. . . Fifty Bucks

In Philadelphia, that is to say.

Some quick updates, as I have a lot of work to do still tonight.

Phil's laptop was safely received in Cambridge. As I suggested to him, the biggest "phew" of his life.

Marjorie made it to the hotel quite easily by train from Baltimore this afternoon. She and her mom and Barbara, when she was there, all had a great time. My loneliness was their advantage.

I took these shots out the window every day, so you're going to have to live with them. One day, fog, one day sunshine, one day bright sunshine, one day start of some smog.

Now, you might well wonder why the first shot is from a completely different angle than the other ones. That is because the first night I was in a different room, six floors above this one. Then, at 9am Monday morning, they started demolishing the door to the room next door, using crowbars and hammers. Literally, the room next door. The hotel didn't seem to think there was much reason why I should be in my room all day long apparently. Eventually, I got moved. Needless to say, I'm not going to be giving this place a good review.

The conference has gone well. My partner Joe Thompson had to wig out on showing up, though, so I had to put up the firm's booth all by myself. I think I did a good job.

I can already tell you the name of tomorrow's post: high anxiety. Tomorrow is the day we have two close connections in Boston and Dublin on the way to Rome, stand a good chance of losing our luggage, and so many other wonderful risks.

We should have internet access in Rome, so I'll hope to post then. After Monday, all bets are off.

Wish us luck!

Laptop Update

The laptop was indeed at the Sheraton downtown Baltimore, and Marjorie has it. She was going to box it up and send it to Phil by Express Mail.

Meanwhile, the Philadelphia Sheraton, where I'm staying, decided that 9am on a Monday was a great time to destroy the doorway of room 2631. I was in Room 2633. I don't want to talk about it.

Murphy has a Field Day

This is the day we all separated, and I wish that simply being alone in this Philadelphia hotel room were the worst thing that happened today.

We got up and packed, and that started the trouble. We had not only packed light, but every cubic inch of space was needed in our luggage. But we had had to switch a bunch of things around because Marjorie was going to take all the dirty clothes to wash in Mary's washing machine, while I was taking a bunch of things we had bought in Baltimore. The upshot was that in trying to close one of the outside compartments of my valpack, it ripped, right on the other side of the zipper, making that compartment completely useless, and losing us a significant part of our luggage capacity.

Feeling sick about that, we checked out of the hotel and went over to see Mary and Barbara, who had spent the night in Baltimore. After breakfast, Marjorie and I unpacked the stuff from the PT Cruiser and put it in Mary's car, and then returned the PT Cruiser to Avis.

Then we drove up to Towsontown Mall and bought a replacement Valpack. That worked out quite well, as Macy's gave us two discounts for the one we bought, and it is well designed, if an ugly color. At least, as Barbara suggested, we'll never have anyone else making off with it from a luggage carousel. The best description of it is electric sky blue.

At about 3:30, Phil asked a question: had we remembered to take his laptop out of the PT Cruiser. The devastating answer was: no. It was in a black computer case on the floor and neither of us had remembered that he had had more than one piece of luggage.

Luckily, he kept his thesis on a thumb drive he had in his pocket.

Avis was already closed for the day. There was really nothing to do right then, and we had to make the train.

As we drove to the train, Phil's phone rang. It was his lovely aunt, who had called Avis at BWI, from which we learned that someone had found a bag at the Downtown Baltimore office. The office doesn't open until 7am tomorrow, but we're optimistic. Marjorie left a note at the office as well.

At the train station, Phil told me that he had in fact not brought anything to read, as he was planning to work on his computer the whole ride back to Boston. So I lent him a book. I asked him if he was enjoying the book and he gave me a "beggars can't be choosers" look. And off he went.

My train ride to Philadelphia was uneventful, and indeed I don't plan to blog til we leave for Rome. Basically, I'm here to work. You don't want to have me blog about work. I don't want to, either.

See you on the other side.

Marlowe at the Shakespeare

This was posted yesterday but something crashed. Lesson learned. Well, see the next post to see if lessons were learned.

On Saturday, we got up early to get to Washington, DC by eleven, when Amelia and her friend Abi were supposed to meet Phil. When we got to the Russell Street entrance to the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, however, it was blocked off, with no signs, no detour (we later found out that there had been a derailment of twelve railcars, some containing hazardous chemicals; the last time this happened was in 2001, which was the day we had tickets to see the Orioles at Camden Yards, a game that was cancelled).

