Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
52 Photos Project: On My Way
Last December, we made a quick trip north, for Christmas In Connecticut. It was wonderful, but that is not what this is about. This photos was taken waiting for our flight to begin boarding at what will always be Bradley Field to me, but is officially called Ella Grasso International Airport. We were on our way home.
Saturday, January 12, 2013
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
World Tourism Day
I am not the world's best world traveler. In fact, I kind of hate it. I share this with Richard Nixon who famously preferred Hilton Hotels because all the rooms were the same. At least I think it was Hiltons. Maybe it was Sheratons. Maybe it wasn't quite so famously.
Anyhow, I am not much for leaving home even on trips I want to take which makes this year's World Tourism Day a natural good fit for me because this year's theme is Linking Cultures & this year's host is Egypt. In light of Egypt's inability to link within it's own culture well, what can I say, I laughed.
I laughed again when I went to the World Tourism Day Official Celebrations page & learned that "The official World Tourism Day celebrations will take place in Aswan, Egypt/Details coming soon". Given that today is World Tourism Day & it is no longer today in Egypt, I don't think those details are going to come soon enough.
Nowadys, I live in a tourist destination myself. In a broad sense, Fladidah being the Once-Upon-A-Time go to locale for snow-blind refugees & that was before the Temple of the Mouse was built just to the south east of here & then right-right here we get educational tourists who come for the university, college sports tourists who come for the football & stay for the basketball, as well as the healthcare tourists (one of the largest research hospitals in the country is right here as well as a distinct regional hospital that serves the surrounding counties).
Besides the actual sunblock on the nose wearing (or more likely chemo cap wearing) tourists, on any given day, ten or more of the people I deal with are unlikely to be here in another two years. This can be good & bad. It is hard to convince a local who will not be local in five years to commit to a five year budget that involves sacrifice or investment. In some ways they show up & expect things to just be here.
On the other hand, there are things here (that their predecessors have helped pay for) that are way-way better then anything they have back home & I don't mean the reason they came. Our local library has won national awards. Life downtown, even in the smaller surrounding towns, is alive & well thanks in part to a population that would rather bicycle or walk than drive. Live music, theatre, dance are all alive & well supported by the people who live here & the people who are stuck here & need something to do.
I don't think I could take living in a resort community. Mouse-Mecca is one of the most crime ridden cites in the country & even Horse-Town, the county seat of the county just to the south, makes the Top 100 most dangerous cities in the US list (interesting tid-bit: there are 50 states & 100 cities on this list & 18 of those cities are here in Fladidah, mostly centered around-you guessed it- tourist hot spots).
So Happy World Tourism Day. Stay home, even the host wants you to.
Monday, March 14, 2011
One of our Thursdays was in Vancouver
If you are not a Thursday Next fan you might just want to skip this one; if you have never heard of Thursday Next what are you waiting for?!? Run, don't walk to your local library & get the Eyre Affair. It is good if you have read Jane Eyre but it is not worth postponing the Eyre Affair to get caught up.
Let me begin (again) by saying I have been the side-car on more than one of A's business trips. In the old day, if I didn't tag along some of the time, we would never have seen each other. At first, when people knew I was coming it did not matter that he attended every meeting, every lunch, every dinner & that I went off & did my own thing, whomever he was meeting with acted as though we were taking advantage of this trip to take a vacation. Considering that I/we paid for my own travel expenses, our meals if we did eat together & any past-the-business-portion portion of the hotel bill, while passing on to whatever organization paid for him to be there the reduced airfare (for a Saturday he would never have stayed over if I hadn't been there), the reduced hotel (because we extended our stay beyond the conference, meeting, whatever) this frosted me a bit. The funny thing is how much this has changed; you cannot imagine what perks a company was prepared to throw in if we would leave a few days early for our own vacation, make a stopover near SanFran & spend a couple days/nights there.
Where was I again. Oh, right, M****** was tagging along on a trip & needed to lay low while her husband did the work he was being paid to do. Also she needed something(s) to read while en route to the opposite corner of this country & then out of it. Our bookclub had met a day or so before she was leaving & so I handed over my (library's) copy of Peyton Place, a book we decided against mostly because 1/2 the group had already read it & not for the reasons bookclubs might discard it (it was so potentially popular, next year I am floating Valley of the Dolls). Anyway, she took it & planned to read it & everything was settled...
