BBTV1U364La4SCgf0Cx1mr9BOkpNi7o_6ypCvWjFVOiG_7Ibfr_2LV2MiLS7F_gYDIKPBY9tuDzHFGO5RZ9BQENmOauVJFHdNxjH4UZ4THDHreq-qku8ls3oAyvnJv8bDNL0oKuxbhwv8SV_-Eto/s320/IMG_0611%202.HEIC" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlo0fV05JRjdbxZwtQItAFHCJXiYKYSJtJ0fHFB8uA1819gWvnY_SuGTk3IZxO-MTWNXJFEehjricogro8BkyPakycyWHcmNYYrE3XibyUfF7uTJ2p3l2p0Kj8ZErqRqC4A3UGFU3r0JMIFLee9EZh3uCcHI0vObu4LUZ9K_urwqFeh9pO8oSrUg4Rrf4/s6000/IMG_8442.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlo0fV05JRjdbxZwtQItAFHCJXiYKYSJtJ0fHFB8uA1819gWvnY_SuGTk3IZxO-MTWNXJFEehjricogro8BkyPakycyWHcmNYYrE3XibyUfF7uTJ2p3l2p0Kj8ZErqRqC4A3UGFU3r0JMIFLee9EZh3uCcHI0vObu4LUZ9K_urwqFeh9pO8oSrUg4Rrf4/s320/IMG_8442.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNcMenQG6uh8hZq4WNOmYr3imBVk5a4VIy9CTGZTL348HevFRz-e_nzWkOAhlDzDGWd1hV0hN8-AxXeEza5C5tQBbZ7iSBLpXH1KyI11EijlIEiQDoIyU2ID4iYYPWitiCKfhuRFGNsQqo-y01CJjrsgPNFixKsYLmM4tQm8IYP8rqMLJwvO6FW2El1Oc/s6000/IMG_8444.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNcMenQG6uh8hZq4WNOmYr3imBVk5a4VIy9CTGZTL348HevFRz-e_nzWkOAhlDzDGWd1hV0hN8-AxXeEza5C5tQBbZ7iSBLpXH1KyI11EijlIEiQDoIyU2ID4iYYPWitiCKfhuRFGNsQqo-y01CJjrsgPNFixKsYLmM4tQm8IYP8rqMLJwvO6FW2El1Oc/s320/IMG_8444.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2Y3UKIA26bSGMw5jzGQc3LEhXYDN0reOZ0LNgSNcTAByWsqhWCvTQsSxX_zKzKZNGHzaPBWqwjM_RHaKWnL8EMbHYk-1Sb2wXcQjzrwE3JV0hyNlblx0DJWJ8HtzVs4CR2qjhaILkDjYRvRWgXpVSJSV4G2o2oW15J8sxYLCwRgFd2nDjpbQaqJuU-g8/s6000/IMG_8445.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2Y3UKIA26bSGMw5jzGQc3LEhXYDN0reOZ0LNgSNcTAByWsqhWCvTQsSxX_zKzKZNGHzaPBWqwjM_RHaKWnL8EMbHYk-1Sb2wXcQjzrwE3JV0hyNlblx0DJWJ8HtzVs4CR2qjhaILkDjYRvRWgXpVSJSV4G2o2oW15J8sxYLCwRgFd2nDjpbQaqJuU-g8/s320/IMG_8445.JPG" /></a> <br /></div><div><br /><br />Eventually you get hungry, though, and if you are in Chinatown you are very much in luck for that sort of thing as you are surrounded by amazing food just there for the sampling. Lauren did a bit of searching for a dim sum restaurant and chose one that looked promising – a little storefront place that had a good selection of foods and a server who actually laughed when I asked for a fork. What can I say? I’d probably starve if I had to use chopsticks as more than just decoration, and that would be bad PR for the place. They did provide a fork eventually. I guess they’re used to people like me. It was really good food.<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbZ0eBpswl5_XQpzyF920Ng6X9Ngt2VDRec3A3a24I9StVA_wwyJ4VSVfZOBfeIV6XfaQL0k3Rs6NrfrL4zn8rXgpYDUVgNHekk2P1P9TgOc34rkSiYTh_ZVH10Rs9YQaT-7F1YgCUm3ozmxTqxWhdlgPOWJMFyrMngQ4TXuMxxdygWvQmsRGXPgRRs3w/s6000/IMG_8447.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbZ0eBpswl5_XQpzyF920Ng6X9Ngt2VDRec3A3a24I9StVA_wwyJ4VSVfZOBfeIV6XfaQL0k3Rs6NrfrL4zn8rXgpYDUVgNHekk2P1P9TgOc34rkSiYTh_ZVH10Rs9YQaT-7F1YgCUm3ozmxTqxWhdlgPOWJMFyrMngQ4TXuMxxdygWvQmsRGXPgRRs3w/s320/IMG_8447.JPG" /></a> <br /></div><div><br /><br />Just around the corner from Chinatown is City Lights Bookstore, and no visit to San Francisco is complete without a trip there. It was the center of the Beat Movement in the 1950s and the entire upper floor is still devoted to poetry, with Alan Ginsberg’s works prominently displayed. I tended to stay on the ground floor and the basement, where the fiction and non-fiction sections were, and in the end we came away with a respectable stash of things to carry halfway across the country in our baggage. As one does.<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGw_7zdbOnwlPEBplCWIHqhbsU7EZuW8XPxr_0T0UmFXGVhdSvVeU56TtMQ7jhCrDScCHQh8Ho8_uDajxW7h5J7E0JqWj-UyjWophzJS94DRT645hKt2lSqTtng-bAjQwAy3zidP4jUPfeXjzAFXKAZhhhtedm8jodjEtHhpiIWQJFNsVBRwlLaTqyXlo/s4032/IMG_0616%202.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGw_7zdbOnwlPEBplCWIHqhbsU7EZuW8XPxr_0T0UmFXGVhdSvVeU56TtMQ7jhCrDScCHQh8Ho8_uDajxW7h5J7E0JqWj-UyjWophzJS94DRT645hKt2lSqTtng-bAjQwAy3zidP4jUPfeXjzAFXKAZhhhtedm8jodjEtHhpiIWQJFNsVBRwlLaTqyXlo/s320/IMG_0616%202.HEIC" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7j3GBuWpGEOAZ8us8NfHYaBIScGMGBKpRsnJ90qxmDuGJOVV7Y4zngWomY1hpb-aZ-hsl9qjmD8Oi8ebKDatNd4teiZczxN-IfbyFlWJsqM2MCCl1UW3pvgMU2cgNNwf1DulJWn6rYs8yxOAP2wYMQcKlops5F7G_nA9Tb1eb2PAztXQ6WFQjZ9t0M88/s4032/IMG_0618.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7j3GBuWpGEOAZ8us8NfHYaBIScGMGBKpRsnJ90qxmDuGJOVV7Y4zngWomY1hpb-aZ-hsl9qjmD8Oi8ebKDatNd4teiZczxN-IfbyFlWJsqM2MCCl1UW3pvgMU2cgNNwf1DulJWn6rYs8yxOAP2wYMQcKlops5F7G_nA9Tb1eb2PAztXQ6WFQjZ9t0M88/s320/IMG_0618.HEIC" /></a> <br /></div><div><br /><br />Outside the store there is an entire alley dedicated to the arts, though not all of them are as high-minded as you’d think.<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNpbtYRAX4NsPRIp_bRoG4wU6oM_w-bv1gr7h5hxuz-RpFnsNXoatQdvYpXL3JcwBw4x5Yihp4jMWBPFyt_dc42Mc4m_nKYP4jX-bKIl8ZfneJSRJvdiFB8A5hLOLy0IfXCh3xhYcxWAhnYaIccpOLQTycQVZ3xFp-S_WZvLL9zhvFh1Dna-9kMasShXI/s6000/IMG_8458.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNpbtYRAX4NsPRIp_bRoG4wU6oM_w-bv1gr7h5hxuz-RpFnsNXoatQdvYpXL3JcwBw4x5Yihp4jMWBPFyt_dc42Mc4m_nKYP4jX-bKIl8ZfneJSRJvdiFB8A5hLOLy0IfXCh3xhYcxWAhnYaIccpOLQTycQVZ3xFp-S_WZvLL9zhvFh1Dna-9kMasShXI/s320/IMG_8458.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib3yecX5xQzpuYPjKEmsbuKd51YoqtithfsoTsFRwY9s74tfPTZzppLtyHkoYpd9v5-qK_-eMzSgBcUq9LYtnlTTVBlv9886zpii5qnGCQccVHfq4_kA80Ul2GqxI_-9PyONGoiE6eFhm8Qj2osyexcdcjjQ9VS2oHJScvzgxebrkyMu4nT0YvYKPMgRQ/s4032/IMG_0619.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib3yecX5xQzpuYPjKEmsbuKd51YoqtithfsoTsFRwY9s74tfPTZzppLtyHkoYpd9v5-qK_-eMzSgBcUq9LYtnlTTVBlv9886zpii5qnGCQccVHfq4_kA80Ul2GqxI_-9PyONGoiE6eFhm8Qj2osyexcdcjjQ9VS2oHJScvzgxebrkyMu4nT0YvYKPMgRQ/s320/IMG_0619.HEIC" /></a> <br /></div><div><br /><br />Another day we decided to try a different part of San Francisco and went to Japantown, which I’d never been to before. We went by bus rather than subway but it was still an entertaining ride out there. San Francisco, Dave told me on an earlier visit, is “a city of firm opinions, loudly expressed,” and there is a certain value to that, yes there is.<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqr14OlfRamhMWrqW0ExuCZfP8rgFrKqvBagn9QAtN6w_P-CjKH8SFSNQYgjTmlB5Jv8ep-dw5Z3h-6iRdJgelt7zjFdG0zxxpGqqQb88Ik9wERe-fysY5aVNI_4susq4of-Wd0joN8rgpPd7GclGdQ97yOMUTwqMzsP6YfQ8gbsSk8YunsZ6kqBOUbOM/s6000/IMG_8490.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqr14OlfRamhMWrqW0ExuCZfP8rgFrKqvBagn9QAtN6w_P-CjKH8SFSNQYgjTmlB5Jv8ep-dw5Z3h-6iRdJgelt7zjFdG0zxxpGqqQb88Ik9wERe-fysY5aVNI_4susq4of-Wd0joN8rgpPd7GclGdQ97yOMUTwqMzsP6YfQ8gbsSk8YunsZ6kqBOUbOM/s320/IMG_8490.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcc7bi5SW_f3D3TVsuxafIYvaaDlhxD18coPgvYJd8Y2L6TcT_C-chZDOiGni3IMBLZkHwjx7mNc9w2lzbDENaH4ItLGKApU6DNatgjXvxH-q88zVmkX0E6J_gF0ZxwKQ5r7Dj__vgIpQlNtQTmCB6BGEFb2RJPsJKX21iWPlI9YNMxkW9xkDaD97T0ZA/s6000/IMG_8491.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcc7bi5SW_f3D3TVsuxafIYvaaDlhxD18coPgvYJd8Y2L6TcT_C-chZDOiGni3IMBLZkHwjx7mNc9w2lzbDENaH4ItLGKApU6DNatgjXvxH-q88zVmkX0E6J_gF0ZxwKQ5r7Dj__vgIpQlNtQTmCB6BGEFb2RJPsJKX21iWPlI9YNMxkW9xkDaD97T0ZA/s320/IMG_8491.JPG" /></a> <br /></div><div><br /><br />The first place we visited in Japantown was Daiso, which is kind of a Japanese version of the old Woolworth’s 5&10. You can get everything there, and we did our best. I mostly bought snacks, which I spent the next several days slowly working my way through. I’ve still got some of the lemon candies, in fact, though likely not for long.<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNuTw9j9vHAG3XP9G-lW81N7gweEaZ6a5_URWEze4rQrlvBXCY96glWGRo8A3A0gswKhBDxhvy13mmeddv-nfAAad6lPUn7QjzFrZUEaM54QIiy-wD0zzFO_qs_ncAef-85JsoVSGKFrgqAmZWQl8k0tsgD_fhV8JoU8iCI-IcBtVL3_i4Q91CWJqIVpM/s4032/IMG_4071.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNuTw9j9vHAG3XP9G-lW81N7gweEaZ6a5_URWEze4rQrlvBXCY96glWGRo8A3A0gswKhBDxhvy13mmeddv-nfAAad6lPUn7QjzFrZUEaM54QIiy-wD0zzFO_qs_ncAef-85JsoVSGKFrgqAmZWQl8k0tsgD_fhV8JoU8iCI-IcBtVL3_i4Q91CWJqIVpM/s320/IMG_4071.HEIC" /></a> <br /></div><div><br /><br />By this time we were hungry for lunch so we went to a sushi place across the street which, fortunately for me, also served things that were not sushi. The key thing about this place was that most of the food came via a little tram that ran along tracks embedded in the wall and this was just the most excellent thing EVER. You ordered your food from a little computer screen at your table, and eventually the Sushi Tram whisked its way over with your lunch. I’m sure we ordered more than we had planned just to have it come out on the little tram, and I’m equally sure that they knew this would happen when they installed it.<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE12coome1abIEeQ9ICnqEigf8JLW-yQuhyphenhyphenV8-H2ArCh9PX6ttU4CN4IlhYCHfaNM5rvHsyV747QFycXC0heS3bYP_1oZAw7SVHb6iMWf4XeTToE3PjUyny-1DFlcFhODgmTgm605OFQYLSdFyMpHt_O0LaS6BrjhhA7m-jBMqmUbFeWZZM0pe_zAZJwU/s6000/IMG_8500.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE12coome1abIEeQ9ICnqEigf8JLW-yQuhyphenhyphenV8-H2ArCh9PX6ttU4CN4IlhYCHfaNM5rvHsyV747QFycXC0heS3bYP_1oZAw7SVHb6iMWf4XeTToE3PjUyny-1DFlcFhODgmTgm605OFQYLSdFyMpHt_O0LaS6BrjhhA7m-jBMqmUbFeWZZM0pe_zAZJwU/s320/IMG_8500.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgopXAq9TZ6aZ6AffEhq4PfdFD5_VqnyI0MtvXQg1M6WnxRVF8FoiAuBUA-kcCdWRDG1sEhKHHhEXtbTO7icaxblqwOaisbiQLxNbSYqCQVWrsYHzUjI5Qkr5k0Q11S0ebnkH8BSKzO4bPPX_yVrlTXvNg8UCRw4uqBYLZ8e2SVvMMTELWOHcn8GaZHyRQ/s6000/IMG_8503.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgopXAq9TZ6aZ6AffEhq4PfdFD5_VqnyI0MtvXQg1M6WnxRVF8FoiAuBUA-kcCdWRDG1sEhKHHhEXtbTO7icaxblqwOaisbiQLxNbSYqCQVWrsYHzUjI5Qkr5k0Q11S0ebnkH8BSKzO4bPPX_yVrlTXvNg8UCRw4uqBYLZ8e2SVvMMTELWOHcn8GaZHyRQ/s320/IMG_8503.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaK0n83XSnj1XrsisQFIqI0YA2wPQav_pSliKJwtt0Ss2AG3G1nH090h2T0BHEf1DzSbmGAsvNLwmE50cse6jquNH5_tRFaLl069j-Uc3tdXCZFTJc_CdAeI1S93G7jlMP094X0D6qitUhhq6rMcXIZ4HIoh8MSURB8cOWLn8LjxYm2bY8MsQSt7Gky2Y/s4032/IMG_0641.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaK0n83XSnj1XrsisQFIqI0YA2wPQav_pSliKJwtt0Ss2AG3G1nH090h2T0BHEf1DzSbmGAsvNLwmE50cse6jquNH5_tRFaLl069j-Uc3tdXCZFTJc_CdAeI1S93G7jlMP094X0D6qitUhhq6rMcXIZ4HIoh8MSURB8cOWLn8LjxYm2bY8MsQSt7Gky2Y/s320/IMG_0641.HEIC" /></a> <br /></div><div><br /><br />Not all of the food came by tram, though. My lunch was delivered by a bright yellow robot that probably also does double duty as a sweeper after hours, but it was adorable in its way and the food was good.<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLrPR67Q3DqHF47P5VWpHgaZgf1mEtE1mLoGlnMo5QFuq4Vh1xbteAJKVXVzNSR4r_jwOZgRAhXY-e1J4I3WtLIEXUIcXWSXzryRued9C-Q_okY7SbyDs-uJP2S91M6WxMA7TdWv1SPW3n9EvtfyneW_YvE5Nsj3KSMTHNHFu8gS546vLdNTqVTcYVBKU/s4032/IMG_0645.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLrPR67Q3DqHF47P5VWpHgaZgf1mEtE1mLoGlnMo5QFuq4Vh1xbteAJKVXVzNSR4r_jwOZgRAhXY-e1J4I3WtLIEXUIcXWSXzryRued9C-Q_okY7SbyDs-uJP2S91M6WxMA7TdWv1SPW3n9EvtfyneW_YvE5Nsj3KSMTHNHFu8gS546vLdNTqVTcYVBKU/s320/IMG_0645.HEIC" /></a> <br /></div><div><br /><br />We stopped at a Japanese bookstore after that and then a few other shops, but my favorite was the Japanese grocery that was on the way back to the bus stop. It’s fascinating to me to see the sorts of foods that other people consider unremarkable, and there were plenty of interesting things there. <br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifqHDbZp_mh1nlWeWocfpyUlkLXjTWq1xR5BauVHo57zmQ7crskzg0k34Nc4u9C0mou8gUewvtIlR7DoexEaXrDYARmYFNZEfYUl16s6ITCzsOa2LNVZaUz6DIHSHZdWrjlk87_EhC64Qq-h6Cb0v_i2F0x7ECLdmN3uI99fwcn-uqXBeF9jpQgu7Zb-s/s4032/IMG_0647.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifqHDbZp_mh1nlWeWocfpyUlkLXjTWq1xR5BauVHo57zmQ7crskzg0k34Nc4u9C0mou8gUewvtIlR7DoexEaXrDYARmYFNZEfYUl16s6ITCzsOa2LNVZaUz6DIHSHZdWrjlk87_EhC64Qq-h6Cb0v_i2F0x7ECLdmN3uI99fwcn-uqXBeF9jpQgu7Zb-s/s320/IMG_0647.HEIC" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV1V_Cle3tzcLFw-0bBzJvRsOyb_7FNhtIBFML-aat7GqUcR8G0DxY5JEctmUWnsxxCSCy6sNYc1tNDCytqFWKaurODFq0FiwzMQvRatOJxJGi5ldSgajrIEQA3zHqJ4AgyaLZTvpPWBfis5OtYpWIa5N7dg3btTcX3uRvNB5m6EWNJLn84lwF20_1oBI/s6000/IMG_8498.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV1V_Cle3tzcLFw-0bBzJvRsOyb_7FNhtIBFML-aat7GqUcR8G0DxY5JEctmUWnsxxCSCy6sNYc1tNDCytqFWKaurODFq0FiwzMQvRatOJxJGi5ldSgajrIEQA3zHqJ4AgyaLZTvpPWBfis5OtYpWIa5N7dg3btTcX3uRvNB5m6EWNJLn84lwF20_1oBI/s320/IMG_8498.JPG" /></a> <br /></div><div><br /><br />After the bus ride back to the Mission Kim, Lauren and I decided to visit some of the local thrift shops, which was an adventure. There was also a bakery with good donuts nearby and a bodega selling various snacks and yes we basically ate our way across San Francisco and this is what we consider a good time, thank you. <br /><br />Another example of that fact was the dinner we had the night before. Grandma decided that she wanted to take Kim and Geoff out for their birthdays and we were not about to say no to that even if their birthdays were actually in November – the Moveable Feast Tradition is a fine thing, after all – so we walked over to a Peruvian restaurant a few blocks from Dave and Geoff’s house. It was very good, and afterward we wandered down the street to discover a nearby Mitchell’s Ice Cream outlet. Apparently this is the ice cream to get in San Francisco, and the deeply sociable guy behind the counter was determined that we should truly appreciate it. He let us try the various flavors and when we chose the ones we wanted he’d ask us which one should go on top so it would melt down and blend with the other, which is something we’d never considered. 10/10. No notes. It was wonderful. <br /><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5r4LLRRxTqobT1pZDHbdjJ-tSDQx8srovfrmeVXChtu0peAIRRAywpStMPKTQpCMBOB3NRSzfAQc-6iBx4kEkny3PxYfxjWhDzp_729oYEDfkfQhjQNEd-EpKboS1wux3NUhDQqldEZ9xNBqZ3AuiGGnPMbMpF8zIfLdMeBL8f4V14apHPRZtRwe_qG4/s4032/IMG_0638.HEIC" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5r4LLRRxTqobT1pZDHbdjJ-tSDQx8srovfrmeVXChtu0peAIRRAywpStMPKTQpCMBOB3NRSzfAQc-6iBx4kEkny3PxYfxjWhDzp_729oYEDfkfQhjQNEd-EpKboS1wux3NUhDQqldEZ9xNBqZ3AuiGGnPMbMpF8zIfLdMeBL8f4V14apHPRZtRwe_qG4/s320/IMG_0638.HEIC" width="240" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlZDfVVm-wIqIKj9eRNJqYaINBLix0cf703m0rtDbo4TA0CB8oTePPmzseps0BIHX_BM9M8RHfM1FoVMWdoU4NdlGdw-Hn7j788AuFn4Q0VMR8W9E0PX_EQ7vemJR0xKuJa-ZHpncxQ3XPceZEZ9qXR6vog3JrVIP67QaWXW4btsi9Z74snDQ41hlnRkY/s4032/IMG_0637.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlZDfVVm-wIqIKj9eRNJqYaINBLix0cf703m0rtDbo4TA0CB8oTePPmzseps0BIHX_BM9M8RHfM1FoVMWdoU4NdlGdw-Hn7j788AuFn4Q0VMR8W9E0PX_EQ7vemJR0xKuJa-ZHpncxQ3XPceZEZ9qXR6vog3JrVIP67QaWXW4btsi9Z74snDQ41hlnRkY/s320/IMG_0637.HEIC" /></a><br /></div><div><br /> <br /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03463621516644789183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5977625681756554695.post-44448982475679102532024-01-19T21:35:00.001-06:002024-01-19T21:35:24.235-06:00News and Updates<div>1. I’m still working on a series of posts from a trip we took earlier this month, except that this has already been a very long year and my spoon supply is dangerously low even before the semester starts so it has not been going quickly or easily. But we had a lovely time of it and I do want to write things down so I don’t forget, so the posts will be made eventually. Watch this space! It may make sudden moves. <br /><br />2. We’re also still working on our Christmas cards, which by now are New Year’s cards and may well end up as Groundhog Day cards or possibly St. Patrick’s Day cards depending on how things go. I’d like to get them done as we had an eventful year worth commemorating in 2023, but we’ll see how it goes. <br /><br />3. It has continued to be Winter with a capital F around here of late, although we did reach positive temperatures in Fahrenheit today so that has to count for something. The additional inch or two of snow last night just made driving that much more adventurous, of course. <br /><br />4. We’re gearing up for the new semester down at Home Campus and it’s already been a doozy, with staffing changes taking up a great deal of time and energy – when you start with an operation that’s already understaffed and then subtract people who retire or get new positions, things get hectic in a hurry. Fortunately I was not promoted into a position a genuinely did not want, though I will be taking on a fairly steep increase in workload in my current position. That I don’t mind, though at some point I really would like to enjoy the kind of sponge-like high living and relaxation that right-wing politicians insist us academics do with our lives. Clearly I’m not doing something right. Nobody else on campus seems to be either. Could it be that said right-wing politicians are simply making up lies to con their base into misplaced outrage? Maybe. <br /><br />5. So I look up and it appears that the Flyers are actually doing well this year? Who knew! Oliver and I watched most of the game last night, and not only did the Flyers manhandle one of the best teams in the league (a team that has a better record than they do even after last night), but also they scored one of the most astonishing goals I’ve seen in a long time. This cannot last, but I’m going to enjoy it while I can. <br /><br />6. The Eagles, however, completed a late-season collapse worthy of the 1964 Phillies and are out of the playoffs after a fairly supine performance in the wild card game. As a Philadelphia native I am never surprised by this sort of thing, but it really was a shame to have started that well and ended that poorly. My only consolation is that the Cowboys also got unceremoniously tossed out – by the Packers no less – so I don’t have to listen to braying Dallas fans. <br /><br />7. Today would have been my dad’s 85th birthday. It still feels strange not to have him around. He would have had some choice things to say about the collapse of the Birds this year. This was my mom’s favorite picture of him, from back when they were both in high school. She kept it in her purse for years.