We followed a cab and then some other cars and eventually made it to the Parkway. From there, it was entirely uneventful to Washington, and even stopping for gas we were half an hour early to meet Amelia. We parked directly under the Sidney Harman Theater, and I took a picture of Phil in front of it.

It was so cold that we walked to Starbucks and bought stuff (they didn't quite get the idea of steamed eggnog with no coffee) just to keep warm. Amelia arrived as we left Starbucks, though without Abi. It was, as always, wonderful to see her, though Phil pointed out this was the first time he'd ever seen her in a really warm coat. So of course I had to take a picture.Marjorie and I left them to go to the National Gallery of Art, while they went to the National Portrait Gallery to await Abi.

At the National Gallery, we discovered that the Turner exhbiit was in the main gallery. Tbe exhibit we wanted to see, the Edward Hopper exhibit, was in the East Wing. In the cold, Washington's long blocks feel even longer.

As we were walking in, Marjorie noted that there seemed to be quite a line visible above the entrance, where the exhibit was. Since it was warm inside and we had time to kill, we went in anyway. Great choice!

I really can't overstate how good this exhibit was. You can see the website for it here: http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/hopperinfo.shtm

But, as Marjorie emphasized as we were leaving, it was seeing all the paintings together and in person that really made the difference. You could see how Hopper would make the centers of his pictures incredibly detailed, while often leaving the edges in more of an impressionist style, moving your eyes exactly as he intended. We also saw how, as he and his wife (often his model) aged, his interest in older people grew. While growing older, I can appreciate that.

We had lunch at Legal Seafoods, which had its sign in Chinese, although my shot of it didn't come out as well as I'd have liked. Also, no fish chowder.

Then we walked back to the Sidney Harman, where we met Amelia's father, mother and brother, who were hosting us at the theater's premier production, which is of Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine. There was an explanation on the website of the reasons why they started their Shakespeare theater with a production of Marlowe, but I really don't buy it. Phil and Amelia arrived soon after, having finally met Abi, who had been delayed by the Washington Metro. We caught up with the Sagoffs after we found our seats, which were surprisingly comfortable and had a huge amount of legroom. Given the show was nearly three hours long, it was nice to not have leg cramps when it was over.

The show was "interesting." The basic problem with Tamburlaine was that Marlowe preceded Shakespeare, and it was only with Shakespeare that the depth of character development and the moral arc of Elizabethan theater was invented. Tamburlaine was a huge hit in its day, but has rarely been performed since. You can see why both were true. It is great spectacle, and its foreign theme (it takes place in the Near East) clearly would have attracted the curiosity of the theatergoing public. But the play (actually two plays; Act II of what we saw was a sequel to what we saw as Act I, and was written after Shakespeare's Henry VI transformed history drama) has no real conflict, no real plot, no real character development. Basically, Tamburlaine wins all his battles, kills everyone who stands in his way, and dies. There is some hint at the end that he died because he had descrated the Koran, but it's only a hint. The more interesting characters are those he killed or imprisoned or enslaved, but their fate is hardly the stuff of cliffhangers.

It is, however, one of Phil's favorite plays, and since this was the first major production in his lifetime, he was very appreciative of the opportunity the Sagoffs gave us. And everyone agreed they were glad they got to see the play. In my case, because now I will never have to see it again.

We went to dinner afterward at a Tapas restaurant, and had a great time and a ton of food.

From there, we left the Sagoffs and made our way to Rockville to see cousins Jim, Lisa, Laura and Ally Onken. We were stuffed, but then Lisa had made this lovely looking set of brownies. We had a great time talking to them, and learned that Lisa's dad has taken up sculpture after retirement and her mom teaches psychology at Montgomery College. There are a lot of psychologists on both sides of the family. Neither girl seems inclined to take it up, though. Laura, in fact, is going to take the LSAT and look for JD/MBA programs. Ally is considering colleges, with Columbia the leader in the clubhouse. And Jim has a job that intersects a little with Marjorie's, to work on publications, including websites, for NIH.

Long day, long drive.