...when suddenly, the following day...
...I happened to stop at the library & what should I be given but the brand new Thursday Next book, released that very day & I was numero uno on the book holds list. I was so excited I started reading it in traffic (at the red lights, I'm not suicidal). But while I was driving, I realized there was no way I would have time to read this book with the schedule I am looking down on for the next ten days at least (& more like 20, really). & it really truly pains me to have a book I know others want & not read it; it just seems greedy & thoughtless & wrong. I was on the verge of returning it so as not to have it on my conscience when it occurred to me, Thursday Next could go to Vancouver! I could get the good-friend points for passing on a book I didn't have time for anyway & maybe, just maybe if I knew it would be back in a week I could clear & make time for Agent Next.
So it happened that a brand new copy arrived here in Alachua County & 72 hours later traveled due west & then north out of the country. That Thursday, she gets around. I just wish she could hop on back here three weeks ago when I could have spent some time with her, but for now I am rereading all the other Thursdays (because I found a few pockets of time, also most of them are on disc & in this way I can read Thursdays & do something else at the same time).
Let me begin (again) by saying I have been the side-car on more than one of A's business trips. In the old day, if I didn't tag along some of the time, we would never have seen each other. At first, when people knew I was coming it did not matter that he attended every meeting, every lunch, every dinner & that I went off & did my own thing, whomever he was meeting with acted as though we were taking advantage of this trip to take a vacation. Considering that I/we paid for my own travel expenses, our meals if we did eat together & any past-the-business-portion portion of the hotel bill, while passing on to whatever organization paid for him to be there the reduced airfare (for a Saturday he would never have stayed over if I hadn't been there), the reduced hotel (because we extended our stay beyond the conference, meeting, whatever) this frosted me a bit. The funny thing is how much this has changed; you cannot imagine what perks a company was prepared to throw in if we would leave a few days early for our own vacation, make a stopover near SanFran & spend a couple days/nights there.
Where was I again. Oh, right, M****** was tagging along on a trip & needed to lay low while her husband did the work he was being paid to do. Also she needed something(s) to read while en route to the opposite corner of this country & then out of it. Our bookclub had met a day or so before she was leaving & so I handed over my (library's) copy of Peyton Place, a book we decided against mostly because 1/2 the group had already read it & not for the reasons bookclubs might discard it (it was so potentially popular, next year I am floating Valley of the Dolls). Anyway, she took it & planned to read it & everything was settled...
...when suddenly, the following day...
...I happened to stop at the library & what should I be given but the brand new Thursday Next book, released that very day & I was numero uno on the book holds list. I was so excited I started reading it in traffic (at the red lights, I'm not suicidal). But while I was driving, I realized there was no way I would have time to read this book with the schedule I am looking down on for the next ten days at least (& more like 20, really). & it really truly pains me to have a book I know others want & not read it; it just seems greedy & thoughtless & wrong. I was on the verge of returning it so as not to have it on my conscience when it occurred to me, Thursday Next could go to Vancouver! I could get the good-friend points for passing on a book I didn't have time for anyway & maybe, just maybe if I knew it would be back in a week I could clear & make time for Agent Next.
So it happened that a brand new copy arrived here in Alachua County & 72 hours later traveled due west & then north out of the country. That Thursday, she gets around. I just wish she could hop on back here three weeks ago when I could have spent some time with her, but for now I am rereading all the other Thursdays (because I found a few pockets of time, also most of them are on disc & in this way I can read Thursdays & do something else at the same time).
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Two book reviews in one, sorta
A while ago (a year ago?) A***** brought a book suggestion to bookclub that we did not pick. We don't pick most of the suggestions made but is was such a big book, by that I mean so much hype that I 1) thought it was likely to be suggested again & 2) was curious. So I got it on disc from the library & listened while working on a quilt. The book was Eat Pray Love & boy did it suck. I listened to the WHOLE THING asking myself "really, this is what speaks to women"?
& not just any women, women who have a few years & a few years of marriage on them, women who have reached personal crossroads & made the decision "I don't want that, I do want this" more than once (because those decisions are never final until they are no longer your's to make, just so you know). This book was supposed to speak to ME. It did, too. It said consider yourself lucky you were never trapped on a plane with this woman.