<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjixSZPmhMmnA2daILM7t_Bul44pfXqrGRlPr14JqaPgpOMhJLRtGdookjqXj08Rw5kL7ljXGObz0_Ud_H1TRpLE2fVuwJTWQYedyizgEDW0ss52lP_DN3_jBj9wHJpG2ATJYocWJdlop2ERGjLlTnpN35ADp0qunNORQ_0jjle0ubZv0FJqELpM0TMeDI/s1456/Hurdler.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjixSZPmhMmnA2daILM7t_Bul44pfXqrGRlPr14JqaPgpOMhJLRtGdookjqXj08Rw5kL7ljXGObz0_Ud_H1TRpLE2fVuwJTWQYedyizgEDW0ss52lP_DN3_jBj9wHJpG2ATJYocWJdlop2ERGjLlTnpN35ADp0qunNORQ_0jjle0ubZv0FJqELpM0TMeDI/s320/Hurdler.jpg" /></a><br /></div><div> <br /><br />8. I got an envelope in the mail from the people who did my taxes last year, with an appointment already set up and ready to go. Honestly, this is slick. Whatever they’re charging me to do this, it is worth it. <br /><br />9. I will never understand the moral, intellectual, and patriotic bankruptcy that allows supposedly grown adults to continue to support an indicted insurrectionist already convicted of sexual assault and soon to be convicted of sorts of national security violations that we used to execute people for back in the day. The Founding Fathers understood that a republic was a temporary thing, dependent on the virtue of its citizens, and clearly we have run out of that quality in recent years. Watch your back and have a backup plan, folks. <br /><br />10. I should get back to my genealogy project. I should get back to reading more. I should clean my office, organize the basement, deaccession all the books that are already in boxes waiting to go, get my computer situation straightened out, exercise for a change, get some rest, and do any number of other projects that will likely also be on the back burner for the foreseeable future. Ah well. Someday. <br /><br /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03463621516644789183noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5977625681756554695.post-81197958571568006552024-01-15T21:12:00.000-06:002024-01-15T21:12:48.993-06:00Christmas, Continued!<div>We normally celebrate Christmas twice. <br /><br />The Gregorian calendar Christmas we’ve been spending with my side of the family in recent years. We used to alternate years with Kim’s side of the family, but then my parents’ health started to get precarious and then the plague hit and the bottom line of it is that pretty much for the last decade or so the Gregorian Christmas has either been in Tennessee with my aunt and uncle, in Philadelphia with my parents, or at home with just the four of us. And since both of my parents are gone now and the pandemic is officially over regardless of the actual situation on the ground, this past December we were in Tennessee and it worked out well. <br /><br />The Julian calendar Christmas we spend with Kim’s side of the family, since they’re Ukrainian and that’s how they roll or at least that’s how they’ve been rolling of late. Apparently Ukraine itself has decided to switch to the Gregorian Christmas because of the Russian invasion, but that shift hasn’t made it out this far west yet. This Christmas should have happened on the 6th, but since we were out of town that day (a series of blog posts that I’m still working on), we ended up scheduling our Julian Christmas for this past Saturday. <br /><br />And then winter hit. <br /><br />It has been late October here in Wisconsin since, well, late October. Relatively mild temperatures, fairly dry, the sort of weather that makes you think of bonfires and tailgating rather than Christmas. We had the occasional dusting of light snow but nothing that would make anyone in Wisconsin suspect that it might actually be getting toward winter. <br /><br />Last Monday night it started snowing in earnest, however, though it was warm enough that we ended up with about three inches of slush instead of the avalanche of snow we were expecting. That’s okay. We raced the storm from O’Hare back to Our Little Town and won, so it worked out pretty well. <br /><br />Friday, however, the forecasters got it pretty much right. It started to snow in the wee hours of the morning and all day the winds kicked up enough to make it a white-out for long stretches of time. It was a good day to stay home and watch the weather. By the time it was over we had about a foot of new snow on the ground. <br /><br />The person who laughs at someone clearing six inches of snow in the middle of a snowstorm has never cleared twelve inches of snow at the end of a snowstorm. I ended up clearing the driveway four separate times, but each time was easier than the one before so that worked out well. And then the hind end fell of the thermometer and we’ve been below 0F (which is Damned Cold in Celsius) pretty much ever since. We may see a Fahrenheit temperature with a real square root by Wednesday. <br /><br />It was in this context that we decided to make the two-hour drive to Kim’s parents’ house for Ukrainian Christmas. The roads were mostly but not entirely plowed, and we had blankets in the car just in case. We picked up Lauren and Max along the way and after some rather slow going on the back roads we made it there just fine. <br /><br />There was much food and conversation, a veritable feast of pierogies and sausages and related East European foods (and a small stack of pizzelles: Italians, represent!) and a grand time was had by all. Kim’s side of the family is much less stationary than mine so there was a constant swirl of motion throughout, and it worked out just fine.<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivdyf6vJ2tc66wBgUKw20ZS-6vRdsyFhCp6787bKzz1-ALR72M5gCQJ6KSVyzS6CSFh0sKQXc42uS3j4QEFqY638ugLE8hn9XbV6RzafAHdumPVJahvT-aaV7-lGgn2vgcwhOZVeXDR7FSCfgt8GD7JOmJQ_C400ARQoR_czIwhE-EVFZ-ry0x3WqlZfg/s6000/IMG_8571.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivdyf6vJ2tc66wBgUKw20ZS-6vRdsyFhCp6787bKzz1-ALR72M5gCQJ6KSVyzS6CSFh0sKQXc42uS3j4QEFqY638ugLE8hn9XbV6RzafAHdumPVJahvT-aaV7-lGgn2vgcwhOZVeXDR7FSCfgt8GD7JOmJQ_C400ARQoR_czIwhE-EVFZ-ry0x3WqlZfg/s320/IMG_8571.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYqQw0ixJwdMUPbU2H0L3iMQd07dIJJ9QycOJgbZghMT060s3Zh1-FzG1j2gA3EXJrAsMlB8Q5bgIVe7SBxJ2bNp11X7dvUVPVjAv-9TxWhp62UrM_YuA9WQ8d_VgN76gp-yeZ9Lz3AWmb8xzY3cbk3e2VTtRT-xMLwcG6qolo6_tPUToO24cHzSkbQGg/s6000/IMG_8572.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYqQw0ixJwdMUPbU2H0L3iMQd07dIJJ9QycOJgbZghMT060s3Zh1-FzG1j2gA3EXJrAsMlB8Q5bgIVe7SBxJ2bNp11X7dvUVPVjAv-9TxWhp62UrM_YuA9WQ8d_VgN76gp-yeZ9Lz3AWmb8xzY3cbk3e2VTtRT-xMLwcG6qolo6_tPUToO24cHzSkbQGg/s320/IMG_8572.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhSUE_6uzVz3dOiaoUnfTwHg332nntETXahnFNkPlNrAg6I8lYb3j3pz0kx7kem-gKVkTHcxbnyvyNVN8zSpI6lMlWfWISDjZtHkrPXqb2OS0S10_snqqCoRDa89nCP2KDdePvRNuD7YHAvXiVMcYjqajTWmpmVP8E7GewNwUq9k7VxCGDsljFqDXG_l0/s6000/IMG_8575.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhSUE_6uzVz3dOiaoUnfTwHg332nntETXahnFNkPlNrAg6I8lYb3j3pz0kx7kem-gKVkTHcxbnyvyNVN8zSpI6lMlWfWISDjZtHkrPXqb2OS0S10_snqqCoRDa89nCP2KDdePvRNuD7YHAvXiVMcYjqajTWmpmVP8E7GewNwUq9k7VxCGDsljFqDXG_l0/s320/IMG_8575.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_10ZVkbTne3ghgJJkwacUP1-o01bNKkkB9EsrP6nn4LNFahMKsxNlqWvY28mFrwHVHXtw3P0rF3JfnRGoKvuRX-LBKXyVMLy6_lvG9mXOC-RrlJnwnDa6cIujCxEISdYv0Yzd2tuSsaIUbZ4QoKnhVSxN6sUzEd7r6A4jsrsUmIkZln-FZGzmS0nDJZ4/s6000/IMG_8581.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_10ZVkbTne3ghgJJkwacUP1-o01bNKkkB9EsrP6nn4LNFahMKsxNlqWvY28mFrwHVHXtw3P0rF3JfnRGoKvuRX-LBKXyVMLy6_lvG9mXOC-RrlJnwnDa6cIujCxEISdYv0Yzd2tuSsaIUbZ4QoKnhVSxN6sUzEd7r6A4jsrsUmIkZln-FZGzmS0nDJZ4/s320/IMG_8581.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_YnqSTNTnC6vQl3gjlmUlkxTpXZWY2g0lZ4YS1ZqmkdHECk0eZn55lRosaAQrSPx1ha-coUI52JnceRpF5Ey7174zP0v8kgjh7s7OIh8_xaCZUuQW_XFqeLHGZnJYr4rMucSMFaLSCqb2xB5sJbT1XoBnKCTpld59s1RKe01Zzs87Md0C-HASETPZXRg/s6000/IMG_8597.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_YnqSTNTnC6vQl3gjlmUlkxTpXZWY2g0lZ4YS1ZqmkdHECk0eZn55lRosaAQrSPx1ha-coUI52JnceRpF5Ey7174zP0v8kgjh7s7OIh8_xaCZUuQW_XFqeLHGZnJYr4rMucSMFaLSCqb2xB5sJbT1XoBnKCTpld59s1RKe01Zzs87Md0C-HASETPZXRg/s320/IMG_8597.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvWUn7etQGnYDZkxkd4Not0eXm6-Tdo09za7Kn095yyfSYUAYDTav8-0t1ZmwgI7jVPDr8hubFsz5ubN14AIpWYhs8tWxRBZMCWgQUiCsU3Fc9LQ12e7S-rVzJUf68iIqrqytq2YWfRX-yYLnXC0VqQGYJ73utxmNOZzOOhJgfP1EmUTHuXIsgQBLky5Q/s6000/IMG_8605.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvWUn7etQGnYDZkxkd4Not0eXm6-Tdo09za7Kn095yyfSYUAYDTav8-0t1ZmwgI7jVPDr8hubFsz5ubN14AIpWYhs8tWxRBZMCWgQUiCsU3Fc9LQ12e7S-rVzJUf68iIqrqytq2YWfRX-yYLnXC0VqQGYJ73utxmNOZzOOhJgfP1EmUTHuXIsgQBLky5Q/s320/IMG_8605.JPG" /></a> <br /></div><div><br /><br />Then came the Dice Game, which we play on both sides of the family these days. This year we had more of the younger kids age into it, and it was a fairly raucous good time though we all agreed that next year there will be No Kitchen Goods as there was definitely a theme among the gifts on the table.<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd4T6oXNuWu5BtT-8e1yom71JxyIw7MjgsyTQSCbTbTA_f7hJe7MFh7yY6uso7xkKSSnBWRAb2nWsI6flNDRFpfSHCkMSP6Q_xzs9NS0rzRaTjnLxUt0z16mv8qUQU3UcyWhQRal-g1IEJE8fzM-U75BPVqQ_4gXG9rcCz8V0cODfCAbCaSxDSyBtIRBs/s6000/IMG_8609.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd4T6oXNuWu5BtT-8e1yom71JxyIw7MjgsyTQSCbTbTA_f7hJe7MFh7yY6uso7xkKSSnBWRAb2nWsI6flNDRFpfSHCkMSP6Q_xzs9NS0rzRaTjnLxUt0z16mv8qUQU3UcyWhQRal-g1IEJE8fzM-U75BPVqQ_4gXG9rcCz8V0cODfCAbCaSxDSyBtIRBs/s320/IMG_8609.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgis_Je2Y50inX7bSdQuf8Eo_MCg6_pzpmRYjlkFVyLqFej3A7UC8B0RkaHB_5m8PZxkO_oFXCWClUsU-IeH6D_R5oyuf4EHY3_EtasnYz4tsK3J99f9ep4JUwTbEV9MKsSbof2ovDUjdP2WF8D8bwwSoQxLu3nnHfr4idj2hMLrNc4uA4MHQjZYp7coGg/s6000/IMG_8610.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgis_Je2Y50inX7bSdQuf8Eo_MCg6_pzpmRYjlkFVyLqFej3A7UC8B0RkaHB_5m8PZxkO_oFXCWClUsU-IeH6D_R5oyuf4EHY3_EtasnYz4tsK3J99f9ep4JUwTbEV9MKsSbof2ovDUjdP2WF8D8bwwSoQxLu3nnHfr4idj2hMLrNc4uA4MHQjZYp7coGg/s320/IMG_8610.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrSM4idXQeznwZhgJWbL8IwET3QMgguExuK-vhZMhUaatnLl2XmyvmB6-ykxPj9imjsn07B2yFCSvOOLT5tRj2_taF66AmjBO4Q1i8iwVU7zpOVL6bnFlsm5nEGMYgS-zIgpkba5CjGmTSNBZ2oSQyvOLWHtZMtcWk2jijfI-W_cTeD2ayG_wF_Wr6l2s/s6000/IMG_8615.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrSM4idXQeznwZhgJWbL8IwET3QMgguExuK-vhZMhUaatnLl2XmyvmB6-ykxPj9imjsn07B2yFCSvOOLT5tRj2_taF66AmjBO4Q1i8iwVU7zpOVL6bnFlsm5nEGMYgS-zIgpkba5CjGmTSNBZ2oSQyvOLWHtZMtcWk2jijfI-W_cTeD2ayG_wF_Wr6l2s/s320/IMG_8615.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIiyrt5auSxmbx9LqCZZoG-623OXrV5QeUBBztNx0BnLmku3Uhyphenhyphen-dDB29spjbeaX_Z1v5Mx9K2jHiyFwkNTOf-MrfU23WOUfzBv-4Dvhqkq5_2KEY8wr00mqyFB3dYwzMF8vC3HVbJ58hlVsArzrDYFubJDVjauZg-o8XH5U2mmjWxAr3aDAvhS8_tBC8/s6000/IMG_8629.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIiyrt5auSxmbx9LqCZZoG-623OXrV5QeUBBztNx0BnLmku3Uhyphenhyphen-dDB29spjbeaX_Z1v5Mx9K2jHiyFwkNTOf-MrfU23WOUfzBv-4Dvhqkq5_2KEY8wr00mqyFB3dYwzMF8vC3HVbJ58hlVsArzrDYFubJDVjauZg-o8XH5U2mmjWxAr3aDAvhS8_tBC8/s320/IMG_8629.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS6bt_4DonxHVqGvI7-UXRRwqUqWYqmn1I9Q0fcRpLyuBBrbuHab-ffJF_mxvGLiii26oQvzn6VDYRXy1dS3T-nhHxvkaeeGwzp_PuzYcv08Y7MXTUDMtrHK8CH2BLNqiAij55JcMzUxD7IhAqb2d9zVzC43dNaJk_ERIaUx3aLy9jlvSc3IjSrO3kbMU/s6000/IMG_8635.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS6bt_4DonxHVqGvI7-UXRRwqUqWYqmn1I9Q0fcRpLyuBBrbuHab-ffJF_mxvGLiii26oQvzn6VDYRXy1dS3T-nhHxvkaeeGwzp_PuzYcv08Y7MXTUDMtrHK8CH2BLNqiAij55JcMzUxD7IhAqb2d9zVzC43dNaJk_ERIaUx3aLy9jlvSc3IjSrO3kbMU/s320/IMG_8635.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWCpPNuuuSvkaTfBXPCugQKPvHE7ueuBPv0XWi5ytL9Hf1d-FL7LICENazWlH-EQZ0aBaOzqfhEQKmVWsQBua9QWoWGtJPr1m37tJhr4rEuJ4tvPtQ9gpvGnBmSClX7qLv9rmMf_40XxdYXeEmPxmq9Hgpw_m-4nOQwG4KVW1x6w-x0mTpUR73y_ZvqAQ/s6000/IMG_8636.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWCpPNuuuSvkaTfBXPCugQKPvHE7ueuBPv0XWi5ytL9Hf1d-FL7LICENazWlH-EQZ0aBaOzqfhEQKmVWsQBua9QWoWGtJPr1m37tJhr4rEuJ4tvPtQ9gpvGnBmSClX7qLv9rmMf_40XxdYXeEmPxmq9Hgpw_m-4nOQwG4KVW1x6w-x0mTpUR73y_ZvqAQ/s320/IMG_8636.JPG" /></a><br /></div> <div><br />And then there was the ride home, which took much longer than usual since the roads had not magically cleared in the interval, but we made it back safely and then hung out a bit while we worked up the energy to go to bed. You don’t think that takes energy, but it does. <br /><br />Today we took down our Christmas tree and packed up the decorations so the holiday is officially over for another year, but it has to be said that we got our money’s worth out of the season, yes we did. <br /><br /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03463621516644789183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5977625681756554695.post-67280461263365103342024-01-12T07:39:00.000-06:002024-01-12T07:39:04.223-06:00Books Read in 2023, Part 3And so the year in reading concludes. <br /><br />-- <br /><br /><b>The Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka) </b><br /><br />One morning Gregor Samsa awakens to discover he has become a large cockroach. A traveling salesman trying to support his aging parents and younger sister, he at first tries to communicate his predicament with his family and his boss but eventually he is forced to retreat to his room where he scuttles about while his family’s fortunes decay, until eventually so does he. Somehow I had managed to avoid this novella through all the years of my education, but before we went to Prague this summer it became an assignment. It is a grim and cheerless story and I was glad to see the end of it. Prague, on the other hand, was lovely. <br /><br /><b>52 Things to See and Do in Basilicata (Valerie Fortney) </b><br /><br />This is pretty much exactly what it says it is – a travel guide to the Basilicata region of Italy, which I read in preparation for our trip there this summer. Fortney, like me, is an American whose ancestors came from the Basilicata region, though she has since moved back there and devoted herself to promoting tourism in the province. It’s a fairly thorough guide that covers a wide range of attractions and places, even if the writing is a bit cute at times and it would have benefited from more photographs than the small black and white illustrations that open each chapter. It is apparently the only guide specifically for Basilicata written in English. She gives some of the history of the province and its two sub-provinces (Potenza, where my family is from, and Matera), some restaurant and lodging recommendations (for which she says she receives no commission), and – the bulk of the book – 52 short chapters on sights and events that this overlooked and relatively lightly populated region. Basilicata was a poor and neglected place in the 19th and early 20th centuries, which is why my great-grandparents left, but it seems to be doing well now and in the end we had a lovely time there. <br /><b><br />Puglia Travel Guide (Francesco Giampetruzzi) </b><br /><br />Petrù, as he is apparently known to his friends, is a farmer in Puglia who took it on himself to broadcast the wonders of his home region to the world. This is a slim book, correspondingly short on details, but enthusiastic and liberally illustrated in color. It also contains a wealth of QR codes for further information online. He spends a great deal of time on beaches – admittedly one of the attractions of Puglia – and gives a bit of a short shrift to the cities that I would be most interested in, but there you go. It’s not the definitive guide to this region of Italy, but as an introduction and for suggestions for further research it’s a good place to start. <br /><b><br />How Did You Get This Number? (Sloane Crosley)</b> <br /><br />For our trip this summer I decided that a) I would borrow e-books from our local library system rather than cart physical books across the Atlantic, which worked out pretty well I suppose, and b) I would focus on travel memoirs, which is a genre that I particularly enjoy and which seemed relevant. So this and the next three books come from that decision, and I finished the last of them about an hour before we landed in Chicago on the way home. This is a jumbled collection of essays, most of which are about travel (the opening essay has her alone and mostly lost in Lisbon) though some, like the final essay which focuses on getting things that “fell off the back of a truck” from A Guy, are more about life and learning, and all of which are well written and thoughtful – more so than might be expected in a book billed as a comedy. <br /><b><br />All Over the Place: Adventures in Travel, True Love, & Petty Theft (Geraldine DeRuiter)</b> <br /><br />What happens when you get laid off from a job you love, you have zero sense of direction, and your husband has the sort of career that takes him all over the world? You become a travel blogger, that’s what. Or at least that was DeRuiter’s response. This book apparently started as her Everywherist blog and it retains the short, punchy style that such things have. Her key realization was that she didn’t have to write about the things travelers should or should not do. Instead, she could write about her experiences, good and bad – and this it turned out was far more entertaining. She describes her misadventures trying to see the original clock that won the 18th century prize for determining longitude – an effort born out of an attempt to understand her father and brother. She writes of visiting her mother’s Italian village and meeting a horde of relatives – something that spoke to me on our vacation this year, as I likely did the same thing. She tells a number of stories, and takes you along for the ride. It was an entertaining book, and well written. <br /><b><br />Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches (John Hodgman)</b> <br /><br />For