ornoth

Inna wanted to go to the 2017 Meetin national celebration in Seattle in September, and it made sense to piggyback that with a detour up to Victoria BC to visit my brother, since—after my mother’s death—he’s unlikely to be coming east any longer.

The logistics were enough of a nightmare that we actually needed a travel agent’s services. Inna and her mother flew direct to SFO to visit family for a few days. Then Inna flew OAK (not SFO) to SEA while I simultaneously got from PIT to SEA via IAD. After the Meetin gathering, we’d take the ferry to Victoria BC, then eventually get home flying Air Canada together from YYJ to YYZ to PIT. Meanwhile, Inna’s mother returned on a direct flight from SFO. Yeah. Glad to have an agent handle all that.

Seattle Skyline & Rainier

Danger Man

Self-Portrait in Steel

Inna's on the Ball

The Sky's the Limit

Family @ Observatory Hill

Sunken Garden

Japanese Garden

Full Seattle photoset

Full Victoria photoset

Tuesday, the day before I left, was memorable for two reasons.

First, having just gotten over a three-week long summer cold, I woke up with another sore throat, heralding another ugly illness spanning the duration of the trip.

Second, that evening I had a ticket to go see “Walk With Me”, a movie centered around Buddhist icon Thich Nhat Hanh’s meditative community at Plum Village. Between this and other previous films, I’ve become convinced that the medium of film really isn’t a good vehicle for introducing Buddhist philosophy to the masses. But that’s really not a topic for this blogpost…

After I returned home, my sore throat left me with a sleepless night before an early Wednesday morning walk to the bus stop, then a two-bus expedition out to the Pittsburgh airport. Having lived without owning a car for more than twenty years, I hadn’t even thought about driving!

My first flight—from Pittsburgh to DC—was delayed 30 minutes by a maintenance issue, causing me to skip my planned combined breakfast and lunch as I loped through Dulles seeking my connecting flight.

After five hours with absolutely zero legroom in a United cattle car, I touched down at SeaTac hungry, tired, and sick. I ignored the seventeen text messages from our catsitting friend and hoofed it to the Uber lot to meet up with Inna, who had flown in separately from Oakland CA.

Although I’ve made half a dozen trips to the PNW, I’d never been to Seattle, so everything here was new to me.

After a lengthy drive into downtown Seattle, we tried to check into our hotel—the Inn at the WAC—only to discover that our room wasn’t ready. We had only planned to drop our bags before heading out for dinner anyways, so we simply got a recommendation from the desk clerk and headed straight to the nearby Tap House Grill. I had a French dip sandwich and ice cream, while Inna ordered shrimp and tiramisu ice cream, which wound up being her favorite meal of the trip.

We returned to the hotel to find a tray with hot tea, cocoa, a chocolate bar, and a handwritten note—to Mr. and Mrs. Nirenburg—waiting in our room, since the staff had overheard Inna mentioning my illness. Inna tracked down Sheela and Monika, our Pittsburgh friends who were also attending the Meetin gathering, and the four of us chatted briefly in our room. After a long day of travel for me, we opted to skip arrival-day festivities in favor of rest and a quiet evening in bed.

Thursday morning we were up early to join a small group of Meetin people exploring Pike Place Market. Along the way, I snagged a cinnamon bun for breakfast. We observed the market’s outdated manual daily stall-assignment ceremony, then took a brief guided tour with still more Meetin peeps. With tired legs, Inna and I wandered off for some overpriced ice cream. Then I spied a stall selling roasted corn on the cob, but balked at the ludicrous $5 price tag. We both eyed the beautiful ristra hot pepper arrangements—each for different reasons—but realized they would be impossible to transport back to Pittsburgh.

We joined another big Meetin group for lunch at the Pike Brewing Company, but left before ordering when Inna realized she wasn’t sure if she had forgotten her medications in San Francisco. That led to an afternoon of phone tag with doctors and chasing around drugstores before we returned to the hotel, where she found them hidden in the bottom of her bag.

But along the way, Inna picked up some dahlias for our room, and I ducked into Metsker Maps, where a postcard with a bicycle and the phrase “Conquer the Hill” called out to me in anticipation of my upcoming Dirty Dozen ride.

Tired after so much walking, we were content to rest in the hotel until the evening event: a meet-and-greet at the top of Smith Tower. On the way, we experienced elevator malfunctions in both our hotel and our destination. Smith Tower is a lot like Boston’s Custom House Tower. Both are about 35 stories and 490 feet tall, with an open-air skywalk observation deck at the top. We took a few pictures of the view, then went in to chat with other Meetin folks. Those included Mary McDaid (Portland OR), event organizers Anita Christensen (Portland) and Helene Pincus (Las Vegas), and I had to interrogate Deanna Cochener, whose cellphone case loudly announced that she was a Portland Timbers supporter.

Afterward we wandered around with Monika, stopping to admire the Seattle Public Library. The steep hills in downtown Seattle were vaguely reminiscent of Pittsburgh, and we shared an uncomfortable laugh when one woman apologized to us as her dog’s feces literally rolled and bounced down the steep sidewalk into our path. In Westlake Park plaza we found a giant-sized Connect Four game, and I promptly destroyed Inna twice running, despite never having played before. The girls stopped in a mall for Pike Place Chowder, while I brought a theoretically fast Mod Pizza back to the room.