Let me tell you who I HAVE been trapped on a plane with: many many fat men one of whom wanted to lift the armrest between us to give himself some breathing room (the others may have wanted to but my arm jammed down on it kept them from trying), more than once I missed a tight connection because I was trapped in a window seat with mama-&-baby-in-her-lap on the aisle (& by the way, if you offer to hold baby so she can get up, into the aisle, take baby back & allow you to get on with your day, she will treat you like a potential kidnapper), just once I was trapped on a plane with an older woman a few rows back across the aisle who saw the dog carrier at my feet move & became convinced the dog securely zipped inside wanted to bite her (actually when the bag first moved she asked the flight attendant if I had a bomb because bombs do that, wiggle around for a while before they explode) & there was the memorable season I traveled on the same schedule between Columbus, Ohio & Jacksonville, Florida with a group of...
Maybe I should just tell that story: I was headed home on Thursday or Friday afternoon & did not notice anything strange until after we were all boarded. Later flights, I made a point of noticing as we boarded & saw that the flight attendant in question & the party of whom I am speaking clearly had issues. In short, they asked many trivial questions, often about the weather, & she pretended they did not exist. This first time, the floor show started with the safety demonstration. Now I pay no real attention to airplane safety demonstrations (although I do count the number of seat backs to my seat & from my seat to the next exit, every time). I do however recognize that the safety demonstration is part of the flight attendant's job & I try to avoid making catcalls, jumping up behind her, making horns with my hands & wagging my butt. I have also never held up a lighter & shouted "Free Bird!" in the middle of the safety demonstration. I am guessing you never have either, but I think you now have an idea what was going on during this particular safety demonstration. Most of the ruckus ended here & this particular flight attendant did not appear in the cabin again. I myself never drink alcohol on flights to keep in top form for kicking the rest of you out of my way en route to the emergency exit, should we need to depart the plane emergency-style, but I learned from my seat-mate that the hospitality cart was unable to serve any passengers alcohol, that there was indeed Never alcohol on This Flight as there had apparently been an Incident. Other flukes of the hospitality cart were a complete inability to stop at particular rows & on one memorable trip a failure to acknowledge a man heading for the restrooms until he offered to pee on the cart itself. Sometimes a few weeks would go by before I crossed paths with these travelers & once or twice I thought I saw just one of them on other flights along this route, but without the hooting & hollering it was hard to say.
Back to the book review, remember the book review? Eat Pray Love was not a favorite with me. The best thing abut it was the discs skipped A LOT which made it kind of rappy (rapesque?). I went on to read Committed & thought even less of it. I have run out of energy for that review though, so I will just paste what I put on GoodReads:
//in A*****;'s defense she had not yet read Eat Pray Love when she recommended it. She has since & well, I think she is also grateful Elizabeth Gilbert no longer travels business class. At least we hope she doesn't.
& not just any women, women who have a few years & a few years of marriage on them, women who have reached personal crossroads & made the decision "I don't want that, I do want this" more than once (because those decisions are never final until they are no longer your's to make, just so you know). This book was supposed to speak to ME. It did, too. It said consider yourself lucky you were never trapped on a plane with this woman.
Let me tell you who I HAVE been trapped on a plane with: many many fat men one of whom wanted to lift the armrest between us to give himself some breathing room (the others may have wanted to but my arm jammed down on it kept them from trying), more than once I missed a tight connection because I was trapped in a window seat with mama-&-baby-in-her-lap on the aisle (& by the way, if you offer to hold baby so she can get up, into the aisle, take baby back & allow you to get on with your day, she will treat you like a potential kidnapper), just once I was trapped on a plane with an older woman a few rows back across the aisle who saw the dog carrier at my feet move & became convinced the dog securely zipped inside wanted to bite her (actually when the bag first moved she asked the flight attendant if I had a bomb because bombs do that, wiggle around for a while before they explode) & there was the memorable season I traveled on the same schedule between Columbus, Ohio & Jacksonville, Florida with a group of...