Twinsy T-Shirts

Not a very exciting day. We bought Marjorie a camera this morning, and she took this picture of Phil and I in our nearly matching t-shirts. Translation available for the Hebrew impaired. In fact, later in the day, we were at a bookstore where there was an author doing a signing and she asked me what the shirt said. She guessed Phil's knowing mine.

The rest of the day was pretty much like anyone else's Black Friday. It was wicked cold (nearly 40 degrees cooler than yesterday). We did go to AAA and a fabric store with Mary, one of her longer journeys from home lately. And Phil and I had our Friday night dinner at Alonso's. Tomorrow: more exciting stuff in DC with Amelia's family and then some time with Jim and Lisa and hopefully their kids.

An Answer to a 33-Year Old Mystery (and Happy Thanksgiving)

It got up to 70 degrees in Baltimore today. People were jogging shorts. And we decided it made sense to walk over to Roland Park Place, rather than drive. It's a short walk and, more importantly, others would need the relatively few parking places there more than us. Thanksgiving is a big day at a retirement home, particularly a high class one like this. While there are certainly such homes where people are never visited, at RPP there were many large extended families celebrating the holiday on campus. The guard was indeed saying, as we got there, "the parking lot is full." And that was before noon.

We actually saw our first "tourist" place on the trip, the Lacrosse Museum, on the campus of Johns Hopkins University and therefore direcdtly across the street from our hotel. Quite reluctantly, Marjorie and Phil posed for this picture.

The trees were simply perfect during the walk. Bright sunshine and vivid color.

Even the family was smiling in the sunshine. I shouldn't say "even the family, but you try to get them to pose in the cold sometime.

The rest of the day was pretty restful, reading, talking, resting.


Thanksgiving dinner, courtesy of Roland Park Place, was quite good. Mary had suggested that we get some dark meat along with the white meat, and it turned out the dark meat was quite moist and tasty. The squash soup was as good as we remembered from last year, and Mary took the last of the sweet potatoes and spooned out the last of the brown sugar syrup at the bottom.

Then Marjorie took out some photos that Mary had found, and ultimately a scrap book from when she was in seventh through ninth grades in Chapin. There were some photographs, some postcards, and then some really weird stuff. Weird as in "this was news in 1932?" For instance, Mary had spent some time in the summer with some relatives in St. Charles, Illinois. During this time, she had taken a girls' swimming class. And the St. Charles newspaper duly reported the names of all the girls who were taking the class.

Quite fun was learning about her acting career. She had programs from a large number of shows. Now mind you, there were twenty people in her high school class, and everyone in town knew everyone else. But it was fun to see her name in the program and then trace that she had in fact sung a solo and two duets in a musical, or had had the lead in a show.

We did find a script to "The Importance of Being Earnest." Mary explained that she wasn't in the show, but was made to join the show to replace someone, during which she had played one of the male servants. Which one, I asked? Jack's servant Merriman, she replied.

Phil, of course, had played Jack in the same play in high school. But more to the point, I had played Merriman in "Ernest in Love," the musical version of "The Importance of Being Earnest." Don't look it up, by the way; they had actually added the role to the musical just to give me a part.

More interesting, to me, was what was at the end of the book. Mary had pasted in a bunch of magazine photographs of opera singes, and amongst them was a large collection of photographs of Nelson Eddy. Nelson Eddy was a movie star and operetta singer, but the more important thing was that my mother had a cruch on him. Oh, heck, he's been dead forever, but my mother still has a cruch on him. And so, apparently, does Mary. This answers the 33 year old question, which is what Marjorie's and my moms have in common. Our dads had a lot in common: Jews raised in urban poverty who had terrible relations with their fathers and had broken a cycle of violence and raised themselves up by their bootstraps. But our moms came from such disparate backgrounds: Mary from a small town in Illinois, well-educated, with roots dating back to the earliest white settlements on this continett; Ruthe the child of immigrants, high school educated. But both loved their Nelson. Who knew? It's so nice Mary had that scrapbook!

Afterward, we decidd to go to the doorbuster sale at CompUSA, which opened at 9. I'm not saying this was a huge event, but it did have TV coverage.