a man who became famous for portraying a PC in an Apple commercial and later for peddling fake news until he decided in 2016 that too many people were crowded onto that ship and none of them understood the joke, Hodgman is a fairly perceptive and empathetic writer. This is too spotty to be a memoir and too thoughtful to be a comic routine, which makes it an ideal book to read in short chunks while traveling. He discusses his family and their various homes and his friendship with the singer Jonathan Coulton and his family and the strange places that friendship often leads, and there is a fair bit about what it is like to live in and visit Maine (hint: people live there because they don’t want to talk to other people), as well as a few anecdotes about his life as a performer. He is, as he says, a privileged white man getting by in the world, and it’s a surprisingly thoughtful book for all that. <br /><br /><b>Mastering the Art of French Eating: From Paris Bistros to Farmhouse Kitchens, Lessons in Food and Love (Ann Mah)</b> <br /><br />Ann Mah always wanted to live in Paris. When her diplomat husband Calvin gets a sent there for his next assignment she sees it as a chance to make that dream come true, envisioning three years of exploring the city and enjoying all it has to offer with the love of her life. But when Calvin gets reassigned to Iraq for a year – an offer he quite literally cannot refuse – she is left to create her dream by herself. This, it turns out, is a difficult task since the joy of a place is in sharing it. But she makes friends and learns to travel to see the various foods she wants, and in the end when Calvin comes back she has in some sense made the place her own. She divides the book into chapters based on a dish or region and includes at least one recipe per chapter, but mostly this is about her getting out of her funk and into the kitchens and restaurants of a place where food is an end in itself. There are times when it is hard to feel much sympathy for an affluent and privileged person adrift in her own personal paradise, but she is an engaging writer and knows how to make the stories work for the reader. <br /><b><br />Just Go Down to the Road: A Memoir of Trouble and Travel (James Campbell)</b> <br /><br />How James Campbell ended up as a professional editor and writer is just one of those stories. An indifferent bordering on hostile student in Scotland in the early 1960s, more interested in teenage hooliganism (though he was too straightlaced to do it well and a friend bailed him out of his only real attempt at it) than his studies, he eventually dropped out of school to take up a trade but got lured away by the temptations of music and the Swinging 60s. He spent time in London. He more or less hitchhiked his way to a Greek island where he spent months teaching rich Greek girls to ride horses – a skill he did not possess when he got there. He lived on an Israeli kibbutz in the early 1970s. He became a friend of the American novelist James Baldwin, even going to his house. He began a reading program with prisoners. Campbell is an engaging writer with an interesting story, one that lacks very dramatic highs or lows but holds your attention throughout. <br /><b><br />The Bird Man and the Lap Dancer (Eric Hansen) </b><br /><br />This is a story of a traveler, someone who has been all over the world and met all sorts of people, and the stories that come out of that. Eric Hansen is one of those people who go places, in large part because he seems open to the idea of getting lost and being present in wherever he happens to be, and he has a knack for meeting interesting people and getting to know them. Each chapter is a story of someone he’s met, and they’re all fascinating. Two involved elderly women – one a former dancer living in Paris, the other a Russian émigré living in New York City – who let him into their lives and tell their stories. Madame Zoya, for example, lived in what was then a drug-ridden crime-infested New York neighborhood where she taught Hansen how to make blini. The local criminals looked after her. Other stories involve working at a hotel on Thursday Island, off the coast of Australia, a job he left a prawn trawler to take; sharing kava with the men on Tanna, one of the islands of Vanuatu; “night fishing” in the Maldives; exploring the wreckage of a plane crash in Borneo with the widower of one of the victims; and working as a volunteer for Mother Theresa in Calcutta learning lessons as he tending to the dying. The title story involves an ornithologist who has befriended a group of strippers at a club and the genuine affection they seem to have for each other. Hansen has a journalist’s eye for detail and a graceful writing style that pulls you in and hints at other adventures – he casually mentions, as a minor detail in the Borneo story, having lived there for months a while prior, which is apparently described in another book he wrote. But mostly this is a story of the fascinating things that happen in everyday life that sound exotic until you realize that this is how some people live all the time. It’s a lovely book. <br /><br /><b>42: The Wildly Improbable Ideas of Douglas Adams (Kevin Jon Davies, ed.) </b><br /><br />This is a book for hardcore fans of Douglas Adams. Adams is perhaps best known for his <i>Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy</i> series, though he wrote several other books, some <i>Doctor Who</i> scripts, and a wealth of bits and bobs for various radio, theater, and television productions – some of which got produced and some of which didn’t. When he died fairly young, in 2001, he left behind a massive trove of papers and this tome – seriously, it's 8”x12” and weighs four pounds – is not so much a biography as it is an annotated scrapbook of some of those papers. Kevin Jon Davies was an Adams fan of long standing and he got permission to go through Adams literary estate in search of treasures to share. There is everything here from Adams’ grade school papers to his college years to the <i>Hitchhiker</i> and <i>Doctor Who</i> years and on to everything else – a treasury of documents, some of which are transcribed and some of which aren’t. Most are introduced with a small paragraph at the bottom of whatever page they’re on, unfortunately often in black ink on a blue page which makes reading a bit of a chore. There are also letters from people Adams knew, most of them along the lines of how much they miss him and how much he meant to them. I found out about this book when it was still a Kickstarter project – my name is there among the sponsors – and now it is a real thing, out there in the world. <br /><br /><b>The Kaiju Preservation Society (John Scalzi) </b><br /><br />Jamie Gray is a midlevel executive of sorts at a meal-delivery company in New York City called “füdmüd” in early 2020 but his life is about to change dramatically. First, his boss – a gold-plated asshole named Rob – will fire him and then, when the pandemic hits he will rehire him as a delivery boy. Second, one of his customers will find him a new job as “the guy who lifts things” at a base on a parallel version of Earth, one where giant creatures referred to as “kaiju” live and are studied by a semi-secret international NGO funded by both governments and random billionaires. There is a way to get from one version of Earth to another, and scientific crews have been rotating in and out for decades. Jamie spends a fair amount of time getting used to things, and then – as inevitably he must – he gets caught up in a Problem which then must be solved. Scalzi is a fun writer of light science fiction – he’s not there to bend your brain or make you consider Eternal Truths, but instead to tell you a story and keep you entertained while doing so. I appreciate this, at a point in my life where I have very few spoons to spare. It’s a fun book where all the loose ends get tied up fairly neatly, and that was exactly what I was hoping it would be. He was gracious enough to sign it for me on a recent book tour, and that just makes it even better. <br /><b><br />Starter Villain (John Scalzi)</b> <br /><br />This is the other book that John Scalzi was gracious enough to sign for me on his book tour and it’s of a piece with the first one, which is not surprising since even he says it’s part of a trilogy of “present day weird shit” books that are otherwise unrelated. The third one comes out in 2025, apparently. Charlie is at what can charitably be described as a low point in his life – divorced, broke, barely working as a substitute teacher after his journalism career tanked, and living with his cats Hera and Persephone in his deceased father’s house while his stepsiblings hound him to sell the place so they can get their share of it. But when his mysterious Uncle Jake – estranged from the family since Charlie was five – dies and leaves his business holdings to Charlie, things get hot. Jake was a villain, complete with an island volcano lair and a squad of trained if rather unpleasant dolphins, and now the other villains with whom he sparred want to take their shares – stepsiblings on a grander scale. Fortunately Charlie has Til, his uncle’s chief of staff, to guide him. Comedy, as they say, ensues. It’s a fun book, one where everyone is perfectly transparent about their motivations and willing to explain them at length in a “sorry about this, it’s nothing personal” sort of way. The intricate plot unfolds neatly if not always happily for the participants and in the end there is Charlie and his cats, who are of course far more than they first appear to be. <br /><br /><b>The Prophet and the Idiot (Jonas Jonasson)</b> <br /><br />Is there such a thing as a Dickensian farce? Because if there is, this would be a great example of it – a sprawling story that widens as it goes, pulling in new characters, world leaders, and a tasty but unassuming cheese in the process, most of whom (not the cheese) knew each other under some other guise years ago. It starts small, with Johan (the “Idiot” of the title) and his asshole brother, the Swedish diplomat Fredrik. Fredrick has sold their multi-million kronor apartment, given Johan a pittance and an RV, and taken the rest of the money with him to Rome where he plans to advance his diplomatic career. Johan – one of the world’s innocents, a terrible driver, and an astonishingly good chef, soon meets Petra who has calculated the end of the world to the minute, an event arriving in precisely twelve days. They embark on a quest to right several of the wrongs in their lives in the time they have left – small wrongs, but satisfying to correct – and along the way they draw in purple-haired Agnes, who at 75 years old has stumbled into a second career as a fake travel influencer on Instagram. Meanwhile, a man named Aleksandr grows up in the Soviet Union, a friend of Mikhail Gorbachev, an advisor to Boris Yeltsin, a man hunted by the Russian Mafia, and eventually – under the name Aleko – the leader of the most joyfully corrupt member of the African Union, the island nation of the Condors. From this point the book starts to get weird (or, rather, weirder) as all of these characters collide in unexpectedly comic ways and real life figures get drawn into the story. Barack Obama is a fairly important character, for example, as are Ban-Ki-moon and other diplomats and world leaders. Eventually the whole thing degenerates into as slapstick a series of crosses and double-crosses, fake identities, family coincidences, reunions, romances, and Västerbotten cheese as could ever be contained within the covers of a book. Jonasson also wrote <i>The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared</i>, and this has much the same tone and feel as his earlier work. Kim picked this up at the Prague airport for the flight home, and it was definitely worth the crowns. <br /><br /><b>The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep (H.G. Parry) </b><br /><br />What would your world be like if your younger brother, a literary prodigy who started reading novels as a toddler, could summon fictional characters to life at will? Whatever your answer is, Rob Sutherland, a lawyer in Wellington NZ, is living it. Charley Sutherland started doing this at age four, with problematic though never quite catastrophic results. Eventually his parents shipped him off to Oxford as a young teen and Rob’s life calmed down long enough for him to finish law school and find a girlfriend – Lydia – but when Charley gets a position at the university in Wellington it all starts up again. But this time it appears that someone is trying to harm Charley, which Rob – for all he finds Charley exasperating at times – will not allow. From this immersive start the novel spreads out at a breakneck pace. There is a street hidden in Wellington that only fictional characters and their guests can access, whose fractious inhabitants are carefully protected by a grown-up fictional child adventurer named Millie. There are Sutherland family secrets ready to be revealed, one by one, as they become relevant. And there is another summoner in Wellington who plans to use Charley to replace the nonfictional world with a world of their own making. It’s a clever book full of ideas, and if there are far too many places where you want to tell Rob to get over himself and stop being such a jerk, well, that happens sometimes in the real world. Parry clearly loves 19th-century British literature and the novel is full of Victorian characters brought into this reality – sometimes multiple times (the Darcys, 1 through 5, are a running joke of sorts), though each iteration is different depending on the interpretation of the reader who summoned it. There are a few loose ends – Lydia never really becomes more than an exasperated foil for Rob’s idiocy, for example – but for those of us who enjoyed Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next series this novel is a treat. <br /><br />Total books: 38 <br />Total pages: 11,160 <br />Pages/day: 30.6 <br /><br />Happy reading! <br /><br />Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03463621516644789183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5977625681756554695.post-7236902867639521542024-01-11T07:47:00.001-06:002024-01-11T07:47:37.303-06:00Books Read in 2023, Part 2<br /><br />More books! <br /><br />-- <br /><br /><b>Pattern Recognition (William Gibson)</b> <br /><br />Many years ago I read a Gibson novel called <i>Zero History</i>, which – I now know – was actually the concluding volume of the trilogy that starts with <i>Pattern Recognition</i>. I don’t remember much about <i>Zero History</i> other than that it seemed to involve a lot of discussion of fabric and it was clearly a sequel to something, so here we have another project. Set and written not long after the 9/11 attacks, which play a large part in the background, this is the story of Cayce (pronounced “Case”) Pollard, an artistic consultant whose primary traits are an unerring ability to know at a glance whether a proposed brand logo will work (a trait that earns her living) and a PTSD-like reaction to most other brand logos. She is also part of the worldwide fandom of the Footage – short, cryptic clips from what appears to be a very artsy sort of movie that appear randomly and are discussed obsessively in online forums. These traits collide when she takes a job with Blue Ant, a marketing company run by Hubertus Bigend. When he hires her to seek out the artist behind the Footage the story descends into a noirish blend of found alliances, betrayals, skullduggery, and international travel that covers London, the US, and Japan before settling into post-Soviet Russia. It’s a well-told story for the most part, though the ending is rather sudden and ties things up a bit too neatly. <br /><br /><b>Spook Country (William Gibson)</b> <br /><br />David Eggers once noted that there are basically two kinds of plots in modern fiction. There are photography plots, where the task of the author is to frame something just so in order to tell the story, and there are mousetrap plots, where the author very carefully lines everything up until you get to a trigger point and then the conclusion snaps into place. In the second of the Blue Ant books, William Gibson sets up a complicated mousetrap, with three distinct groups of characters and one giant MacGuffin that all come together in the final part of the story. Hubertus Bigend is here again, though this time mostly as an offstage facilitator whose bottomless pockets and resources magically make things happen. This isn’t his story the way <i>Pattern Recognition</i> was. One of the character groups is headlined by Hollis Henry, the former lead singer of a moderately famous band called Curfew now trying to make ends meet as a journalist. She has accepted a freelance contract from a magazine called Node – which might or might not exist and in any event is funded by Bigend – to research a particular form of digital conceptual art in Los Angeles. In her group of characters are Odile (a French woman whose main function is to connect Hollis to other people), Inchmale and Heidi (former bandmates), and Bobby Chombo, the reclusive tech wizard making the art possible. A second group features Tito and his family, Cuban exiles in New York City at least for the moment, descended from and trained by shadowy intelligence operatives and now offering their services for hire in a post-9/11 world. Tito lives in a world where Cuban folk gods make their presence known to him regularly, where “protocol” is nearly sacred, and where nobody ever really knows anyone else’s name. The third group consists of Brown, an agent of some kind though it’s never really clear for whom, and Milgram, his captive junkie and a rather phlegmatic and thoughtful soul, whom Brown uses for