Maybe I should just tell that story: I was headed home on Thursday or Friday afternoon & did not notice anything strange until after we were all boarded. Later flights, I made a point of noticing as we boarded & saw that the flight attendant in question & the party of whom I am speaking clearly had issues. In short, they asked many trivial questions, often about the weather, & she pretended they did not exist. This first time, the floor show started with the safety demonstration. Now I pay no real attention to airplane safety demonstrations (although I do count the number of seat backs to my seat & from my seat to the next exit, every time). I do however recognize that the safety demonstration is part of the flight attendant's job & I try to avoid making catcalls, jumping up behind her, making horns with my hands & wagging my butt. I have also never held up a lighter & shouted "Free Bird!" in the middle of the safety demonstration. I am guessing you never have either, but I think you now have an idea what was going on during this particular safety demonstration. Most of the ruckus ended here & this particular flight attendant did not appear in the cabin again. I myself never drink alcohol on flights to keep in top form for kicking the rest of you out of my way en route to the emergency exit, should we need to depart the plane emergency-style, but I learned from my seat-mate that the hospitality cart was unable to serve any passengers alcohol, that there was indeed Never alcohol on This Flight as there had apparently been an Incident. Other flukes of the hospitality cart were a complete inability to stop at particular rows & on one memorable trip a failure to acknowledge a man heading for the restrooms until he offered to pee on the cart itself. Sometimes a few weeks would go by before I crossed paths with these travelers & once or twice I thought I saw just one of them on other flights along this route, but without the hooting & hollering it was hard to say.
Back to the book review, remember the book review? Eat Pray Love was not a favorite with me. The best thing abut it was the discs skipped A LOT which made it kind of rappy (rapesque?). I went on to read Committed & thought even less of it. I have run out of energy for that review though, so I will just paste what I put on GoodReads:
Reasonable people have asked why did I read this book when I disliked Eat Pray Love so very very much & this is a reasonable & worthy question. If I were Elizabeth Gilbert I would take an extended vacation slash sojourn to ponder this, bemoaning my ever dwindling funds, with my Brazilian lover (let's call him Darling), internet surfing for books on the topic & having my sister send them out to my hotel rooms (Darling & me, we move around a lot). I would document my inner journey (not to be confused with the outer migration, but I would document that one, too) in a style I am going to call "meandering anecdote".
Alas, I am not Elizabeth Gilbert & all I can say is both books made me think of nothing so much as that scene in Absolutely Fabulous when Saffy gets to the end of her rope & screams at her mother "you cannot become a better person through massage!" & anything that brings back AbFab makes me happy.
Also Committed & Eat Pray Love aggravate me so very much that it helps to raise my heart rate when I am on the elliptical & for that reason alone, it was worth reading (but not buying-your public library has a copy I'm sure).
//in A*****;'s defense she had not yet read Eat Pray Love when she recommended it. She has since & well, I think she is also grateful Elizabeth Gilbert no longer travels business class. At least we hope she doesn't.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
What I meant to do while in CT
I grew up, went to university & had my first jobs in the greater Hartford area & I assure you, it really is not the most boring place on earth. In fact, I always run out of time to do the things I want to do. What I should have done but did not:
- Seen the Chihuly. We actually tried to on a previous winter holiday visit. After dinner we were four adults just staring at each other & it was a beautiful night so I asked if we could walk around Constitution Plaza & see the lights. No one could come up with a better idea, so we went. I know it does not compare to even lawn displays in some parts of the country but it is still the first big light display I ever saw & I am fond of it. We swung by the Bushnell to see the Chihuly; it is inside but it is massive & well lit BUT they had the shades pulled on the 2+story high windows. If you do not buy a ticket, you cannot see the Chihuly.
- Visited Horace Wells. Back in the days when I worked around Bushnell Park, I used to seek out the space near the Horace Wells Statue. Sure, I was drawn to the flashy carousel horses in warmer weather, but even when he was dusted with snow I enjoyed a brown bag lunch with Horace. How many other capitol parks have statues of famous dentists, hmmmm? It turns out that the answer to this is Paris; in the Place des Etats-Unis there is a statue of........Horace Wells.
- Walked through the Mark Twain House. Even before we moved south, it had been too long since I had done this. If you can, go on a day it is snowing so you can watch the snow flakes in the window over the fireplace. It really is pretty cool. You can also visit his neighbor, Harriet Beecher Stowe. Unbeknownst to many (well, me) she wrote one of her books just a few miles from where I live now.
- Dined at Kashmir. I was once dumped over dinner at Kashmir. Immediately after, anyhow. I had never been to the restaurant before that evening & it was worth it. Good-bye man, hello cuisine!