We were glad of the items we bought, and got a chance to call Carol during the time we spent in line, but my God. The place was a zoo. There were people in line everywhere. We had shown up at 9:15, and they were already out of one of the advertised items. And the staff was about as badly trained as possible. Some lines moved and others didn't. We changed lines, and it was a huge mistake, because it appeared they changed the cashier right afterward. The guy we had could charitably be called inexperienced. Uncharitably: brain dead. He had a deer in the headlights look. Sometimes there were three people at the desk helping him, other times, no one at all. Right in front of us, there were five Asian boys with one cart. They ended up having four transactions amongst them, and each one involved rebate slips and arguments over wheher the items they had matched the ones in the ads. Nothing was marked with a price, so it was anyone's argument. Meanwhile, Phil had gone to stand in another line, but his line didn't seem to move either. But the logjam in his line seemed to end all at once.

Our own transaction took less than a minute. I knew the prices, the price we were asked to pay matched it, and I paid cash. We saved $50 and paid less than $40, so it was worth it, but afterward, Marjorie was beat. She said "Too bad there's nowhere I can get a latte in Baltimore this late."

I drove her to Dunkin Donuts and bought her a latte.

Enter Philip (thankfully not pursued by a bear)

A nice family day, and a nice day entirely.

For one thing, it was in the sixties and sunny in Baltimore. Two years ago, it was snowing when we arrived, so this was a major improvement. It really looks like fall has barely arrived, and it feels like spring.

We slept in until we discovered how unsoundproof the doors of the hotel room are, and then got some pastries for breakfast and went to see Mary Mary asked for us to print out the blog for her. Mission accomplished.

I took a nice picture of Mary and Marjorie.

We went to get extra keys made for Mary's apartment and we admired the window at the Tomlinson Collection. Marjorie said that if she ever got rich, she'd just buy the whole inventory.

I took some video of the Tomlinson Collection clocks. Click on the arrow below and you can see it. It's only a couple of seconds long.

One item really caught our eye: a dragon large enough for a two-year old to use as a rocking horse. We looked at each other, and it was one of those moments when you realize your generation has just reached a different point in its history. I said, "If we only had grandchildren."

By then it was time to go pick up Phil at BWI. His plane was fifteen minutes late taking off, and fifteen minutes early landing. And he had no trouble with security at Logan. It appears that they have overstaffed for the holiday, which is making everyone's holiday experience so much better. Keep it up (yeah, like they would).

We stopped for lunch (Greek salad and cheesesteaks, Baltimore food in our parlance) and I took a shot of Marjorie and Phil under this gorgeous flaming red tree in front of Roland Park Place.

Then I figured you'd like to see their punims.

Barbara was there by the time we got there, and we left her and Mary to take a walk while we went to run some errands. We had brought some gifts for all of them and the room the gifts had taken was reserved for some toiletries we bought in Baltimore. When you're traveling light for a month, you have to take these things into account.

It was darker, but we decided before we left them to get everyone under the tree.





It's quite a tree, really.

Dinner was an assortment of cheesburgers from Tambor's, the best diner-Indian restaurant in the world. Not to be confused with our favorite pub-Indian restaurant in North London. I wish Tambor's had as nice a cauliflower dish, or a branch in Bangalore, for that matter. Barbara showed us some exhibit brochures from what is going on at the National Gallery of Art, including a Turner exhibit (saw a lot of him at the Tate) and an Edward Hopper exhibit, which got us quite excited. As we have promised to take Phil to Washington early on Saturday, I suspect we'll do the Hopper exhibit. I'll check out what's at some other museums, too. One thing for sure, I know the National Museum of American History is closed. I mean, why should our country ever show off its actual attic?

Jetlag caught up with us, and off we went.

Travel Karma: The Yin and the Yang

We're not the world's most experienced travelers, but we've been around the block a few times. Most days are pretty good, in our experience, if only because we're together, or we're with good friends or loved ones, or we're in exotic places. Some days aren't so great. I remember getting some pretty awful diarrhea the first time we were in Paris, and a pharmacist prescribing something that made it worse.

Today wasn't like either of those kind of days. It was up and down like Space Mountain. Meaning it was up and down and we felt we were in the dark for much of the day.

Bad Karma 1. The first thing was to discover that no matter where we looked, we couldn't find Marjorie's camera. She had been looking for it sporadically for awhile, but this morning we systematically turned the place upside down and couldn't find it. Anyone have odds on us finding it the day we get back?