whatever errands he deems necessary. All of these characters revolve around the MacGuffin, which is a giant cargo container whose location and contents are known only to some. It will all come together neatly in the end as the mousetrap snaps shut, with a conclusion that mostly wraps up the loose ends without really threatening anyone, and then we’re on to the next Blue Ant story. <br /><br /><b>Zero History (William Gibson) </b><br /><br />And so we come full circle, back to the book I read a decade ago before I realized it was Book Three of a series. It makes a lot more sense now, as one would imagine. Hollis Henry is still vaguely employed by Bigend and many of the characters we met in <i>Spook Country</i> reappear, but in many ways the main character of this is Milgrim, now dried out and restored to sobriety through a fairly expensive process paid for by Bigend. Milgrim is, of course, deeply in Bigend’s debt and working for him on a project involving clothing patterns – Bigend would like to break into the market for clothing based on US military designs, which is apparently a more dangerous thing than you’d think. Much of the plot revolves around a loose cannon named Gracie who would very much like to inflict harm on Bigend, Blue Ant, and everyone associated with it. On the good guys’ side there is Heidi, Garreth, Bobby Chombo, Inchmale, an American DCIS agent working on her own project that intersects with Milgrim and whose interests line up with Bigend’s, the motorcycle courier Fiona, and the mysterious designer of a line of clothing called Gabriel Hounds whose name is never revealed though eventually it does become clear if you’ve read the previous books. As with the earlier books this is a quick-moving, entertaining, fairly light story with enough of an edge of danger to make it interesting but without too much grievous harm done to anyone. Most of the characters end happily, and Milgrim most of all. Gibson clearly had a lot of fun with this series, and mostly he seems to have wanted his readers to do so as well. <br /><br /><b>Why is that Bridge Orange? San Francisco for the Curious (Art Peterson)</b> <br /><br />This book was given to me by a friend who has since passed on, and it is pretty much exactly what it sounds like it would be – a quick, breezy, heavily illustrated guide to some of the more picturesque and interesting things in San Francisco, a city I have been to several times. There are about eighty or so short chapters (2-3pp), each one devoted to a landmark, a question, or a general happening that visitors might want to know more about – including the title question – and Peterson provides not only some historical and social context but also one or more color photographs. If you’ve been to the city and remember some of these places, it’s a fun ride. It probably would mean more to residents, but it will be a handy thing for the next time I go back. <br /><br /><b>Erasure (Percival Everett)</b> <br /><br />Thelonius (“Monk”) Ellison is a university professor, a writer of abstruse and critically acclaimed novels that nobody outside of academia will ever read, a socially awkward misfit genially mystified by personal interactions, and a man constantly being told he’s not “black enough.” His father is dead, leaving behind a box full of family secrets. His mother is slowly slipping into dementia. His brother is divorced, having finally come out as gay, and seems to hate him. His sister is a respected doctor. But as his family unravels in front of him, Monk finds himself confronted by a novel called <i>We’s Lives in Da Ghetto</i> – a slapdash, borderline racist portrayal of black American life written by an affluent black woman who had visited Harlem for a few days, an affront to everything Monk holds dear as a novelist and a black man, and very quickly a national best seller. In a fit of rage he dashes off an equally slapdash, borderline racist parody of that book that he entitles <i>My Pafology</i> and sends it to his agent along with his new pseudonym, Stagg R. Leigh (which was my favorite thing about Everett’s book). When that book too becomes a best seller and provides the financial windfall that Monk desperately needs, he will have to confront who he is and who he is not and what has been erased in his attempt to live as a black man in America. It’s a thoughtful, angry book in many ways, and a well written one. This is a book that Lauren read for her African American Literature class and the second one from that syllabus that I’ve read so far. Perhaps I should have just taken the class. <br /><br /><b>Italian Ways: On and Off the Rails from Milan to Palermo (Tim Parks)</b> <br /><br />There is something about a train that appeals to travelers. Trains are not as direct or frenetic as a car, nor as fraught as air travel these days, and they give you the freedom to do other things while the countryside passes by outside. You get thrown in with people, which can be good or bad depending on your views on such things or the specific people you find. And you see things that you don’t see from the highways. Tim Parks has been living in northern Italy for decades after leaving his native England, and he has written several books about the experience. On the surface this is about his travels by train in Italy – between Verona, where he lives, and Milan, where he works; from Milan to Rome, from north to southwest (Sicily) and southeast (Otranto) – but this is just a lens for Parks to discuss Italy and Italian culture, everything from the convoluted and nearly incomprehensible processes governing ticketing to the role of the railroads in the Italian economy, Italian unification, and the current Italian position in the European Union, to the various places he gets to and from via Trenitalia and other networks less well known. Parks is a talented writer with an eye for telling details and an ear for a story, and in the end you will know more about how Italy works from following his train travels than you would know from any amount of food tourism. <br /><br /><b>The Hero’s Way: Walking with Garibaldi from Rome to Ravenna (Tim Parks)</b> <br /><br />Italy is both a very old and a surprisingly young nation. It has a coherent history stretching back millennia to the Romans and Etruscans but as a modern united nation it is barely a century and a half old. Two hundred years ago it was a patchwork of small kingdoms, most of them ruled by foreign powers – particularly France and Austria-Hungary – or the Pope. The Risorgimento, the independence movement that created a united Italy, began in 1848 and finally succeeded in 1871 when the Papal States (including Rome) fell into Italian hands. One of the key figures in this struggle was Giuseppe Garibaldi, the epitome of the Romantic hero – a dashing, charismatic, and committed man ennobled by tragedy and rendered glorious by victory. But in 1849, that victory seemed a long way away. The Italian versions of the Revolutions of 1848, when liberal forces rose up against conservative authoritarianism across Europe, collapsed in 1849 and Garibaldi had to lead a dwindling and outnumbered fugitive army east from Rome across the Apennines in a mad dash to escape the French and Austrian armies pursuing him. With him were his Brazilian wife, Anita, as well as a handful of colorful and unforgettable characters whose fates intertwine and cycle back. Into this story comes Tim Parks – as noted above, an Englishman who has lived in northern Italy for decades – and his Italian girlfriend Eleanora, determined to follow in Garibaldi’s footsteps. In the summer of 2019, 160 years after Garibaldi’s march, they set out to retrace the retreat from Rome to Ravenna on foot, matching his progress day by day. Each day gets a chapter filled with nearly equal parts historical information (Parks relies heavily on several books written by Garibaldi’s surviving companions, as well as the man’s own memoirs) and their own struggles to walk nearly four hundred miles through Italy in August. Parks writes well and you always get a feel for the landscape, the people they meet, the struggles of trying to be a vegetarian in modern Italy, and the intersection of history and setting that never seems to be far beneath the surface of life in that country. Toward the end Parks notes that he is writing the last parts of the book during the first month or so of Italy’s COVID lockdown in 2020, which makes him wistful for the freedom he and Eleanora experienced in their long rambles. It’s less of a view of Italian culture through a specific lens, the way <i>Italian Ways</i> was, and more of a simple travelogue through both space and time. <br /><br /><b>Season of Skulls (Charles Stross) </b><br /><br />Concluding the Starkey subseries within the Laundry Files, Stross now shifts his focus almost entirely over to Eve – the sister of Imp, the unwilling bride of Rupert, Baron of Skaro, and a powerful sorceress in her own right. Rupert, it turns out, was not quite dead (or not dead enough, as it’s a fine line) and his return to the present is full of horrors and difficulties for Eve. When Rupert disappears into the dream roads back to an alternative version of Regency England in 1816, Eve has no choice but to follow – for one thing, Rupert’s plan is clearly to invoke the Mute Poet and consume humanity, and for another the New Management very clearly wants her to go. But when she gets there she finds herself trapped in a world where Regency Romance tropes bend her to the narrative and The Village from the old television show <i>The Prisoner</i> has been recreated a century and a half before her time to imprison her. How she gets back to her own time is the bulk of the story, and in that process she will meet scoundrels and heroes, demonic beasts and sorcerers. Imp and his friends are here reduced to a very limited supporting role, and for the first time this trilogy intersects with the actual Laundry in the person of Persephone Hazzard, but this is Eve’s story and she makes the most of it. <br /><br /><b>Walking With Sam: A Father, a Son, and Five Hundred Miles Across Spain (Andrew McCarthy)</b> <br /><br />El Camino de Santiago holds a certain attraction to both the faithful and the secular alike. A five-hundred-mile walk across northern Spain – from the French border to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, in honor of St. James the Apostle – that has been a popular pilgrimage since medieval times, it provides a vast wealth of time and focus that allows those taking part to consider their lives and concerns in new lights. Andrew McCarthy, perhaps best known for his roles in many of the teen drama movies of the 1980s but more recently an award-winning travel writer, made the journey as a young and fairly lost man, and always wanted to go back. When his nineteen-year-old son Sam agreed to go with him, they flew out to the beginning point and started their trek. In some ways this book is pretty much what you would expect it to be, with reflections on parenting and aging taking center stage – you learn a lot about McCarthy’s own family life as a child, in addition to how he is adjusting to a son emerging as an adult in his own right – mixed in with thoughts about the Camino itself and how it has or has not changed in the quarter century since McCarthy tried it the first time. Along the way we meet a host of companions thrown together by the shared experiences and spaces of the Camino, most of whom are given affectionate nicknames (The Boys, Irish, The White People, Taxi Roger, and so on) and whom McCarthy and his son grow rather fond of. McCarthy introduces us to the terrain, the climate, the food, and the various innkeepers, waiters, and others they meet along the way. And in the end they make it to the Cathedral, maybe not completely different people but perhaps with a bit more depth than when they started. It’s a well-written book as you would expect given McCarthy’s credentials and it generally stays on the right side of the emotional line that divides thoughtful reflections on parenting from mawkish sentimentality. That McCarthy never once mentions the Proclaimers is a notable achievement, really, and demonstrates far more restraint than I would have had in his situation. Sometimes I think I enjoy reading about other people’s travels more than actually traveling, but this is perhaps not that bad of a thing. <br /><br /><b>S. (Doug Dorst and J.J. Abrams) </b><br /><br />This is a dark and foreboding story told on at least five different levels, perhaps more. At its most basic, it purports to be a novel by a reclusive and mysterious author named V. M. Straka entitled <i>Ship of Theseus</i>, the last of 19 novels attributed to him. Nobody really knows who Straka was, how many of the novels he wrote by himself or with others, or even whether he really existed at all – he might have been the code name for a collective of authors (whose own identities are not clear either), or a front for one or more of the collective working together – and the literary arguments over his identity are fierce, career ending, and at times physically dangerous. Straka, if he existed, was a dangerous man often involved in violent events and political upheavals. The novel tells the story of a man who washes up in a harbor in an dark old city, somewhere in the late 19th or early 20th centuries most likely, with no memory of who he is or what his life might be like, and it follows him through a dark and slightly surreal life of searching – for the life he lost, for the woman who was with him when he was shanghaied onto a mysterious sailing ship with a monstrous crew, for the time he loses while aboard that ship, for vengeance. He gets involved in nameless revolutions in nameless cities, discovers deadly skills and unsettling places, loses friends and colleagues, but in the end not much is ever made clear to him about any of those things, though much is made clear about others. Underneath this – literally – are the footnotes, written by F. X. Caldeira, Straka’s main translator and (perhaps?) mutually unrequited love, whose notes are less explanations of the text and more fictional devices to send messages back and forth between her and Straka, or to whomever reads it. Not all of the codes get broken. In the margins of the text there are several layers of annotations in distinctive colors. The oldest, in a faded grey, are the notes made by Eric when he was 16 and first reading the book. The book is found in the library of Pronghorn University by Jen, a second-semester senior, who writes notes to Eric (by now an expelled graduate student in literature at Pronghorn) and he responds – a running commentary that loops back on itself as they read and reread the book together. There are several layers of their notes in their distinctive handwritings as they document their lives and growing relationship with each other, the oldest red and blue, then orange and green, then black and red, and finally just black. Jen and Eric also leave objects in the pages for each other that further the story – letters, post cards, photos, maps, and so on, which are all included in the book on specific pages so you have to be careful when handling the book – and as they get pulled deeper and deeper into the mystery of V. M. Straka, the threats that come from exploring this mystery, and the troubles of their own lives, it becomes an odd sort of love story as well. There is a heavy, foreboding and slightly surrealistic early 20th century Eastern European feel to the whole thing, and it’s the sort of book you have to read fairly slowly if you want to catch everything – I read it in one swoop, both Straka/Caldeira and Jen/Eric’s notes together – but apparently you can read each bit separately if you want. I have no idea how. By the end you do feel for them all – Straka, Caldeira, Jen, Eric, S. – though in a dark and complex sort of way. <br /><br /> <br />Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03463621516644789183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5977625681756554695.post-67111767672033605802024-01-10T18:46:00.000-06:002024-01-10T18:46:08.645-06:00Books Read in 2023, Part 1<br /><br />The first couple of weeks of the year always have much to blog about, and as always I am behind. I figured I’d get the easy posts out of the way and work on the more involved ones for later, because that’s Strategic Planning and we could do with more of that in this chaotic world. So look for a series of posts on a trip that occupied the first week or so of this month and another on the end of the Christmas holiday period for us, coming soon to a blog near you. <br /><br />In the meantime, however. <br /><br />I read. It’s what I do, or at least what I would like to do. This year, as with the last couple of years, however, it has been something of a battle to carve time away from the various demands being made on my life and even more of a battle to have the energy and focus to read when I do manage to carve out that time. It’s been a down year by historical standards, though more or less in line with the recent past. We’ll take what we can get. <br /><br />Here are the books I read in 2023. <br /><br />-- <br /><br /><b>In the Weeds: Around the World and Behind the Scenes with Anthony Bourdain (Tom Vitale) </b> <br /><br />I’m not sure why I find myself endlessly fascinated with Anthony Bourdain but I’ve stopped questioning it and am just enjoying it. He was a larger than life character, with all of the virtues and vices that this phrase implies – driven, demon-haunted, interested and interesting, addicted to many things (some of them legal), and ultimately gone before his time. Tom Vitale was one of the producers on his shows and he frames this as both a memoir of his time with Bourdain and an attempt to come to grips with Bourdain’s