Then there are all the places outside the city limits that I missed:
- Crazy Bruce's Liquors. This is another place I have never actually been, but on a past xmass eve my husband & my brother rushed in moments before closing & bought all the ingredients for chocolate martinis, including the glasses (most women want jewelery but we are not most women). The clerk was very helpful & figured out what they were making from their purchases. What does not ever seem to have occurred to them is that she thought they were a couple. Crazy Bruce stocked the bar at A's graduation party, our wedding reception & every event we ever had at my parents on these visits home. Yes, even those whatever night of Chanukah/G***'s Birthday/Open Houses we used to have when we came north in Decembers past.
- Talcott Mountain. Roughly between the house I grew up in & the house my parents live in now is Talcott Mountain. It is not a big mountain; it is a perfect mountain. You can get up & down in an afternoon & enjoy an uninterrupted view from the top.
- Rock Cats game. I actually have a hard time leaving Florida in the summer: I like it HOT but we are trying to swing a winter-holidays-in-July so maybe....
- SONE rehearsal. We have been on previous visits to watch my sister sing & they treat you like an honored guest! Really, they make an announcement & thank you for coming. No talking though, you can only smile & wave like the Queen of England. If you go in winter, take a step back & enjoy the Congregational Church architecture conveniently located diagonally across from the Prosser Public Library. If you go in summer, bring your anorak; I do not know what the deal is at Emanuel Synagogue, but it is the best air-conditioned place I have ever been & I live in Florida.
& finally there are those places I will never visit again:
- Mount Southington. I can x-country ski, but I rarely do. I do not downhill ski. I do not even like the ski lift. The sensation of air moving quickly across my face makes me feel ill. I have a lot of great pictures of everyone else coming down the slope though.
- Cinema City. I have been told there is a theater there again but is it really Cinema City? I remember when they put real butter on the popcorn, popcorn popped right in front of you. The movies were good, bad & off-beat. This is where I saw Dogs from Space, Sid & Nancy, Round Midnight, & the list goes on. Maybe I am wrong & it is everything it could be, but I will never know.
- The Elm, another theater, but this one really is gone. The last film I saw there was Walt Disney's Cinderella. N*** & I tried to sneak up to the balcony, but it was already closed & then we sat through the unpublicized opening film which caught us by surprise: Nestor the Long Eared Donkey. I don't even think it was xmass-time, but that is part of what made The Elm The Elm. Actually, N*** & I have a twisted history with strange movie theaters across Hartford County. Remember the one in Avon with all the sinks in the stalls so a person could not just wash the salty-popcorn-y smell off her hands without feeling obligated to try & pee....?
I know this sounds like a tag-you-are-it kind of list, random-beyond-random but these were what made my every day for decades. Or at least they are what was part of what made my every day for decades & then fell away has become. You can follow that, right? Even if they are gone, even if they are back & better than ever, they are not every day anymore. Not for me. I think this might be why people make small shrines in their kitchens & collect scrapbooks & plant trees.
//one place I had thought I would miss was Shady Glen. These are the only cheeseburgers I ever eat. Which means I have a cheeseburger roughly every eight to fifteen years. I have been enjoying the mural on the back wall & the doilies under the little metal bowls of ice cream for as long as I can remember. So has the rest of my family, except maybe my cousin C**** who has been working there since he was sixteen & just might be sick of it all. We managed to squeeze in a visit on Monday along with one wonderful quilt shop & Penzeys. & yes, I had a cheeseburger, so I will eat beef again in ?2015-2025?, give or take.
- Seen the Chihuly. We actually tried to on a previous winter holiday visit. After dinner we were four adults just staring at each other & it was a beautiful night so I asked if we could walk around Constitution Plaza & see the lights. No one could come up with a better idea, so we went. I know it does not compare to even lawn displays in some parts of the country but it is still the first big light display I ever saw & I am fond of it. We swung by the Bushnell to see the Chihuly; it is inside but it is massive & well lit BUT they had the shades pulled on the 2+story high windows. If you do not buy a ticket, you cannot see the Chihuly.