Good Karma 1. On the other hand, we had a very quick and easy taxi ride to the airport, despite the First Avenue South bridge going up on our way. The driver, showing savvy, went around all the cars and found that the carpool lane over the bridge was nearly empty (we were like the seventh car in line).

Bad Karma 2. So we get to the airport, and the monitor says that the 10:30 flight (the one before ours) is delayed to 12:30), but lists our flight (also scheduled for 12:30) as ontime. Only the woman at the Alaska Airlines desk tells us that our flight is delayed, and that more information will be available at 12:45. In other words, they have absolutely no idea when it is going to leave. She was clicking on her keyboard for a long time (I assume trying to see if there was space on the delayed 10:30 flight), but ultimately just left us with the boarding passes.

Good Karma 2. The security line had only five people in it ahead of us. Although they actually took out our lunch, Marjorie thinks because the lettuce looked weird on the x-ray, we were through in 2 minutes.

Bad Karma 3. Our first stop after security is always the Dilettante. I had a bunch of completed punchcards (it takes a little over a week for me to fill it, what with "Double Punch Wednesdays" and all). So after we found a nice table, since we knew we'd be there for awhile, I asked Marjorie to take the punchcards and get us something. I asked for a dark mocha with orange essence and caramel. Unfortunately, the barista assumed that "caramel" meant caramel syrup, as opposed to caramel sauce, so the thing was way too sweet and nearly undrinkable. I did get to take the first picture of the trip. In March, it was a shot of the Dilettante that Helen turned into my birthday present (which she had turned into a mug from rehab in Spokane, believe it or not).

Now they have a new poster:

I kinda like the message.

Good Karma 3. We made our way down the concourse (the gate was at the end of the concourse; does anyone ever fly from the gates along the way to the end of the concourse? I certainly never have), and the flight showed it was loading. Only they didn't actually load it for ten minutes. Worried about our connection, I emailed our dear friend Cindy in Chicago to see if we could stay with her if we had to spend the night. When it finally did load, the flight was maybe 60% full, because I suspect everyone they crammed everyone they could on the prior, even more delayed plane. We ended up in an exit row, with a lot of legroom. And the plane was only about 50 minutes delayed pushing back.

Bad Karma 4. Unfortunately, the plane didn't take off for another twenty minutes. We just sat and sat and sat on the tarmac. No announcements, no nothing.

Good Karma 4. On Friday, I had taken a huge risk for me: I had started a 600 page novel, which I intended to take on the trip. Not just 600 pages, but 600 pages with small type on large format pages. I am a slow reader, and the book will take a long time to read, but the risk was that this big book might or might not be interesting. It was a slog on Friday and then on Monday on the bus to and from work, and I was still on page 29 when we left this morning. But the book turns out to be wonderful. It's called Seven Types of Ambiguity, by Eliot Perlman, and it's really, really interesting. There are seven different narrators giving different perspectives on what appears to be a combination of a child kidnap in Australia and a political fight over managed health care, with some infidelity and prostitution mixed in for good measure. I'm really enjoying the book.

Bad Karma 5. When the flight attendant came around for drinks, she decided for reasons I can't fathom, to hand both my orange and cranberry juice and Marjorie's water to her, and both full as could be, resulting in maybe a tablespoon of my juice to fall on the aforementioned book and then sort of all over me. I had to clean myself up, with the help of very few napkins. When liquids spill on planes, which I imagine happens more than once a day (foreshadowing), you'd think they would equip the flight attendants with more than flimsy napkins. You'd think that, but then you'd think a lot of things about how to run an airline that don't appear to be how airlines are actually run. Like not using phrases like "Further information at 12:45" instead of "delayed."

Good Karma 5. This was really the best karma of the day, because when we got to O'Hare, even though our flight was scheduled to depart as we were "deplaning", in fact we got out, read the monitor, made a mad dash to the gate, only to find the flight not only still there, but not yet boarding. Marjorie made a quick run to the ladies' room, and we got on. It was a tiny little plane, the kind where they make you tag your carryons, but we had seats and it was flying. Now if only the luggage made it, too.