death. After the intense experience of working with Bourdain, an experience that very nearly drove him to breakdown, suddenly having nothing to do is a disorienting thing, particularly because of the reasons it happened. Vitale traces his time on the show, tells a great many fascinating stories, and ultimately comes to no real conclusion about anything, which is probably the only appropriate thing to do. Oddly enough, he is to my knowledge the only one of the many people who knew Bourdain personally and who have written books about him who is at least interested in hearing from Asia Argento, Bourdain’s last girlfriend and the person blamed by many of Bourdain’s friends for his suicide. Vitale’s encounter with Argento doesn’t reach any real conclusions either, but it was interesting to hear her discuss it with him. Vitale takes a chapter or two to get rolling, but this was one of the better Bourdain books I’ve read that wasn’t by the man himself. <br /><br /><b>One Summer: America 1927 (Bill Bryson)</b> <br /><br />I needed a book that was dense enough to last for a while but interesting enough to keep me reading for a couple of long flights and while I have read this before it’s been a while and it fit that bill quite nicely. Bryson takes as his subject the summer of 1927 in the United States – a summer of lasting impact in many ways – and he divides his book into sections focusing on individuals. The first section is about Charles Lindbergh, whose cross-Atlantic flight took place that May. June is given over to Babe Ruth, though Lindbergh continues to make appearances. July sees the focus shift to Calvin Coolidge, while August moves on to Sacco and Vanzetti, and it all wraps up in September. What makes this fascinating is that Bryson – an entertaining writer with a gift for humanizing his subjects with interesting and often hilariously funny anecdotes – uses that summer and those people as prisms for much larger events over a much longer timescale. He reaches back through the entire 1920s (and often further) and extends out into the 1930s as well, and a better social history of the United States on the brink of modernity in the 1920s you will likely never find. This is aimed at a popular audience and is breezy and entertaining that way, but it is surprisingly thoughtful and thorough and as a professional historian I would have no problem assigning this for a class. My students would probably thank me. <br /><br /><b>The Nineties (Chuck Klosterman) </b><br /><br />The 1990s were, for Chuck Klosterman, a pivotal decade in American history – a hinge between Before and After, with concerns and views that would have made no sense earlier and made even less sense later. This is not a particularly bold argument, as most decades can be summed up like that. What makes this collection of essays worth reading is the level of cultural analysis that Klosterman brings to a decade that in many ways still seems too insubstantial and meaningless to support it, as well as the sheer melancholy rage that informs this analysis. Klosterman looks at music, politics, journalism, media (the shift from television to the internet as the main medium of information is in this telling both consequential and totemic), and almost every other aspect of the culture of the decade to argue his case, and as someone who is old enough to remember the 90s clearly it was fascinating to see the differences between history and memory play out in this book. Klosterman is an engaging writer with sharp observational skills and incisive arguments, and the book will make you think differently (though not necessarily more positively) about a decade that is often underappreciated. <br /><br /><b>Interesting Facts for Curious Minds (Jordan Moore)</b> <br /><br />Every year at Christmas we play the Dice Game, which is a fun way to exchange gifts without going bankrupt. And every year I end up with an assortment of random things. My goal is always to end up with a) things I can give to my kids, and/or b) things that are small. This year one of the things I ended up with was this book, which was at least small and I do enjoy trivia. It seems churlish to criticize what was clearly a labor of love for the author, but the simple fact is that this is not a good book. It was self-published and remains about two drafts short of anything a professional editor would let loose in the world. It’s divided into 63 short chapters of 25 or so “facts” each, though the organization is more random than that as Moore makes no real distinction between fiction and nonfiction (the chapter on geology has tidbits about both rocks and fictional character names, for example) or between trivia and information. Things that should be grouped together within chapters are often widely separated, which is tricky when he makes references back to them, and he randomly inserts comments which are clearly meant to be funny or chummy but are mostly just puzzling. At least half a dozen of these “facts” were flat out wrong and those were just the ones that were obvious to me. Plus if you’re not a fan of Comic Sans the layout will just kill you. I read it because it was in some sense a gift, and now you don’t have to. <br /><br /><b>On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (Ocean Vuong) </b><br /><br />This is a kaleidoscope of a book, fragmented and often nonlinear – a letter written to someone who can’t read about a life betwixt and between, in sentences that often shine like jewels. It’s not really surprising to discover that Vuong is a poet. Little Dog, the narrator, is Vietnamese, a child and grandchild of the American war there, now growing up in Hartford CT. His mother works hard, his grandmother is slowly slipping away, and in that landscape he is figuring out who he is, who is family is, and how it all fits together, or if it does at all. Little Dog flits from subject to subject, often in alternating paragraphs – you find out a lot about Tiger Woods, the terrible toll of Oxy-Contin and other opioids, domestic violence, and the Vietnam War itself, among other things – all the while narrating his coming out as a gay man of color in a time and place that doesn’t value any of that. It’s a book you read for the characters and the tone rather than the plot, of which there is very little. But there doesn’t need to be when the writing is this crystalline. <br /><br /><b>Ithaca (Claire North) </b><br /><br />History sounds different when you listen to the voiceless. The Greek story of Odysseus and Penelope is generally told from the point of view of Odysseus – from the man, in other words. It is a story of war and the gods, of adventure and return, and of politics and power. In this version, though, Claire North focuses on the story of the women, of Penelope at home waiting for Odysseus to return, besieged by suitors who consider her a widow and a target, on a poor and increasingly desperate island full of young boys, old men, and women, always women – maids and elders, servants and priestesses, but always women. The story is told by Hera, queen of the gods for whatever that’s worth in a pantheon dominated by Zeus and his masculine followers, and her long perspective on these short, circumscribed lives is both loving and remote in a way that only those who have forever to think about things can manage. This is the first of a projected trilogy and as such it plays to North’s strengths – the complex and intertwining characters deftly sketched and set against each other, the deep and abiding sense of melancholy that pervades everything, and the lack of any need to come to a definite conclusion before the story ends. It’s a story of intrigue and betrayal, of destiny and humanity, of the limits of the gods and the importance of the women who usually go unnoticed by the poets, and it is a story well told. <br /><br /><b>Face It (Debbie Harry)</b> <br /><br />I am old enough to remember when Blondie was new to the charts, when <i>Call Me</i> and <i>Heart of Glass</i> were all over Top-40 radio and photos of their bleached-blonde lead singer were much sought after things among my peer group. Like most people, though, Debbie Harry is more complex than her public image and here – in a memoir that reads like the transcribed and edited interviews that it is based on – she tells her life story. She was adopted not long after being born, right after WWII, and grew up in a quiet family in New Jersey, but was drawn to the New York City in the 1960s and the emerging punk scene of the 1970s, where she met and hung out with pretty much everyone who was or would become anyone – David Bowie plays a large role in her story, for example, as does Andy Warhol. She tells the standard rock and roll memoir in some ways – sex and drugs and trauma (including at least two sexual assaults and one abusive ex-husband) over a litany of hard times, hard work, and astonishing success in the end, though not necessarily lasting success in many ways – but through it all she maintains her sense of humor, her energetic drive, and oddly enough for someone who repeatedly describes herself as “punk” her sense of wonder at it all. There are several sections in the book that are just reproductions of fan art that people sent to her over the years, for example, and she describes not only the ups and downs of Blondie but also the ins and outs of her professional life since then. Her acting credits came as a surprise. If there is a main character in her life it is Chris Stein, her bandmate and boyfriend through much of the early Blondie years and still one of her closest friends long after they broke up. Through it all she is an engaging storyteller who has led a fascinating life, and as much as she protests that she never intended or wanted to write a memoir I’m glad she did. <br /><br /><b>Ryder (Ginya Lawrence) </b><br /><br />When a friend of mine announced on Instagram that she had self-published a small collection of poems that we could buy, I figured I would do that. And it was definitely worth it. These are lovely and often thoughtful poems accompanied by spare illustrations and a shout-out at the end to another loved one. My personal favorite was one called “Lemons,” which has the line “I don’t enjoy throwing away something that once brought me joy.” I also liked “Let there be love not made to be a lesson,” which is a valuable thought indeed. Support your friends in their endeavors! You may end up with poetry. <br /><br /><b>Bull Cook and Authentic Historical Recipes and Practices (George Leonard Herter and Berthe E. Herter)</b> <br /><br />I’ve written about this book extensively here on the blog – it’s the only cookbook I’ve ever felt compelled to liveblog, and if you read those posts you’ll understand why. George Herter was a member in good standing of the fine American tradition of cranks – the overconfident Dunning Kruger cases who somehow feel compelled to share their opinions with you in a way that is both vaguely off putting and strangely fascinating. This purports to be a cookbook and there are in fact recipes in it, but mostly it is a compendium of George’s opinions on everything from food to historical figures to ethnology to the conspiracies of the flour industry. I don’t think I’ll make any of the recipes, but it was a wild ride from start to finish. <br /><br /><b>Speaking Italian: The Fine Art of the Gesture (Bruno Munari)</b> <br /><br />My family emigrated from various places in Italy over a century ago, but culture changes slowly and we still retain a few things from the Old Country. Some recipes, adapted to the United States. A few phrases. And a distinct tendency to talk with our hands, one that encompasses both particular gestures and general motion for emphasis. This short illustrated guide, first published in 1963, is pretty much what it says it is – a visual guide to some of the gestures common in Italian culture – particularly in southern Italy, where my family is from. Many of them I recognized and at least one I will dispute, as it does not mean anything nearly as polite as what this book says it means. But it’s a quick and entertaining guide, with text in Italian and English on one facing page and small photos and illustrations of the corresponding gestures on the other. Next time I go to Italy, I will have to remember this one. <br /><br /><b>Risk! True Stories People Never Thought They’d Share (Kevin Allison, ed) </b><br /><br />This is a collection of stories told on the podcast of the same name, one that asks people to tell a story that is close to them, that is something that perhaps they’ve never shared before or never thought they would, and as with all such stories they are deeply felt, often traumatic, and occasionally very difficult to read. There are stories of violence and victimhood, of bad choices and hard consequences, of misfortunes and lessons learned the hard way – positive stories generally aren’t risky to tell, after all. It’s a fascinating collection but not for the faint of heart, and if you can get through it without tearing up at least once then you are a more hardened person than I am. <br /><br /><b>The Ankh-Morpork Archives: A Discworld Anthology, Volume 1 (Terry Pratchett and Stephen Briggs, illustrated by Paul Kidby) </b><br /><br />Of the mining of popular franchises there is no end. But for those of us who love the franchise and miss it now that the author is gone, these bits and bobs of further explorations into the dark corners and deep recesses of the world created are irresistible and fun, so perhaps that’s not such a bad thing. This large-format heavily illustrated book purports to be a guide to some of the guilds of Ankh-Morpork, the main city of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. Ankh-Morpork was a gritty, run-down, venal and ramshackle place that managed to be vibrant and functional almost despite itself, in stark contrast to the usual pristine Cities that populated the fantasy genre when Pratchett started the series in the 1980s. And that messy humanness was precisely the point, even – and especially – if it often extended to non-human species. In this volume we discover the inner workings of the Unseen University (where the wizards are), the Assassin’s Guild (nil mortify sine lucre), the Thieves Guild, and the Post Office, along with a table of significant dates and a pile of Kidby’s eccentric illustrations. It’s a lovely stroll down memory lane for any Discworld fan. <br /><br /><b>The Ankh-Morpork Archives: A Discworld Anthology, Volume 2 (Terry Pratchett and Stephen Briggs, illustrated by Paul Kidby)</b> <br /><br />Basically a continuation of the last volume, except with a red cover instead of a blue one. This volume covers the City Watch, the Fools’ Guild (with the running joke that these are the least funny people in the entire Discworld), Reformed Vampyres, and Lu-Tze (one of the Monks of the Discworld). This set has been a nice way to walk through the Discworld again, and perhaps I will have to reread the actual books sometime soon. <br /><br /><b>The Water Knife (Paolo Bacigalupi) </b><br /><br />The American Southwest lives on borrowed time. There’s nothing particularly magical about this statement – just the simple math of population versus water. It’s desert land. It was never made to support cities and large scale commercial agriculture. And when the aquifers are exhausted and the rivers dry up, as they inevitably will, there will be blood. Into the maelstrom of a parched and dying Phoenix comes Angel – a “water knife” working for Catherine Case, who controls the water supply for Las Vegas and most of the surrounding states in the ramshackle and Balkanized husk of what used to be the United States, a collapse that occurred in living memory for all of the characters in this book. Angel, originally from the Cartel States that were once Mexico, is one of her hatchet men, cutting off water from areas Case doesn’t want to have it, occasionally with missile fire. Lucy is a journalist in Phoenix, watching the city die around her. Maria is a refugee from Texas, despised and poor like the rest of her fellow Texans, and doing what it takes to survive even as she dreams of better times across the hard borders of California or points north. This is a soft-apocalypse noir of a book, with double-crosses and triple-crosses, rampant and often brutal violence, squandered opportunities, and a general sense this is as good as it will ever get until it gets worse. It is a world of casual cruelty where the weak are destroyed simply because they can be, where the strong survive until they meet someone stronger, and where basic human decency rarely goes unpunished. If there’s a hero in here it’s Angel, though that may be stretching the term a bit. He understands the game he’s playing, and even when double-crossed he rarely takes it personally. It’s just how things work in his world. Bacigalupi is a good writer and – aside from a rather poorly thought out bit of romance intruding into the plot for a bit – it’s a compelling story. And like all soft apocalypse stories, where there is no one Event that brought about collapse just the death by a thousand cuts of current trends, it’s all the more frightening for its recognizability. <br /><br />Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03463621516644789183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5977625681756554695.post-67905210983357216142024-01-01T09:49:00.000-06:002024-01-01T09:49:46.558-06:00News and Updates<div> </div><div>1. No, we haven’t gotten our Christmas cards out yet. It was a long year, mostly good though entirely without rest. Maybe by Groundhog Day. <br /><br />2. The house feels a bit empty without Mithra. I suppose we’ll get used to it. We do still have Midgie, who may or may not have figured out that anything has changed, and during semester break we’re cat-sitting for Max’s kitty David S. Pumpkin, who is a whirlwind of his own. <br /><br />3. We celebrated my birthday on Friday, since trying to do so on my actual birthday – a few days before Christmas – is almost never a winning cause for anyone. We had homemade General Tso Chicken and brownies for dessert, and afterward we cranked up the tunes (did you know that if you ask Spotify to play the entire <i>Breakfast in America</i> album by Supertramp on repeat nobody will come along and stop you?) and played Phase 10, and as far as I am concerned a better birthday cannot be had than sharing food, time, and stories with my family. <br /><br />4. We were planning to celebrate Oliver’s birthday last night but he had Places To Be – one of his friends was having a dinner party – so we moved the egg rolls and chocolate chip cookies to lunchtime instead. Happy birthday, Oliver! I’m proud of you.