- Visited Horace Wells. Back in the days when I worked around Bushnell Park, I used to seek out the space near the Horace Wells Statue. Sure, I was drawn to the flashy carousel horses in warmer weather, but even when he was dusted with snow I enjoyed a brown bag lunch with Horace. How many other capitol parks have statues of famous dentists, hmmmm? It turns out that the answer to this is Paris; in the Place des Etats-Unis there is a statue of........Horace Wells.- Walked through the Mark Twain House. Even before we moved south, it had been too long since I had done this. If you can, go on a day it is snowing so you can watch the snow flakes in the window over the fireplace. It really is pretty cool. You can also visit his neighbor, Harriet Beecher Stowe. Unbeknownst to many (well, me) she wrote one of her books just a few miles from where I live now.
- Dined at Kashmir. I was once dumped over dinner at Kashmir. Immediately after, anyhow. I had never been to the restaurant before that evening & it was worth it. Good-bye man, hello cuisine!
Then there are all the places outside the city limits that I missed:
- Crazy Bruce's Liquors. This is another place I have never actually been, but on a past xmass eve my husband & my brother rushed in moments before closing & bought all the ingredients for chocolate martinis, including the glasses (most women want jewelery but we are not most women). The clerk was very helpful & figured out what they were making from their purchases. What does not ever seem to have occurred to them is that she thought they were a couple. Crazy Bruce stocked the bar at A's graduation party, our wedding reception & every event we ever had at my parents on these visits home. Yes, even those whatever night of Chanukah/G***'s Birthday/Open Houses we used to have when we came north in Decembers past.
- Talcott Mountain. Roughly between the house I grew up in & the house my parents live in now is Talcott Mountain. It is not a big mountain; it is a perfect mountain. You can get up & down in an afternoon & enjoy an uninterrupted view from the top.
- Rock Cats game. I actually have a hard time leaving Florida in the summer: I like it HOT but we are trying to swing a winter-holidays-in-July so maybe....
- SONE rehearsal. We have been on previous visits to watch my sister sing & they treat you like an honored guest! Really, they make an announcement & thank you for coming. No talking though, you can only smile & wave like the Queen of England. If you go in winter, take a step back & enjoy the Congregational Church architecture conveniently located diagonally across from the Prosser Public Library. If you go in summer, bring your anorak; I do not know what the deal is at Emanuel Synagogue, but it is the best air-conditioned place I have ever been & I live in Florida.
& finally there are those places I will never visit again:
- Mount Southington. I can x-country ski, but I rarely do. I do not downhill ski. I do not even like the ski lift. The sensation of air moving quickly across my face makes me feel ill. I have a lot of great pictures of everyone else coming down the slope though.
- Cinema City. I have been told there is a theater there again but is it really Cinema City? I remember when they put real butter on the popcorn, popcorn popped right in front of you. The movies were good, bad & off-beat. This is where I saw Dogs from Space, Sid & Nancy, Round Midnight, & the list goes on. Maybe I am wrong & it is everything it could be, but I will never know.
- The Elm, another theater, but this one really is gone. The last film I saw there was Walt Disney's Cinderella. N*** & I tried to sneak up to the balcony, but it was already closed & then we sat through the unpublicized opening film which caught us by surprise: Nestor the Long Eared Donkey. I don't even think it was xmass-time, but that is part of what made The Elm The Elm. Actually, N*** & I have a twisted history with strange movie theaters across Hartford County. Remember the one in Avon with all the sinks in the stalls so a person could not just wash the salty-popcorn-y smell off her hands without feeling obligated to try & pee....?
I know this sounds like a tag-you-are-it kind of list, random-beyond-random but these were what made my every day for decades. Or at least they are what was part of what made my every day for decades & then fell away has become. You can follow that, right? Even if they are gone, even if they are back & better than ever, they are not every day anymore. Not for me. I think this might be why people make small shrines in their kitchens & collect scrapbooks & plant trees.
//one place I had thought I would miss was Shady Glen. These are the only cheeseburgers I ever eat. Which means I have a cheeseburger roughly every eight to fifteen years. I have been enjoying the mural on the back wall & the doilies under the little metal bowls of ice cream for as long as I can remember. So has the rest of my family, except maybe my cousin C**** who has been working there since he was sixteen & just might be sick of it all. We managed to squeeze in a visit on Monday along with one wonderful quilt shop & Penzeys. & yes, I had a cheeseburger, so I will eat beef again in ?2015-2025?, give or take.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Christmas in Connecticut
It is never like the movie. We go every three or four years & I do not remember the last time it snowed. It has been pretty damn cold though!Also my parents' house is nothing like that one (or the one in Bringing up Baby, which is the same house). The truth is, I have never managed to sit through Christmas in Connecticut, but I love Bringing up Baby, so I feel qualified to comment on the house.