Bad Karma 6. The guy in front of me never did put his seatback in its full upright and locked position for takeoff, or at any other time. Result: it was hanging over my tray table when the flight attendant came. I got some Dr Pepper (thanks, American Airlines) and then she came back and gave me the full can. And lo and behold, it spilled. First a little, then when I was trying to clean that up, I think the guy leaned back one more time and suddenly the whole thing was spilling. The whole front of my pants were soaked, my book was soaked, and some got on the foot of the woman behind us (the flight attendant seemed to think her feet were more important to get cleaned up than me). So I left the plane with sticky pants, and not in the way you're thinking.

Good Karma 6. Everytime we get to a baggage claim, I note that someone's bags have to be first off, so why not ours? I've been first and I've been last, and first is better. Of course, I've also been "not there at the baggage claim," and the place where this has happened more than anyone where else on the planet is Baltimore-Washington International Airport. So it was a nice surprise that we heard the baggage line start up as we got to the baggage claim, and the first bag off the belt was Marjorie's. And the rest of our bags came very quickly thereafter.

Bad Karma 7. It was a long line to get on the bus to the rental cars. There are two ways airports do this: either the rental car companies have their own separate buses, or the rental cars are all in one facility, in which case they share a single bus. When the companies are competing with one another, the drivers will help with your bags (and when you're leaving for five weeks, you have a lot of luggage). When there is just one bus, even at nearly 11 at night, the bus is packed and no one is helping with the bags. And since the people on the bus don't care either, the luggage racks are used very inefficiently. Result: we were standing, holding our bags in the aisle, while exactly two bags were in the top luggage rack, on their bottoms instead of on their sides. But this wasn't the bad karma of this part of the trip. We got to Avis (only Avis has a downtown dropoff point open on Sunday, and since I'm dropping off the car and taking the train to Philadelphia on Sunday, it made no sense to go to the airport to drop off a car, and then have to drive Mary's car back from the airport, so it pretty much had to be Avis), and there seemed to be only one person in line and two people behind the counter. Only it turned out that one of them was going on break or something. It is a pure 00's sense of customer service at a company like that that a "customer service agent" will make no eye contact with genuine customers when doing something like leaving on break. The whole time he was gone, the other agent was typing and typing and typing for the one customer ahead of me in line. But this wasn't the bad karma of this part of the trip. Finally, the other guy came back and it was pretty efficient getting to me. Now I swear he told me to go to R07 to get the car. We got into the car at R07, which had a nice spacious trunk, and drove to the exit. Only apparently our car was in R04. This necessitated me backing up, and the huge trunk turned into a detriment for this. And naturally cars were behind us, so we had to maneuver this boat around them. Then back the humungous thing back into the space it came from. And then--now the bad karma--get into a PT Cruiser. With all due respect to whomever designed this abortion of a vehicle, I note the following: the trunk is tiny; the seats fold down, but don't match the floor of the trunk, so the space with the seats folded down is actually less useful than if they weren't folded down; the stupid button door locks annoy me (yes, they were authentic for the era, but my Uncle Sam, who had a car with those buttons at one point, has been dead nearly 30 years); putting the controls for the windows on the dashboard is not only inauthentic (they ought to be hand cranks) but someone trying to find the window when already pretty damn frustrated and tired--and there was no manual in the car--is not likely to see them; and the damn thing has about as much pickup as a wheelchair. I take that back. That's unfair. It has less pickup than a wheelchair. It goes from 0-20 mph in about a minute. Downhill.

Good Karma 7. We got to the hotel. A nice man named Duncan both handled our bags and the car. The reception guy found my Hilton Gold MVP number and suddenly we have free breakfast. The room is nice. The internet is free, and will work for both our computers at once (Marjorie is hard at work on posting jobs, even though it's 1:30 am EST). I took a quick shower to get the Dr Pepper off me, and Marjorie made herself coffee and me a cup of tea. We're safe, and alive. And although I'd have loved to have seen Cindy, it turned out her train back from Quincy was late so we probably would have done nothing more than to crash anyway, and then have to get up for an early flight. Instead, we're here. Tomorrow, airlines willing, Phil arrives, and we'll see Mary (we're about four blocks from her--this is the Colonade Hotel on University Parkway) and Barbara tomorrow.

So Happy Thanksgiving, and good travel karma to all!

Getting Ready

It is hard to imagine that we're only a few days from leaving home until Christmas Day. I don't think we're really ready, and we both have tons of work to do. But one thing I wanted to do was to be able to start this blog before we left