<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwIK8uDioyyv9H5mKtTR6lzk6nmIxmLPgXUgmoE5r1HebjrT36SdBEa3uzT7SlDe1Jg8Lt1p4GwD7W1OnGb4U0WWGkn-DenR8f7QxHARZ9mxRtJfPGM3ufCRrxNOxPszGr8Oqe66AxF35s118LuGgqcagqSYNXBwmsaIMPtJeOlQqN0zmz0zW1vHPwp2M/s6000/IMG_7811.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwIK8uDioyyv9H5mKtTR6lzk6nmIxmLPgXUgmoE5r1HebjrT36SdBEa3uzT7SlDe1Jg8Lt1p4GwD7W1OnGb4U0WWGkn-DenR8f7QxHARZ9mxRtJfPGM3ufCRrxNOxPszGr8Oqe66AxF35s118LuGgqcagqSYNXBwmsaIMPtJeOlQqN0zmz0zW1vHPwp2M/s320/IMG_7811.JPG" /></a> <br /></div><div><br /><br />5. Lauren also had Places to Be, as she and several friends went out to dinner and then out in general afterward, so our New Year’s Eve was quiet. Kim and I watched the Packers game – they’re 8-8 now and looking a whole lot more like a winning team than my 11-5 Eagles – and generally hung out. We made it to midnight and promptly turned out the lights and that’s not a bad way to spend New Year’s really. <br /><br />6. I will be posting my annual book review posts sometime soon, though there will likely be some delays. I’ll get to them. It’s been a light year for reading, as it has been a heavy year for everything else. Having both time and spoons at once has been tricky to manage. <br /><br />7. One of the things we did while we were in Tennessee was pull out a box of question cards. They’re meant for people to ask their grandparents about the Old Days, but Lauren decided to ask all of my generation at the B&B instead, and it is a lovely thing to tell old stories to people who are interested in hearing them. <br /><br /><i>Before everything, before even humans, there were stories. A creature at a fire, conjuring a world with nothing but its voice and the listener’s imagination. … And after: after fire and death or whatever else happens next, after the wiping clean or the gradual decay, after the after, when there are only a few creatures left, there will be one at a fire, telling a story, to whatever family it has left. It was the first thing, and it will be the last. </i> (Welcome to Night Vale) <br /><br />8. There is something vaguely ridiculous about being in a grocery store at 6pm on New Year’s Eve with a basket full of cheese, and we need more ridiculousness in our lives that way. <br /><br />9. Oliver and I have been watching Flyers games on recorded delay as the evenings have been busy of late. They’ve long been an entertaining team to watch – they work hard and don’t quit – but they’re actually doing well of late, much to everyone’s surprise. As a Philadelphia fan I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop, but I’m going to enjoy it while it lasts. <br /><br />10. Happy New Year’s, folks. Let’s be careful out there. </div><div><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRBedpM1Y4TPCJ3nLk-c9adGa7u9fTnjKYp0FY1v0-YgrP_hIaJ0IFSPjTmF5H81Uxrh2LrFHw8ii_HOegIYFjjjVs-gwf82FW3SWSnP9hjJ-Y64CTGBT90nXNQldh0WcafMYeI1xALqH33tfDfEUP5gSf07A7zexNhQirIY6Wmn9Dl8ROcf_qm3q76U8/s1200/Sgt%20Esterhaus.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRBedpM1Y4TPCJ3nLk-c9adGa7u9fTnjKYp0FY1v0-YgrP_hIaJ0IFSPjTmF5H81Uxrh2LrFHw8ii_HOegIYFjjjVs-gwf82FW3SWSnP9hjJ-Y64CTGBT90nXNQldh0WcafMYeI1xALqH33tfDfEUP5gSf07A7zexNhQirIY6Wmn9Dl8ROcf_qm3q76U8/s320/Sgt%20Esterhaus.jpg" /></a><br /></div><div> <br /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03463621516644789183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5977625681756554695.post-74904534420988858722023-12-30T15:59:00.000-06:002023-12-30T15:59:44.393-06:00Mithra<div> </div><div>Smudge ran away on New Year’s Eve 2004. She wasn’t much of a housecat, to be honest. She’d been given to us by a friend and we only had her for three months, the first six weeks of which she spent hiding in our basement and the next six weeks skulking around avoiding us. She got out on a grey, rainy day with the temperature just above freezing and we figured she wouldn’t be gone long but she never came back and eventually we stopped looking. <br /><br />Maybe five weeks later we went to the Humane Society to get another cat. We wanted a friendly one and there was a grey cat – a “blue mackerel tabby” if you want the correct cat-show term – who played with us in the little room where you can go before making any decisions so we took her home. Her name at the pound was Smokey but when five-year-old Oliver started referring to her as Smokes we figured we needed a new name. I wanted Mithrandir – “grey wanderer,” as any Tolkien nerd can tell you – and Kim agreed if we shortened it down to Mithra. We often called her Pookie for some reason. We collectively decided her birthday was Labor Day 2004 since that seemed to be about the right age for her when we got her. <br /><br />She was a good cat for a family. She was patient with small children and generally friendly to everyone else. She’d play all sorts of games. I still laugh at the Paper Bag Incident. Somewhere we have a video of her careening down the sliding board of the old swing set we had in the back yard when the kids were little. She did her part to control the wild rabbit population in the neighborhood, much to the annoyance of some nitwit who left us an anonymous note about it. We gave her more treats for it. She put up with 4H Cat Shows, vet visits, and – grudgingly – Midgie. She had an extra-long tail that she could lay between her ears when she was younger. It would dangle between her eyes as if she were some deep-sea fish. <br /><br />She’s been fading bit by bit for a while now, which you’d expect in a 19-year-old cat. She’s been blind for over a year and our living room became a Geriatric Cat Facility, with a set of stairs up to the sofa where her pet-warmer electric pad was, and a big mat where we could feed her the kitty snacks and wet food we thought would help her gain some wieight even as she slowly got thinner anyway. <br /><br />When we got back from Tennessee we could see she’d declined pretty steeply despite being well cared for while we were away. That happens with old cats. She couldn’t really stand anymore, and her fur was looking disheveled. We set her up in the downstairs bathroom and tried to keep her hydrated but when you put together a cat hospice there is only one way that ends. <br /><br />This morning it was clear that things had run their course, and eventually we found a veterinarian who was open on the Saturday before New Year’s. All four of us went with her, and all four of us brought her home to rest. <br /><br />She’s buried in the back, in the little pet cemetery that we’ve slowly created in the nearly three decades since we moved into this house, among the rabbits and turkey chicks. We all took turns and sent her off into her next adventure. <br /><br />Fare thee well, Mithra. You were a good cat, and well loved.<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWue-VCdOseSzOaJImtbn7-Wz7ABAR3dnK8ocfyAi2BZESv85hCaEWqRtaBmTfwRA31q14LHT0kcWd_YgUHf1Vor8e-kW0vtfxncIFB8Sy7ydbjeE_LcLWuO8hLutUPxSD_sqp4wQlI2kIvy7V-egFjwDclTzC3h8MNHqDU_ZlSVtP-vkoO720weVef74/s6000/IMG_6802.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWue-VCdOseSzOaJImtbn7-Wz7ABAR3dnK8ocfyAi2BZESv85hCaEWqRtaBmTfwRA31q14LHT0kcWd_YgUHf1Vor8e-kW0vtfxncIFB8Sy7ydbjeE_LcLWuO8hLutUPxSD_sqp4wQlI2kIvy7V-egFjwDclTzC3h8MNHqDU_ZlSVtP-vkoO720weVef74/s320/IMG_6802.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div> <br /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03463621516644789183noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5977625681756554695.post-22558017964219515002023-12-29T13:18:00.000-06:002023-12-29T13:18:40.412-06:00A Bear Grylls Christmas<div> </div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Improvise, adapt, overcome. </i><br /></div><div><br />We were looking forward to going to Tennessee to see my family for Christmas this year. It’s been a while since we were all together for that – with blizzards, plague, and study abroad years it hasn’t happened since 2018 in fact. We missed seeing everyone, and this year we had Plans. <br /><br />As the old saying goes, however, “Man plans, God laughs.” Whatever version of a deity you happen to find suitable for your needs and however broadly you define “man” to include some, most, or all of the wide panoply of genders, the sentiment never changes. <br /><br />In the end our holiday didn’t look a whole lot like how we thought it would go, but we did get to see everyone we’d hoped to see and we had a lovely time doing so. I like to think Mr. Grylls would be proud of us, even if endurance hiking is not something my family generally includes on our list of things that make for a good day. <br /><br />The original plan was fairly simple. <br /><br />We were going to drive from Wisconsin to Tennessee, where my aunt and uncle live, on the 23rd – the first day we could get away after the semester. It’s a long drive but an easy one and we’ve done it enough that it presented no real barrier. My brother Keith and his family would fly down from NYC to meet us, as would my cousin Chris and his husband (also Chris). My cousins Elizabeth and Paula and their families live close enough to their parents that they would make their own arrangements. And since we are now too many to stay at my aunt and uncle’s house all at once, we’d stay elsewhere. Kim found a fantastic B&B about a 20-30 minute drive away where we and my brother’s family would spend our time in Tennessee. It’s actually a horse ranch, and I can testify from personal experience that there were in fact horses there. We’d head over to my aunt and uncle’s for Christmas Eve (the big holiday in my family) and Christmas Day and then do something else the next day before returning to Wisconsin on the 27th.<br /> <br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_8Ks0_qkEp-NLQMGn8H6DPg6G6BWWtSypJMXwdiaF3I8zx5tJKg3BX9il58RZHpU4P2X6KoRjdiz5qCtwOUCA-Wy-nU5Qzg-r_ZCgMRSaCtORZtAxG6w45Vrr4sBSzz-eTYKkfMwnDJVBgDt6vhZyEiZZPqOza0fyeR9neSxeyMvE5lgumE-zXjhnSa4/s6000/IMG_8390.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_8Ks0_qkEp-NLQMGn8H6DPg6G6BWWtSypJMXwdiaF3I8zx5tJKg3BX9il58RZHpU4P2X6KoRjdiz5qCtwOUCA-Wy-nU5Qzg-r_ZCgMRSaCtORZtAxG6w45Vrr4sBSzz-eTYKkfMwnDJVBgDt6vhZyEiZZPqOza0fyeR9neSxeyMvE5lgumE-zXjhnSa4/s320/IMG_8390.JPG" /></a> <br /></div><div><br /> </div><div>Easy. Lots of moving pieces, but fairly straightforward as these things go. <br /><br />The Tuesday before all this was scheduled to happen, however, Aunt Linda let us know that she had Covid. She would be cleared for public activities on Christmas Eve so we could keep our schedule pretty much unchanged but Chris and Chris decided that it would be better for all concerned if they stayed with us at the B&B and fortunately it was a big enough place that this was not a problem. Their flight got down there a day before we would arrive so Kim made arrangements with the host for that. <br /><br />We set out on the 23rd fairly early, as one would want to do for a long drive, and other than the fact that it was foggy for pretty much the entire state of Illinois there weren’t any real challenges. We didn’t even stop for lunch. We’d packed all sorts of snacks and beverages and picked up various other foods and drinks at our gas stops, and we all wanted to get there sooner rather than later. Chris and Chris were already there. Keith, Lori, Josh, and Sara arrived not long before we did. We headed up to the upstairs living room to hang out and enjoy everyone’s company and the chili that one or more of the Chrises had made. <br /><br />This is when we found out that Plan had been altered. Linda was still testing positive and not feeling well, so Christmas Eve would be moved to the B&B. Christmas Day? Not determined, but probably moved as well. So: new Plans. <br /><br />First we needed a menu. How many of the Seven Kinds of Fish could we pull together for Christmas Eve? What kinds? Who would make what? Was the grocery store even open on Christmas Eve to get supplies? And what kinds of pots and utensils did we have to work with? Fortunately we are all the sorts of people who pitch in and solve problems, and pretty quickly we figured out we could do five fishes – the odd number being the most important thing, though if we had ended up with an even number we agreed we’d just note how odd that was and go from there. My group – the only ones on site who hadn’t had to fit everything into a plane – had also brought cheeses and salami to set out beforehand. And the Tennesseans were bringing things as well. We had a PLAN! <br /><br />The next morning started slowly, as we filtered out of our various rooms, congregated in the big dining room of the downstairs apartment – the B&B actually had two separate apartments, though we had both of them – and discovered that nearly all of us play Spelling Bee and Wordle. It’s actually kind of nice to sit there with other people playing along with you, trading notes. Chris and Chris had already done one big grocery run so there was breakfast. <br /><br />Eventually we set about preparing for the day. It turns out that even in Tennessee you can find an open grocery store on Christmas Eve morning. It was in fact doing land-office business – I’ve never seen a grocery store completely out of cocoa powder before – and we looted the place. We got back and then it Was ON. We had two different kitchens and put both of them to good use making smelts, scallops (a quickly cobbled together recipe that involved a number of substitutions and turned out quite well by all accounts), a potato and fish dish called Jansson's Frestelse, and Caesar salad, which has anchovies in the dressing so that counts. I volunteered to make the spaghetti with clam sauce. Food arrived with my Tennessee cousins. When you have a good crew willing to put in the work, you can do pretty much anything. Somewhere in there Uncle Bob and Aunt Linda also stopped by for a short visit. It was warm enough for most of that to be outside. <br /><br />Improvise, adapt, overcome. <br /><br /> <br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqIjXwa6P69l78xT9fkXX9Vp_hsmiCC8UnM2-2tewRQ0WGIKoRoK2LNCNxpED8zF43_giBvQGgxhA8YmC5ZMB3Xn0LEMCDT0z530VQtgxDMvWwbQJhUFIiHiP0EcZ7FNF-PEQiAwg8AONtAM42XQvVtycX3iV3h1uXH4Sc0s5-995AW9B0QUhL1Pa72Ow/s5330/IMG_8204.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqIjXwa6P69l78xT9fkXX9Vp_hsmiCC8UnM2-2tewRQ0WGIKoRoK2LNCNxpED8zF43_giBvQGgxhA8YmC5ZMB3Xn0LEMCDT0z530VQtgxDMvWwbQJhUFIiHiP0EcZ7FNF-PEQiAwg8AONtAM42XQvVtycX3iV3h1uXH4Sc0s5-995AW9B0QUhL1Pa72Ow/s320/IMG_8204.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1wGMYPIm1_ioeG1wYdW1VmZUyM61wnN2Mh7gbvjO0z1xWETspnnRsJVOLTNAODMqW6IfojsmCgugmjVUJWYwLKCKitOEuDGeStysh06kFAMHwnzkccdE_ILAE7LhBpWcED1ey9j1c00yrS7qvATWI_vJ9CqoOxF4yTNWTOapR_yNr5lgGlwKUM58VU_k/s4508/IMG_8208.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1wGMYPIm1_ioeG1wYdW1VmZUyM61wnN2Mh7gbvjO0z1xWETspnnRsJVOLTNAODMqW6IfojsmCgugmjVUJWYwLKCKitOEuDGeStysh06kFAMHwnzkccdE_ILAE7LhBpWcED1ey9j1c00yrS7qvATWI_vJ9CqoOxF4yTNWTOapR_yNr5lgGlwKUM58VU_k/s320/IMG_8208.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuVzKh0ThcH1tJ0a3bsuBl_gemNQLE5u5AWH6T755GXFaHMxQfo9dQuuYz34NZ85yrnLn0y_C8El90YevuIHwF_aA1Kvbw3bAcinMVoGopH4fw8b66pxBcyPFQK227sUCrrNJKPaIBembjk44A9jOFl5pD1TaNRyVnI3zPS-laMWnM_4Qtrb02cwenJKo/s6000/IMG_8209.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuVzKh0ThcH1tJ0a3bsuBl_gemNQLE5u5AWH6T755GXFaHMxQfo9dQuuYz34NZ85yrnLn0y_C8El90YevuIHwF_aA1Kvbw3bAcinMVoGopH4fw8b66pxBcyPFQK227sUCrrNJKPaIBembjk44A9jOFl5pD1TaNRyVnI3zPS-laMWnM_4Qtrb02cwenJKo/s320/IMG_8209.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNZ-bLBjqoemhyvP-2n1nGi-ceP_Ay02E_t2cGX_K_UaQqRD7y51xAb9uOd2nN11jrS_EX-RGsb5WBxstRLCGrlE8BGlPSoPB9nmjJruxXBJogdI0Ir-EvzZZ108uCgDFKqc1xr2k9icssJT1dToCa0PlosRl_-hSJOXHN2TBFtdgb990C4pG2D_dXSgI/s6000/IMG_8211.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNZ-bLBjqoemhyvP-2n1nGi-ceP_Ay02E_t2cGX_K_UaQqRD7y51xAb9uOd2nN11jrS_EX-RGsb5WBxstRLCGrlE8BGlPSoPB9nmjJruxXBJogdI0Ir-EvzZZ108uCgDFKqc1xr2k9icssJT1dToCa0PlosRl_-hSJOXHN2TBFtdgb990C4pG2D_dXSgI/s320/IMG_8211.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_o7NRLJfjxD_kfhlXLm3M5S3HWFCkFihZ_K4AKNAc7g9vrxm3eBw9gf8ywIObjqHQPmugzLRag98luyLMyiDLubULgh3Q_4SRncmAAubQ2VAVSeddZeE-o24W8knA3U5SK5H5t9utSc3YRZPu_-Pg3UBh6_L8NFP6pcEtNd0tdefbsGAW87ok5EpyjzQ/s6000/IMG_8212.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_o7NRLJfjxD_kfhlXLm3M5S3HWFCkFihZ_K4AKNAc7g9vrxm3eBw9gf8ywIObjqHQPmugzLRag98luyLMyiDLubULgh3Q_4SRncmAAubQ2VAVSeddZeE-o24W8knA3U5SK5H5t9utSc3YRZPu_-Pg3UBh6_L8NFP6pcEtNd0tdefbsGAW87ok5EpyjzQ/s320/IMG_8212.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-__FYXEERsvIdDR3SFb1I16A1ZV3_AoMrjEyAXuMizXE-Zqsa6estQTlO2bkoUXO1_5ZDqre2y4fmIO2jH8Miy07UPvgWDv6B1NSPbos1LOQhMS4qq_Q4eCPkyEA6aACvtiQOBg0xe-dyxef6E7DDIa6tgfxxnnmrU7c5B8NMsQra_fHZs1caim7cXj8/s4978/IMG_8214.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-__FYXEERsvIdDR3SFb1I16A1ZV3_AoMrjEyAXuMizXE-Zqsa6estQTlO2bkoUXO1_5ZDqre2y4fmIO2jH8Miy07UPvgWDv6B1NSPbos1LOQhMS4qq_Q4eCPkyEA6aACvtiQOBg0xe-dyxef6E7DDIa6tgfxxnnmrU7c5B8NMsQra_fHZs1caim7cXj8/s320/IMG_8214.