I doubt my mother has made it through Bringing up Baby because of her antipathy for all things Katherine Hepburn. As it happens, one of my two favorite christmas movies stars Katherine Hepburn. I watch The Desk Set every year, often more than once. My other favorite christmas movie is Comfort & Joy. Mostly, these movies take place at christmastime, christmas happening is the background, but that is the whole christmas involvement.
This year, we were planning to spend christmas in CT & a white christmas was expected. After multiple days of snow & more on the horizon, all our flights were canceled & we will spend the holiday here, uselessly. I know my mother is very disappointed. & we are sorry not to see people. But I was genuinely dreading a white christmas. I have lost my taste for all things cold: I drink hot tea in summer, I do not even like ice cream unless it is on a plate with a warm piece of pie. It is 54F right moment & that is plenty chilly for me.
So far, I have planned a small holiday dinner for christmas day. On christmas eve we are going to Stephen Foster to see the light display. Previous new years days have been spent at Homasassa Springs (where my mother saw her first bald eagle in the wild). Maybe it is time that we stopped putting plastic snowmen in front yards that will never see snow & start observing this season not as a shadow of what our great-great-grandparents may have had in the old country but what it is now, right where we are.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Travel plans
I am in the process of arranging to go to CT the last week of December. Yes, I know it's July, but I need to do all the ordinary planning & cope with coverage for the animals (boarding, sitters-do you know how hard it is to find someone who will pet-sit a pair of emu?).
When I started thinking on these lines last month (yes, JUNE), I suggested to A that I go up a few days ahead of him. Classes end 12/10, but exams continue to 12/19. & then there is always some last-minute ass-hole trying to negotiate a better grade (I have so much respect for people who cut classes, don't hand in homework & then pitch temper tantrums because they are .5 from the grade they want & Prof won't cut them some slack). At the time A said he thought that sounded good. Now he is sure he would never agree to that.
There is no getting A to sit & make a decision about when he might be ready to go. He thinks more than 48 hours notice for anything at all is excessive. His whole family is just as bad. Last year, his mother was astonished that we had plans for a particular day that couldn't be changed less than four days before (the day was New Years). She was clearly frustrated that I wasn't prepared to alter my plans to squeeze in a visit from them & their houseguest. She also tried to grill me on what those plans were, to find gaps that might work. I don't know if the Inuit really do have 100's of words for 'snow', but I can tell you Romanians have no word for 'none of your beeswax'.
& so, here I am trying to purchase airline tickets , but I don't know what day or what airport or who he might want to see or how long we are staying or anything & the person who really will be inconvenienced by whatever wrong choice I make is much too absorbed with "more important things to dedicate any brain cycles to than something that won't happen for 6 months".
I wish I knew what he DID agree to, maybe I want that.
When I started thinking on these lines last month (yes, JUNE), I suggested to A that I go up a few days ahead of him. Classes end 12/10, but exams continue to 12/19. & then there is always some last-minute ass-hole trying to negotiate a better grade (I have so much respect for people who cut classes, don't hand in homework & then pitch temper tantrums because they are .5 from the grade they want & Prof won't cut them some slack). At the time A said he thought that sounded good. Now he is sure he would never agree to that.
There is no getting A to sit & make a decision about when he might be ready to go. He thinks more than 48 hours notice for anything at all is excessive. His whole family is just as bad. Last year, his mother was astonished that we had plans for a particular day that couldn't be changed less than four days before (the day was New Years). She was clearly frustrated that I wasn't prepared to alter my plans to squeeze in a visit from them & their houseguest. She also tried to grill me on what those plans were, to find gaps that might work. I don't know if the Inuit really do have 100's of words for 'snow', but I can tell you Romanians have no word for 'none of your beeswax'.
& so, here I am trying to purchase airline tickets , but I don't know what day or what airport or who he might want to see or how long we are staying or anything & the person who really will be inconvenienced by whatever wrong choice I make is much too absorbed with "more important things to dedicate any brain cycles to than something that won't happen for 6 months".
I wish I knew what he DID agree to, maybe I want that.
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