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /><br />It was a lovely dinner, with good food and good people all around. You can’t ask for more than that out of life, really. There was a moment, sitting there, when it really hit home how fortunate we all were to be sitting there, together, amid the noise and hubbub of conversation and food. We’ve all moved up a generation now, and the traditions continue. <br /><br /> <br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtimRZebsvuqcsUiELOYyjsed3SW3vTErbGVYiQtKh5JlR6JYd9vLCmUNt5lZEB9dMSQfKCfrEs5SV4uDRB8gZ-Cu4P-DTrEbOFpLaspv3Ig3gfNoQMDKq4z3uiI5PUaSyy2wNgGegfFb7W9mR0NZPXRs45gOaO1F8BMU4ArpkFIUYz7CwkdcmFQIcDtE/s6000/IMG_8222.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtimRZebsvuqcsUiELOYyjsed3SW3vTErbGVYiQtKh5JlR6JYd9vLCmUNt5lZEB9dMSQfKCfrEs5SV4uDRB8gZ-Cu4P-DTrEbOFpLaspv3Ig3gfNoQMDKq4z3uiI5PUaSyy2wNgGegfFb7W9mR0NZPXRs45gOaO1F8BMU4ArpkFIUYz7CwkdcmFQIcDtE/s320/IMG_8222.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKAAgoWmSt2_OVzgAYOWSxBp_PvueGsjbHMm0ktu3WiVIhlxa9B13kmYGUexi7Vfsahlo9V_3TG_jkyvCrqzeWicYzrbmdZ1pH5HpIJz8QVM3UgFiZnktzRVXTR6UalGgkgT34jtpqLQobGegMM3yptzrDIBQccODvTL2dTfl2N3HUHjYP_A8xWfbO36c/s5379/IMG_8226.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKAAgoWmSt2_OVzgAYOWSxBp_PvueGsjbHMm0ktu3WiVIhlxa9B13kmYGUexi7Vfsahlo9V_3TG_jkyvCrqzeWicYzrbmdZ1pH5HpIJz8QVM3UgFiZnktzRVXTR6UalGgkgT34jtpqLQobGegMM3yptzrDIBQccODvTL2dTfl2N3HUHjYP_A8xWfbO36c/s320/IMG_8226.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghYGw12meVcqWRYuDjtgjMh3ldoYYscrmGt_wzW-tqqyagDraEVuPP18yaDR2aDnyVUMFTGbn9h8MDl_G-sIFmkyaeE5UOD0BnAh3EJ8ofFOE31ThANljSLDa-PQHoayHypul_3T5NJG_pi0i-9FTPBeKU_Gcfi82f6sYJtGdyZvMX-HhIjL09C5vSi2c/s6000/IMG_8233.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghYGw12meVcqWRYuDjtgjMh3ldoYYscrmGt_wzW-tqqyagDraEVuPP18yaDR2aDnyVUMFTGbn9h8MDl_G-sIFmkyaeE5UOD0BnAh3EJ8ofFOE31ThANljSLDa-PQHoayHypul_3T5NJG_pi0i-9FTPBeKU_Gcfi82f6sYJtGdyZvMX-HhIjL09C5vSi2c/s320/IMG_8233.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2haMs1BZX4sn5hX9sQSTWRatkEziLuo-7sBuvqhyDQXkR1QFf4T3OkXB34AwgIdsOkF1J66y-pf_nQxC13x3E1SfjTRf_RN3hFU4pk3JiPc_CVuRNNzs49raOutYsZuwwEBvBvBWXktUKkEmIcyj5mmHxShlwP8tY8ZXlO846FXvqyN1Vm4N3Ec-mWiA/s6000/IMG_8236.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2haMs1BZX4sn5hX9sQSTWRatkEziLuo-7sBuvqhyDQXkR1QFf4T3OkXB34AwgIdsOkF1J66y-pf_nQxC13x3E1SfjTRf_RN3hFU4pk3JiPc_CVuRNNzs49raOutYsZuwwEBvBvBWXktUKkEmIcyj5mmHxShlwP8tY8ZXlO846FXvqyN1Vm4N3Ec-mWiA/s320/IMG_8236.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKQB91m6ECSazM1u9rUrVr6qz0W2mTFumOgZHKH26NqsoWo8N4_xXRI04CnNZZRD9RdBgU9Fxdg96_F9th3wWkW1-1YZSVXsqDewAnsKPKGWhHHGIz2WuApd7-Y6DmBPGcfQlIwZkoFEe6oqqcvEy5J-9JO3fCrQH3-dDslt6rt40hoMZdSLjPDe01bHk/s5366/IMG_8239.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKQB91m6ECSazM1u9rUrVr6qz0W2mTFumOgZHKH26NqsoWo8N4_xXRI04CnNZZRD9RdBgU9Fxdg96_F9th3wWkW1-1YZSVXsqDewAnsKPKGWhHHGIz2WuApd7-Y6DmBPGcfQlIwZkoFEe6oqqcvEy5J-9JO3fCrQH3-dDslt6rt40hoMZdSLjPDe01bHk/s320/IMG_8239.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghrUyJkcgKVUOlpK_3e0uW4uaYmcVAJyDSJ6GgtljKGPCTBcJwxU4zsLPfjyfdT4numj5VJwNnXKdrGSyE2OFY_d4sLE9iQF8JHnJgeypJjBPPDepioASasYYtfVsqY1OgFCefd4tS1lJgQoKEkKGv8ZGhZ3I3-fWlWxKVaoUwlZNZjX0_39zyewbx3vE/s4000/IMG_8243.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghrUyJkcgKVUOlpK_3e0uW4uaYmcVAJyDSJ6GgtljKGPCTBcJwxU4zsLPfjyfdT4numj5VJwNnXKdrGSyE2OFY_d4sLE9iQF8JHnJgeypJjBPPDepioASasYYtfVsqY1OgFCefd4tS1lJgQoKEkKGv8ZGhZ3I3-fWlWxKVaoUwlZNZjX0_39zyewbx3vE/s320/IMG_8243.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWuHkLoJbviOGQ3vMiQgHpSMixRnhgouwINk1SbfLMBMMy9taNXwBrCANpVK70v0iZQ_Mz7ARbosMOpLleZYFyZsyrUiFXlUOR9HRqE15dAH2SQD_wHj5EWI0Pfq-wKavlVU9hI6f3t75MwbEAtMLVerSu3W8j5OwLFb7cK57_QeDosY7sKRKMKcY4Phk/s6000/IMG_8246.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWuHkLoJbviOGQ3vMiQgHpSMixRnhgouwINk1SbfLMBMMy9taNXwBrCANpVK70v0iZQ_Mz7ARbosMOpLleZYFyZsyrUiFXlUOR9HRqE15dAH2SQD_wHj5EWI0Pfq-wKavlVU9hI6f3t75MwbEAtMLVerSu3W8j5OwLFb7cK57_QeDosY7sKRKMKcY4Phk/s320/IMG_8246.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /><br />This year only the youngest cousins had the traditional Christmas Eve gifts, though. Eventually they too will graduate to the Dice Game, and won’t that be a time? For those new to this space, the Dice Game is an easy and vastly entertaining way to simplify the gift-giving season. You set a budget – usually around $35 total – and you buy two gifts, one nice and one funny. You wrap them up and arrange them all into six piles. You roll a die, pick and unwrap a present from that numbered pile (accompanied by appropriate reactions, which vary widely depending on what you end up with), and pass the die to the next person. Eventually everyone has two gifts and then the action really begins. You set a timer and get several pairs of dice, and once the timer starts the dice go flying around the table. Anyone who rolls doubles can swap something with another person. And when the timer stops, you get what you have. Of course that’s when the real horse-trading begins, so it’s never quite over. But that’s the gist of it. <br /><br /> <br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX_3r92myXHTyI_xAtuOhLV9KkpqhCDF4IKmJjV7WZ88KyLc6qgzfWofv1TF2jsTWUiz4BUxjD8L1hwpJ1_6VYkjoFNJxds8fTNFiCNvLgFUWTz0jFQr-wG9uSoPs59CHnnzQoGez5upiQQPjEYBET0ax_Mn9Ic4CTFIWQ-9Qk5WpArZBL0iy4ou0pnqo/s6000/IMG_8252.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX_3r92myXHTyI_xAtuOhLV9KkpqhCDF4IKmJjV7WZ88KyLc6qgzfWofv1TF2jsTWUiz4BUxjD8L1hwpJ1_6VYkjoFNJxds8fTNFiCNvLgFUWTz0jFQr-wG9uSoPs59CHnnzQoGez5upiQQPjEYBET0ax_Mn9Ic4CTFIWQ-9Qk5WpArZBL0iy4ou0pnqo/s320/IMG_8252.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBQlFFhVHdo4utn_nHPc9XMF0wuk5SJr3z8YkZEFu8vW5BbJ6hP3oGwhzlSmKswZiYt0d3n_hvrQ_Lsx9CYNAEiphahvC24tsSLTRo0bsESc27KrrTultSTigylIcWyoYKnttSs3SHqFFXayD4kwcH5EvldpzZJWAivsXU90LaUO30pp-PPRZKqXuhs0c/s6000/IMG_8258.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBQlFFhVHdo4utn_nHPc9XMF0wuk5SJr3z8YkZEFu8vW5BbJ6hP3oGwhzlSmKswZiYt0d3n_hvrQ_Lsx9CYNAEiphahvC24tsSLTRo0bsESc27KrrTultSTigylIcWyoYKnttSs3SHqFFXayD4kwcH5EvldpzZJWAivsXU90LaUO30pp-PPRZKqXuhs0c/s320/IMG_8258.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyCviszrVNEfMS48SXlotHxDBIbLbM09jIy7JlZ1O0iUlhQv6DYXCyrC_pdwAejgPT93jv_AA36gOPCOVnAe-S6EOz0qC1iqO2-Ua2b9jUG19jRy-lNQOGf0I6FKqtqgk84vhNx1ttAV2zoI4z_bqYc0t7GAJtqlq-I5os4iNUBjw3nGcYqmfHxtqju1Q/s6000/IMG_8259.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyCviszrVNEfMS48SXlotHxDBIbLbM09jIy7JlZ1O0iUlhQv6DYXCyrC_pdwAejgPT93jv_AA36gOPCOVnAe-S6EOz0qC1iqO2-Ua2b9jUG19jRy-lNQOGf0I6FKqtqgk84vhNx1ttAV2zoI4z_bqYc0t7GAJtqlq-I5os4iNUBjw3nGcYqmfHxtqju1Q/s320/IMG_8259.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHfUOneoXUJOVACzi-NpYtUPAiJzdktGUpvJbhaNIawxEaVzMk9wFie9_hQ1mBvi9oDEC6rF2af01mFDBM6jnUJIGHOmwHci9DtfZ_P3XlSMB4uU0KZPMTDNhqzV2RO84MD4xWphhyphenhyphenYVN81k5ZQXkl73741xXUZOdxf2AwA3LrPOn3QmRynV8_jxaFq-c/s6000/IMG_8266.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHfUOneoXUJOVACzi-NpYtUPAiJzdktGUpvJbhaNIawxEaVzMk9wFie9_hQ1mBvi9oDEC6rF2af01mFDBM6jnUJIGHOmwHci9DtfZ_P3XlSMB4uU0KZPMTDNhqzV2RO84MD4xWphhyphenhyphenYVN81k5ZQXkl73741xXUZOdxf2AwA3LrPOn3QmRynV8_jxaFq-c/s320/IMG_8266.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjTVhL-q4Hq8JKVNbDu4hYJvuzRBL_husoKFM-r8tkiySL9TI86DSaAhKXt-O7YzqCX6S4ioz-jgyXbXsXAb7j2RVNwJ4cQTUX5nNseekCKln69a7uE0taJxvelRo-eaWO6Gl_Z1Cgo8I9eJK6myT3pq8hwPLDwD68MCQyAGHG_8tRY0g9lecS4GhspHk/s6000/IMG_8267.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjTVhL-q4Hq8JKVNbDu4hYJvuzRBL_husoKFM-r8tkiySL9TI86DSaAhKXt-O7YzqCX6S4ioz-jgyXbXsXAb7j2RVNwJ4cQTUX5nNseekCKln69a7uE0taJxvelRo-eaWO6Gl_Z1Cgo8I9eJK6myT3pq8hwPLDwD68MCQyAGHG_8tRY0g9lecS4GhspHk/s320/IMG_8267.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8zk6xEJcrzcpAzzNEwGgsmTS9by_AAmobPB44hplJcuIKOkPAzAzhrzDN8-HBNzyHXk91IpPFNMHcHvBJ3YgnsXl-uE5ijhLUt9HzaqikdQP1rdtnJB70DrKXVeLSIO-y5hYup6Co_X5iiHzBisMsv7PvZRSNJFowtPoFvX_N9eBIzrUR3mJqlKZjov4/s6000/IMG_8271.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8zk6xEJcrzcpAzzNEwGgsmTS9by_AAmobPB44hplJcuIKOkPAzAzhrzDN8-HBNzyHXk91IpPFNMHcHvBJ3YgnsXl-uE5ijhLUt9HzaqikdQP1rdtnJB70DrKXVeLSIO-y5hYup6Co_X5iiHzBisMsv7PvZRSNJFowtPoFvX_N9eBIzrUR3mJqlKZjov4/s320/IMG_8271.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinsjoTMpoVg2ywnj3b2pyS283NUqV1EWHJLpzK618Q_hmehw5RL-OG_XIhgc6RV3UePtC2_D_37SCikJvrrZ6tWBRbAYGB5lrkj4ao9zSrqjD0fP2FAIUamksuF2eFt2F8AQ7B4Dn5B-v5lqmnEeAjeOanwzq_-ojYhroDQDLCmHK8qjLsP88TcB5MBRw/s6000/IMG_8279.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinsjoTMpoVg2ywnj3b2pyS283NUqV1EWHJLpzK618Q_hmehw5RL-OG_XIhgc6RV3UePtC2_D_37SCikJvrrZ6tWBRbAYGB5lrkj4ao9zSrqjD0fP2FAIUamksuF2eFt2F8AQ7B4Dn5B-v5lqmnEeAjeOanwzq_-ojYhroDQDLCmHK8qjLsP88TcB5MBRw/s320/IMG_8279.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /><br />We had a grand time. <br /><br />Eventually people went home and it was just the B&B crew, and we spent the evening playing Codenames and generally hanging out. It was a good end to a good day. <br /><br /> <br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp3FF4a7FmWHxUeNjb7OcbpOW1Szu4SLfUYRJi0tqFpdoR2hq-gvELG9oRKd6f95CF6Sr6kv-nFwKNkNNAxDS6zD4O0dcL6obF2-Bf9SJi3-VL_XuKMccF8hq0uwaxkp4smoef9ll15-E9cJxaKs6curGwL95rUP47WcPXWNkSsYSDrT_Gw2U0yhdOjTU/s6000/IMG_8281.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp3FF4a7FmWHxUeNjb7OcbpOW1Szu4SLfUYRJi0tqFpdoR2hq-gvELG9oRKd6f95CF6Sr6kv-nFwKNkNNAxDS6zD4O0dcL6obF2-Bf9SJi3-VL_XuKMccF8hq0uwaxkp4smoef9ll15-E9cJxaKs6curGwL95rUP47WcPXWNkSsYSDrT_Gw2U0yhdOjTU/s320/IMG_8281.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /><br />The next morning was warm and rainy, and we ate breakfast and did our Spelling Bee and it was a calm start to the day though I was happy to see Wolves win. When everyone was up and moving we did our family gifts, including the stockings, and got ready for Christmas dinner – macaroni and meatballs, fittingly enough. My uncle had brought over a vat of gravy (spaghetti sauce to the rest of you) and we got everything ready for when my cousins came over. I made a pitcher of Aperol spritz, because why not. We watched the Eagles pull out a narrow victory over a far inferior team, which doesn’t bode well but a win’s a win after all. We did crafts and played with gifts. And we did another round of the Stair Photo, which will get a separate post of its own. And when it was just the B&B crew left we played Codenames again and hung out. Eventually it was just me, Keith, Lori, Lauren, and Oliver around a coffee table, talking late into the night. We’d made it through the events of the holiday, and perhaps the next day would be low-key. <br /><br /> <br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiUZ2OSY_d180ti3vFOzwu7ZrOFiAoKOC31mtOfWEmQxmiB8dFQtjhmCaeaJVvDr7axgaHGKexneG1obMYN_8CrFz4wDQqPTLAlH9Ya1uWSfvZPc2k8jk8ulieDgNJWbDAQ6dj7kIIvGpCfrLUOd9_zEw0Xc4EWBctcMo9imqAFI6dk4T13FEY-QInGV4/s6000/IMG_8284.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiUZ2OSY_d180ti3vFOzwu7ZrOFiAoKOC31mtOfWEmQxmiB8dFQtjhmCaeaJVvDr7axgaHGKexneG1obMYN_8CrFz4wDQqPTLAlH9Ya1uWSfvZPc2k8jk8ulieDgNJWbDAQ6dj7kIIvGpCfrLUOd9_zEw0Xc4EWBctcMo9imqAFI6dk4T13FEY-QInGV4/s320/IMG_8284.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a 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src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKlFJ7A8Mb4zZX2X2MSeahGSv_BqIznXgRHNNS3hARCxHhjT1JPk_2y6d3ff9SqsS06QJZ07EMkxPM17gRGGOZoS-J6K_Ye-3uyfpuwvNZ21WK69_vXSim9cTVpITvpy_39c2qpNaz37a2Ota_nEsGF975RElKMaTi_qVEYokp1Gp7tKQHVoLXqnuAoME/s320/IMG_8382.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /><br />And then the power went out. <br /><br />Lauren and Sara were the first to notice, since they were up hanging out with each other, and after a while they came in to let us know but since it was the middle of the night and there was nothing we could do about it we figured we’d just sleep. Surely things would be repaired when we woke up. This turned out not to be true, as blown transformers take a while to fix. <br /><br />Kim and Chris went on a coffee run for everyone who enjoys coffee, and as the house got slowly colder we came up with another Plan. <br /><br />Improvise, adapt, overcome. <br /><br />Step one of the plan was lunch. There was a diner that Chris and Chris had found before we arrived and which a) was open and b) they recommended, so we went there for lunch. Oliver found a fellow Sleep Token fan and we had more good food and conversation, so three cheers for step one of the plan. <br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZy2dHPfrlZQTe57g97II7HWOi3mVpqcYAtoXNsgc0e88sJ0QtD2E6Ce1LkUnMhupijpEVwXb2j6KuI4_sMC1jCG-ATJx4BJGTLuqQpisokT6LmrTY6PqRIZf0rsRkuBpGfMyWJvDXgs7vifeezU7BqxnuX52g5Wrc3l23KdSBumQ4RDHFWAeGhbLonSg/s6000/IMG_8394.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZy2dHPfrlZQTe57g97II7HWOi3mVpqcYAtoXNsgc0e88sJ0QtD2E6Ce1LkUnMhupijpEVwXb2j6KuI4_sMC1jCG-ATJx4BJGTLuqQpisokT6LmrTY6PqRIZf0rsRkuBpGfMyWJvDXgs7vifeezU7BqxnuX52g5Wrc3l23KdSBumQ4RDHFWAeGhbLonSg/s320/IMG_8394.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh09kQNNExe_E-RuHRgWwtWWFXmLY_tYwhdRtV8o7CoT5t5DKbOI5hdE-r27DQonYGdiafIXfG7nBFR54dh9Z9YlPBvXwToJV3Etn46NP-Enx-81aUjJWaiwU0n2bW94DOWd-Z3LvTbuk1_o3CAY0M7XvoyfMHK4sEhk4anyAoDCLnog95ac9uXStanHYo/s6000/IMG_8391.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh09kQNNExe_E-RuHRgWwtWWFXmLY_tYwhdRtV8o7CoT5t5DKbOI5hdE-r27DQonYGdiafIXfG7nBFR54dh9Z9YlPBvXwToJV3Etn46NP-Enx-81aUjJWaiwU0n2bW94DOWd-Z3LvTbuk1_o3CAY0M7XvoyfMHK4sEhk4anyAoDCLnog95ac9uXStanHYo/s320/IMG_8391.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div> <br /><br />Step two of the plan was to spend the day over at Elizabeth and Brian’s house, which we thoroughly colonized. We had more games (Taboo and Mexican Train Dominoes being the main ones) and general hanging out together. Aunt Linda and Uncle Bob came over for a short while. And rather than stress people out with another big cooking adventure we ordered pizza.<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuFfffo7ThKmxZZBinhWZOvVJDcH80rGGhr4txyDOovfdt00o9PZySpksC6qzSFrCvD55AbCmepzo9iWZ2FuURd7cssne89atN5e4YoRH-OFAyLVyPeaH5OcZjNDeqQ3GM3lEvL2OJ3ySqRuYAHILCpfD5HQYnK8EhgOjE3fyUOeRfJzVvdyHrPctFi-s/s6000/IMG_8397.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuFfffo7ThKmxZZBinhWZOvVJDcH80rGGhr4txyDOovfdt00o9PZySpksC6qzSFrCvD55AbCmepzo9iWZ2FuURd7cssne89atN5e4YoRH-OFAyLVyPeaH5OcZjNDeqQ3GM3lEvL2OJ3ySqRuYAHILCpfD5HQYnK8EhgOjE3fyUOeRfJzVvdyHrPctFi-s/s320/IMG_8397.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsppOmWVW84WQMkicQvslPgeHRCD25L_zg8QDIUBVTuJGU9o0rqtkqV4N5iqTvS1LNb7baf4EUyWnX_lLReyOaCREFLk8wA5P3ZOGlkHnlWLe9XIES83A0quQfdrY-GeuNdxifH2kMRnB1l1EzAl6eGqcAJbwnP5Juf_LBtGrgxzcJQSDisFEJB3PQAaw/s6000/IMG_8400.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsppOmWVW84WQMkicQvslPgeHRCD25L_zg8QDIUBVTuJGU9o0rqtkqV4N5iqTvS1LNb7baf4EUyWnX_lLReyOaCREFLk8wA5P3ZOGlkHnlWLe9XIES83A0quQfdrY-GeuNdxifH2kMRnB1l1EzAl6eGqcAJbwnP5Juf_LBtGrgxzcJQSDisFEJB3PQAaw/s320/IMG_8400.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJU3H7WWEi1YtcT0hue3LUeNrfqm-76j2GoZgvSOvQpNczBhZPDv1KK8M9LY4jp5XO0eQRGXO3BoJDU2ZHrPvUFYJccyZNzGvP8MvWNrbnzu9nD9fPfzDim2VCWfArHfbBicM71putMfXcyVdyB6yg-g6rFBF_6F8GldVyN1nC5HU3wILoWTk2_tkqnQI/s6000/IMG_8401.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJU3H7WWEi1YtcT0hue3LUeNrfqm-76j2GoZgvSOvQpNczBhZPDv1KK8M9LY4jp5XO0eQRGXO3BoJDU2ZHrPvUFYJccyZNzGvP8MvWNrbnzu9nD9fPfzDim2VCWfArHfbBicM71putMfXcyVdyB6yg-g6rFBF_6F8GldVyN1nC5HU3wILoWTk2_tkqnQI/s320/IMG_8401.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmKhH-LF2JPBO945LejrOGg6RMwQSsAVupetgvrliLdPh18xKkdxaH9aQg5ZgG_DT5M9B4GJ5B_rlDKNiVavbfFfDPLuhlwyxad1fZSVeGiGy2Y9uJFpreryGQczMmVmQFgEHB0ACdpnVLZjlIksg-ZrcXVmhTPq9HzGCtdJY-3Vip2xJ9MIA_QfD6uhI/s4000/IMG_8405.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmKhH-LF2JPBO945LejrOGg6RMwQSsAVupetgvrliLdPh18xKkdxaH9aQg5ZgG_DT5M9B4GJ5B_rlDKNiVavbfFfDPLuhlwyxad1fZSVeGiGy2Y9uJFpreryGQczMmVmQFgEHB0ACdpnVLZjlIksg-ZrcXVmhTPq9HzGCtdJY-3Vip2xJ9MIA_QfD6uhI/s320/IMG_8405.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS6Z1pd_bXCJgdgGy4jEXBCNyNbjkMVYnPz6M74_ry4HNW5WvaYFHuAoRzXjp9_KlUaRn6rCb20BPHhvpDU2vAlS0imklkw29uqtGZa2vlVhlqHZBWHAPSxa5m9W5J6fSR7CXXDayDDMRGaIbXb1F4YT5TmGJkh7V0VSPUd3QBGVo5qG913uvol3D8f_E/s6000/IMG_8404.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS6Z1pd_bXCJgdgGy4jEXBCNyNbjkMVYnPz6M74_ry4HNW5WvaYFHuAoRzXjp9_KlUaRn6rCb20BPHhvpDU2vAlS0imklkw29uqtGZa2vlVhlqHZBWHAPSxa5m9W5J6fSR7CXXDayDDMRGaIbXb1F4YT5TmGJkh7V0VSPUd3QBGVo5qG913uvol3D8f_E/s320/IMG_8404.JPG" /></a><br /></div> <div><br /><br />Win all around, I say. <br /><br />They fixed the transformer by midafternoon, so we were able to go back to the B&B without any further backup planning. We packed up and cleaned and the next day bright and early we all headed back to our respective places, another holiday successfully managed. Though why it is so tricky to drive through central Illinois, I don’t know. <br /><br />It was good to go and see everyone. It was good to come home. It will be good to go back. <br /><br /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03463621516644789183noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5977625681756554695.post-39570374779064988392023-12-22T12:35:00.001-06:002023-12-22T12:35:15.378-06:00News and Updates<div>1. I am now older, though whether I am any wiser is an open question I suppose. I spent most of my birthday grading exams because that’s the life of an academic, but I did get to spend some time with family and friends and we’ll do an actual celebration of my birthday sometime after Christmas when we all have time and energy for it. The odometer has now officially flipped over to the next digit and my resale value has declined accordingly, but I am okay with that. <br /><br />2. Speaking of odometers, my car hit 200,000 miles this week. I bought the car new back in 2007, and most of the driving has been city miles. It’s a reliable little car, and I’m sorry they don’t make them anymore. I almost got to see it happen, too. Kim and I met up with Lauren and Max for dinner on Tuesday to celebrate the end of finals. We drove up separately so Lauren could have the Vibe for a few days to get some errands done. When I parked the car it had 199,997 miles on it. I considered driving it around a bit, but Lauren agreed that she would take a picture when the odometer flipped over and so she did. Happy milestone, little Vibe!<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCACMC7VNBqg6KtlHSrwt4FM1Ka_OJYaacJJEwzws4YbozagYzOUaChekB5JUEiU88rqxBH1AZRwKw5mtKi3i-kPEmwKseS_k-xVRi-L9-Mn1MLcgdsXVOWpjmGX__kX4KIEhMa-p1EOmRhUDgwTsExTHlSKWqeqd-CglKlJ5g_mChLFXHn7-SWKj-uyo/s4032/IMG_4054.heic"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCACMC7VNBqg6KtlHSrwt4FM1Ka_OJYaacJJEwzws4YbozagYzOUaChekB5JUEiU88rqxBH1AZRwKw5mtKi3i-kPEmwKseS_k-xVRi-L9-Mn1MLcgdsXVOWpjmGX__kX4KIEhMa-p1EOmRhUDgwTsExTHlSKWqeqd-CglKlJ5g_mChLFXHn7-SWKj-uyo/s320/IMG_4054.heic" /></a> <br /></div><div><br /><br />3. The Christmas tree is set. The presents are (mostly) wrapped. We’re about as ready for the holiday as we’re going to get. This is a relative measure.<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9sbEJ1-mCT-aCx4pB0kJRn7EUje5YaZboi3EBr5aNObEr-FLWZdabDUXtSqpAUN4l1ARUzxtvZHVGnoRhMzzijaAjn1VsDDVpIvz-eU7y0NO_HzrP9Qo1nbO6J-xjfKlv4XEebQEMtPrLHDWzFI3DUPoiDZv5ayZzhWjL8iByMNrTreYgPJfT6xSJqFQ/s4032/IMG_4026.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9sbEJ1-mCT-aCx4pB0kJRn7EUje5YaZboi3EBr5aNObEr-FLWZdabDUXtSqpAUN4l1ARUzxtvZHVGnoRhMzzijaAjn1VsDDVpIvz-eU7y0NO_HzrP9Qo1nbO6J-xjfKlv4XEebQEMtPrLHDWzFI3DUPoiDZv5ayZzhWjL8iByMNrTreYgPJfT6xSJqFQ/s320/IMG_4026.HEIC" /></a> <br /></div><div><br /><br />4. For Tim, because he asked – here is a photo of The Worst Deck of Cards in the World:<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjELU8Vj0uwAR-V6FGxVm21H0NWPTLMXq6YqfYzEZ8xybAEqDst5vdy6f0zNi5RXirTH2w60UYXJ1dqlpOUHjChiKDxXqYyF4wMDM0ZfagckYxesR3NxzdGop5ri1qlrbTHji611XOk31vT3taG1Cua_uJMqfTungaDMopIbXjiURUsDaZztGqwPoFkXIg/s4032/IMG_4041.HEIC"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjELU8Vj0uwAR-V6FGxVm21H0NWPTLMXq6YqfYzEZ8xybAEqDst5vdy6f0zNi5RXirTH2w60UYXJ1dqlpOUHjChiKDxXqYyF4wMDM0ZfagckYxesR3NxzdGop5ri1qlrbTHji611XOk31vT3taG1Cua_uJMqfTungaDMopIbXjiURUsDaZztGqwPoFkXIg/s320/IMG_4041.HEIC" /></a><br /></div> <div><br /><br />It is a talisman in our family, and we would not part with it. <br /><br />5. Oliver got back safely from his trip to the UK. He and Dustin are fans of the band Sleep Token, which seems to have a very Deadhead-like community of sociable fans and this summer they found out that the band would be playing in Wembley Arena. The tickets were surprisingly inexpensive so they bought some, on the theory that if they couldn’t figure out how to get there they’d only be out the price of the show. But Dustin is an Air Travel Wizard and it all worked out for a lovely time there, seeing the sights, traveling around, and gathering at various social events with their fellow Sleep Token fans. They even got to meet up with our friends Richard, Magnus, and Ginny! So, win all around. It was, by all accounts, a memorable show as well. <br /><br />6. Picking Oliver up at O’Hare was an experience, though. Happy holiday traveling, folks! It’s a zoo out there. <br /><br />7. The Colorado Supreme Court – a notably nonpartisan court, according to the legal experts I’ve read recently – has now explicitly ruled that Donald Trump engaged in insurrection against the United States and is therefore disqualified from holding office. I have no doubt that this will be appealed to the Supreme Court and the Court will dismiss this on some technicality in a straight-line partisan vote with the ineradicably tainted Clarence Thomas voting with the majority. But the walls are closing in, and it is possible, just barely possible, that the malignant stain of MAGA will be bleached out of the American political scene in my lifetime. One can hope. The fact that Trump has any support whatsoever is a damning indictment of American morality, patriotism, and intelligence. <br /><br />8. The end of the semester is always such a madhouse, and my office looks like a tornado ripped through a paper mill. It’s not going to change until January, either. We’ll see. <br /><br />9. My favorite student evaluation this year was the student who said I needed to develop a sense of humor because I didn’t seem to find any of their jokes funny and that was just awkward. I’m going have that one framed, alongside the one from a few years back when I was teaching on a campus in a deeply right-wing area that said the best way to improve the class would be to get a Republican to teach it next time. A toast to you, kind students. <br /><br />10. We’ve passed the Solstice and from now the days get longer and the nights get shorter, and I may be one of the few people in the world who regrets that but so it goes. <br /><br /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03463621516644789183noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5977625681756554695.post-50083874605832129242023-12-18T21:30:00.001-06:002023-12-18T21:30:36.365-06:00December 18thIt’s December 18th and I have no idea how that happened because the last time I had a firm sense of the actual date it was June. <br /><br />It’s December 18th and the month is more than half over which means that soon it will be 2024 and this cannot be serious because the passage of time has not felt real since March 2020 despite so many things happening since then, many though not all of them wonderful. <br /><br />It’s December 18th and it will be Christmas in a week and it was only this past weekend that I managed to lift my head above the end of the various semesters that I am involved with to start thinking about gifts or decorations and the idea of writing a Christmas card seems remote to the point of absurdity. <br /><br />It’s December 18th and the days are getting to their shortest point which means the nights are getting to their longest point and I’ve always preferred nights over days anyway. <br /><br />It’s December 18th and it feels like it’s still November outside, grey and rainy and not in the least wintery the way it normally feels in Wisconsin in December and the climate isn’t changing, folks, it has already changed and this is the new normal until it gets warmer still. <br /><br />It’s December 18th and I still have students making appointments for advising this week because their lives are just that much up in the air and it’s good to have them making appointments when they have questions but it is historically rather uncommon at this late date, especially since finals are over. <br /><br />It’s December 18th and the holidays are different from what they were back when and that’s just the way of things and you can lose the present if you think about the past too much so you might as well enjoy the people and times that are here with you now. <br /><br />It’s December 18th and a few days of nothing pressing would go down well after the mad rush of the last however long but I’m not holding my breath. <br /><br />It’s December 18th and that only happens once a year so you might as well celebrate it. <br /><br />Because tomorrow it will be a day later. <br /><br />Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03463621516644789183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5977625681756554695.post-13089574627969206232023-12-13T22:17:00.000-06:002023-12-13T22:17:28.262-06:00The Hotel Harrington<div>The Hotel Harrington announced its closure the other day, which brought back some old memories. <br /><br />For those of you who never had the pleasure, the Hotel Harrington was the place to go if you wanted to stay in central Washington DC without going bankrupt. It was old and cramped and long past its prime when we were there and it made no pretense to be anything otherwise, but it was mere blocks from the National Mall and pretty much right on the path to anything else in that city, as much as anything is on any path in a city that has two completely different road systems – one grid and one wheel-and-spoke – overlaid on top of one another. The places where a grid intersection hits a wheel-and-spoke intersection on a tangent can be a quarter mile across with traffic islands scattered about like poppyseeds on a bagel and you take your life in your hands as a pedestrian in DC so a hotel that minimizes walking to your destinations is a good thing, especially if you can afford it with a family of four on an academic salary. <br /><br />We stayed there back in 2008, shortly before I started this blog, and I never did end up writing anything about that trip. <br /><br />By that point in their lives Oliver and Lauren were old enough that we could drive from Wisconsin to Philadelphia with them, and that summer we decided that we’d make a tour of things. We visited friends in Pittsburgh, stayed with my parents outside of Philadelphia, and spent some time down the Jersey shore as all good Philadelphians must do in the summertime. It was a lovely trip. <br /><br />On the way from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia we stopped in Washington DC for a few days and stayed at the Hotel Harrington. <br /><br />Our room was on an upper floor, somewhere closer to the top than the bottom, facing away from the main street. It had a prime view of the building next door and overlooked the Walgreens on the corner down below, which would turn out to be useful. It had two double beds and just enough floor space to put our suitcases down if we didn’t mind stepping over them to get anywhere, and it had a bathroom covered in the kind of small black and white tiles that went out of style with the New Deal. <br /><br />But it was more than enough for what we wanted from it. <br /><br />It was maybe a four minute walk to the Smithsonian, where we checked off the first of the required elements for that trip – the National Air and Space Museum. Oliver and Lauren insisted on seeing the Wright Brothers plan that is displayed there, and we spent a happy time of things exploring the rest of the place as well. It also has the Natural History Museum (dinosaurs! rocks!), and the National Portrait Gallery, where I made the mistake of describing a gallery of Dutch Master works as “paintings of men with hats and beards,” a description that, while accurate, was apparently not what the situation called for.<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjepw9qMksDa82hyphenhyphendvjX5TqNWrYUlQ4DVefBH8A3T27wjPamGVysbl9uYfCpCS91i07fly0ersxFIcIbiWYMrB0trljNd5yD7yaiMfXDx0lQnYWbSjwsy7_oJQq8MeIqsSChQJ_WXcnUPp1bt8oYfzZafujEbF6-3wyZCZq49rJV3eUFLKE8r9GjKr-530/s3264/IMG_0838.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjepw9qMksDa82hyphenhyphendvjX5TqNWrYUlQ4DVefBH8A3T27wjPamGVysbl9uYfCpCS91i07fly0ersxFIcIbiWYMrB0trljNd5yD7yaiMfXDx0lQnYWbSjwsy7_oJQq8MeIqsSChQJ_WXcnUPp1bt8oYfzZafujEbF6-3wyZCZq49rJV3eUFLKE8r9GjKr-530/s320/IMG_0838.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihR0dxYnOscd1Q4fMX0YGBo-pZHjq42MlGyZtkRW4k1MbpiMTb21CIOYxoS_iyh-9RuCmAhTO43PvrLD4dWxFBy15b5BKhEuiu-WaX7IgE4o5k2l7dEBRjDTS3WYEOjqk-m2xnEVKJL27d5AzZi0_I-u6VCJZeNFdaOrIA3HwhXRppeLWmpYdCANNCGuY/s3264/IMG_0856.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihR0dxYnOscd1Q4fMX0YGBo-pZHjq42MlGyZtkRW4k1MbpiMTb21CIOYxoS_iyh-9RuCmAhTO43PvrLD4dWxFBy15b5BKhEuiu-WaX7IgE4o5k2l7dEBRjDTS3WYEOjqk-m2xnEVKJL27d5AzZi0_I-u6VCJZeNFdaOrIA3HwhXRppeLWmpYdCANNCGuY/s320/IMG_0856.JPG" /></a> <br /></div><div><br /><br />At one end of the Mall you have the Washington Monument, and we spent some time there both staring up at it and going inside to the top of it. The tickets for that are free – or at least they were at the time – but you have to get there at about 7am to get them before they are gone. I remember standing there in the rain to collect them, and then walking back to the Hotel Harrington with my prizes. Caveman Dave! Need tickets! Forage for tickets! Return to cave! It was worth it. You ride up on this tiny little elevator, and then you have just the best view of the city you’ll ever have.<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkV5-ODZJ80B0yv-RQUlmn77d0RylBHx6mXYykQzS8FaQkqGxBnIvJ5kuzF0OsILc9gG4o6m-h0idbaAGn_IFCm-EWm9t13VacdbB0jRkqMona5qNiV04t4lt-YUVeSObsZT1SUsBRZ18V0MWzgSwwJDavPhwkb7lwKdv4r93mjn-zw_AeIlBuqBMXAIQ/s3264/IMG_0806.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkV5-ODZJ80B0yv-RQUlmn77d0RylBHx6mXYykQzS8FaQkqGxBnIvJ5kuzF0OsILc9gG4o6m-h0idbaAGn_IFCm-EWm9t13VacdbB0jRkqMona5qNiV04t4lt-YUVeSObsZT1SUsBRZ18V0MWzgSwwJDavPhwkb7lwKdv4r93mjn-zw_AeIlBuqBMXAIQ/s320/IMG_0806.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVN7cwZ6T9STa1ADVt5OhlMNvp9H_EwhBWa9yK22T3jweSjtcbZ7_ikLoDHDhL8OysWxYRaLPCnQTUqCrO1xWe_vXQMdchZOTlUusBd5mbjdLqWU-9kvAda67zp26OiaKAI2_mgmGJm6P0an7PhPb2tK5t9YS7YS2zDBM9cNAFkcKCHJ3YwNDvVm9x4Cw/s2620/IMG_0850.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVN7cwZ6T9STa1ADVt5OhlMNvp9H_EwhBWa9yK22T3jweSjtcbZ7_ikLoDHDhL8OysWxYRaLPCnQTUqCrO1xWe_vXQMdchZOTlUusBd5mbjdLqWU-9kvAda67zp26OiaKAI2_mgmGJm6P0an7PhPb2tK5t9YS7YS2zDBM9cNAFkcKCHJ3YwNDvVm9x4Cw/s320/IMG_0850.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvVyGM-ZStNcCLH2QR75YpdXGfeQvfrtPAFscGxZdO29A7qGyP9CH1ihcZ2kR49xm9T_5o2UvcIYyU2mAEew6NS8fj6-K4UGSLJ8SWSsNfnS2NS9okuZYiC3TVGBMAkSEzSTjbvNN4l7kFLp1rmOaRk_cBZ3xNXJgydgttpPTUCc0QEcEolQXADySdvl4/s3264/IMG_0843.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvVyGM-ZStNcCLH2QR75YpdXGfeQvfrtPAFscGxZdO29A7qGyP9CH1ihcZ2kR49xm9T_5o2UvcIYyU2mAEew6NS8fj6-K4UGSLJ8SWSsNfnS2NS9okuZYiC3TVGBMAkSEzSTjbvNN4l7kFLp1rmOaRk_cBZ3xNXJgydgttpPTUCc0QEcEolQXADySdvl4/s320/IMG_0843.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivywj8yLue8_orct1gVq4_Z4voVe7I0GBq4-K_uTAj58_nABkIEipvTuvKUlbawGRpd5AJT_l9k03cI8Zjs3LCINtpmWdwjXzzyyY42X_-oKZtqZKl6J91jQmnHz4HZncS8n9ai8knluOjqMMqR1ESJxYwRN1gI4W_ZEsOKRJNJSF6KW5hu9COn6WVuI8/s3264/IMG_0845.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivywj8yLue8_orct1gVq4_Z4voVe7I0GBq4-K_uTAj58_nABkIEipvTuvKUlbawGRpd5AJT_l9k03cI8Zjs3LCINtpmWdwjXzzyyY42X_-oKZtqZKl6J91jQmnHz4HZncS8n9ai8knluOjqMMqR1ESJxYwRN1gI4W_ZEsOKRJNJSF6KW5hu9COn6WVuI8/s320/IMG_0845.JPG" /></a> <br /></div><div><br /><br />On the other end is the Lincoln Memorial, perhaps the most sacred public space in the United States. <br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBREeXusWmRqaZrP7EOStpqyiu3kk3txfX2KYpwQmmuhq6KwcxJknGnNn4f-IuNVSMKkbsaLYxJGMCnY9dNHIl5AnKp3Ljn1hpEZno8DhgIapyTXqimIRGWCHzGhhdgUpAT0OljXxMCbya7fCzKSiqZz4Mmnf1kqPRRa3W9tnILfsRHpovjAUNZY4t4g4/s3049/IMG_0830.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBREeXusWmRqaZrP7EOStpqyiu3kk3txfX2KYpwQmmuhq6KwcxJknGnNn4f-IuNVSMKkbsaLYxJGMCnY9dNHIl5AnKp3Ljn1hpEZno8DhgIapyTXqimIRGWCHzGhhdgUpAT0OljXxMCbya7fCzKSiqZz4Mmnf1kqPRRa3W9tnILfsRHpovjAUNZY4t4g4/s320/IMG_0830.JPG" /></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTBcMWx9sCNcd2P5sQEPX_WcypAgxUV4DPTDy88bc_sgF_Lh2_xVl2ODcZZNFz2ziREpAa0tpIZElm7Aimcc8eAvW6IfQn6kGe_7BP6zAsDGJc04mZ7iSJpdlBNBPNb5ScXnhyOhXj8Mssuc5BBn5FSw9iJdx-7hmRO83zkW1YfcPfy9mVydrnfW-HlYs/s3264/IMG_0831.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTBcMWx9sCNcd2P5sQEPX_WcypAgxUV4DPTDy88bc_sgF_Lh2_xVl2ODcZZNFz2ziREpAa0tpIZElm7Aimcc8eAvW6IfQn6kGe_7BP6zAsDGJc04mZ7iSJpdlBNBPNb5ScXnhyOhXj8Mssuc5BBn5FSw9iJdx-7hmRO83zkW1YfcPfy9mVydrnfW-HlYs/s320/IMG_0831.JPG" /></a> <br /></div><div><br /><br />It was hot that trip, and we spent time by various fountains, time running through grass watering systems, and a fair amount of time eating ice cream.<br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6prBr3JbPfWZ0lyjgCaZlt_h__s1a-WBtIbtXf0rIrV6SBS9QALSZtkuF8rxD2z1pFGFWgUP66YrmqI7pbIEcUfx8SzOkNJD9q_zVN_vhZRr-2DgZktiXbJzngGdI3brlQoBzAuUqqdwCRi0ieiNcGVoyK4csrGaPHKfm6N_rxefozn0C4WwfkF-OIO0/s3264/IMG_0811.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6prBr3JbPfWZ0lyjgCaZlt_h__s1a-WBtIbtXf0rIrV6SBS9QALSZtkuF8rxD2z1pFGFWgUP66YrmqI7pbIEcUfx8SzOkNJD9q_zVN_vhZRr-2DgZktiXbJzngGdI3brlQoBzAuUqqdwCRi0ieiNcGVoyK4csrGaPHKfm6N_rxefozn0C4WwfkF-OIO0/s320/IMG_0811.JPG" /></a><br /></div> <div><br /><br />We saw the original Constitution, and walked by the White House just to say we were there. They’re both things you should do at least once in your life as an American. <br /><br />One of the nicer memories of this trip was just the first night we were there, sitting in a hotel room the size of your high school gym locker, planning out our schedule for while we were in town. It occurred to us at that point that we needed some entertainment for this process, specifically a deck of cards – an item we had not packed. We looked out the window, noticed the Walgreens, and went down to get one. It was fairly late and apparently everyone in Washington DC had had the same idea sometime earlier that day, as the only deck of cards that they had for sale was one that was entirely, vibrantly, pink and white. The backs were pink and white. The suits – even the clubs and spades – were pink and white. The face cards were entirely pink and white. It was, as Oliver fondly describes it, “the worst deck of cards in the world,” and we have treasured that deck ever since. Oliver used to take it to school with him to play cards with his friends. It’s kind of a talisman around here, really. <br /><br />We sat there in the hotel with our pink deck of cards and our roughly sketched plans for the next few days and we played our games together and you don’t often realize when the good times are when you’re in the middle of them but we did that night and I will be forever glad to have stayed at the Hotel Harrington for that moment alone. <br /><br /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03463621516644789183noreply@blogger.com4