Friday was really the main Meetin day. After Uber failed us—and charged us anyways—we got ourselves invited to share a Lyft summoned by New Yorkers Ricky Evans & Zhenya Brisker. That dropped us at the morning’s activity: a duck tour. While waiting, Inna & I chatted with Laurelee Langan, who was there representing Boston. Despite my having been through at least two dozen duck tours, the tour itself was fine, featuring Amazon’s HQ, the Fremont Troll, houseboats and floatplanes on Lake Union, and lots more. Near the Belltown Apartments, the tour guide indicated we were passing through a quiet zone, which I happily observed, having lived for ten years on the Boston duck tour route myself.

Afterward, rather than spending $33 each to get into the Museum of Pop Culture, we opted to visit a local food court with Sheela and Portlanders Bijana & Ankesh Kadakia. Still illin’, nothing appealed to me but fries.

After lunch, the “Meeps” gathered up again to go through the Chihuly Garden and Glass museum. The exhibit was short but breathtaking. In the middle of the tour, I remembered to show people that the abstract background image on my cellphone has for many years been a close-up of a green-and-yellow work of Chihuly glass that I took back at the 2000 Dargon Summit at Pittsburgh’s Phipps Conservatory, which you can see here.

After that, Inna and I returned briefly to the food court before walking down to the Olympic Sculpture Park and rejoining the larger group. We wandered around, enjoying another warm, sunny afternoon. While resting at one point, a kid ran up to Inna asking in an incredulous voice, “Hey lady, is that your belly?!?” She was taken aback but about to respond affirmatively when the kid’s caretaker came up to explain that the kid wasn’t actually referring to her stomach, but the rumbling sound of a nearby passing train!

I walked down to the harborside, having a nice conversation with Bijana, before the group split again, with most people headed predictably toward a bar. Meanwhile, Cha Cha Chen (DC) and I collected Inna and ambled off to meet Anita and the main group of Meeps for a ride up the Space Needle.

The Space Needle was a lot like Boston’s Customs House Tower and the Smith Tower from the day before: a reception room and elevators surrounded by a narrow exterior observation deck. The main difference is that the Needle was crowded to absolute capacity. But it did provide the requisite view of the city, the bay, and the mountains in the distance.

Inna & I were among the first to punt and make our way to the Belltown Pub, the first stop in the group’s planned bar crawl. I had a chicken sandwich and a cookie while we chatted with Helene and Ricky. Eventually we’d skip the bar crawl and drag Helene, Ricky, Zhenya, Sheela, and Monika back to the hotel’s common room for an evening of games: specifically Cheating Moth and Coup.

Saturday that same group got together for breakfast, having been lured away from the Meetin brunch by the promise of Quaffles—waffles made out of croissant dough and cinnamon—at Anchorhead Coffee. On the way there, we posed beneath a huge flower pot and watering can sculpture, and got unexpectedly sprayed with water. The Quaffles made up for it, as probably the best food we had during the entire trip.

Having no interest in the Meetin group activities planned for that day, Inna and I shooed the others away and walked aimlessly around the city, winding up at a Russian bakery called Piroshky Piroshky that Inna had sought out. She sampled their pelmeni (little dumplings), piroshki (potato and cabbage dumplings), and Napoleon cake, but pronounced them all mediocre. Then back to Pioneer Square, where I dragged Inna into Magic Mouse Toys and picked up perennial favorite Fluxx, while waiting for our underground tour.

In brief, Seattle used to have problematic above-ground sewage pipes. Then, after Seattle’s big fire, they decided to put them underground… Not by digging trenches, but by running them down the middle of the street, then filling them over and putting an elevated street over the top. Meanwhile, as buildings were being rebuilt, owners were required to build their primary entrances on the second floor, rather than the first. Wooden planks allowed people to get from the elevated street to the elevated second-floor entrances, spanning the open pits that was the old sidewalks, since they were still at the former street level. The old sidewalks were never filled in, just eventually roofed over, leaving downtown Seattle a maze of underground sidewalks connecting the basements (former first floors) of the surrounding buildings. Much of this work was financed by the mistress of several houses of ill repute. It was an interesting tour.

After that, we wandered around town some more, checking out Seattle’s K&L Gates building, the “Pittsburgh” Lunch, and so forth. Then hopped an Uber to take us to the suburban Seattle Meowtropolitan cat cafe, where we enjoyed some time with a few blasé felines. After an Uber back, I picked up a very yummy dinner from Mae Phim Thai. I spent the evening resting in the hotel room while Inna rejoined the Meetin crew for karaoke.

It felt odd to me, because the Meetin event was nominally a weekend thing, but we’d spent the entire day Saturday on our own. It felt like the social element of the trip had petered out, doubly so because our ferry to Victoria prohibited us from attending the farewell brunch on Sunday.

So the next morning we slept in a little, had a decent breakfast in the hotel, ran into Ricky and Zhenya in the lobby, and made our way to the ferry.

Looking back on Seattle, it seemed an okay town, but throughout its history it seems to have been very poorly slapped together, whether you’re thinking about their former sewage problems or the current explosive growth accompanying Microsoft and Amazon. We did have absolutely gorgeous, sunny weather up until the day we departed, but it’s probably a lot less fun in the rain. The accommodations were really great, except for the horrible elevators. My cold was mostly manageable, but I did wish I’d had the strength to bring my SLR camera along. And the Meetin group were generally enjoyable, although predictably more party- and drinking-oriented than Inna and I.

But overall, I really enjoyed my time in Seattle and could have stayed longer.

At the dock, our Victoria Clipper ferry bobbed and weaved in the wind-blown rain and heavy seas, and Inna didn’t have a particularly pleasant 90 minutes crossing over to Victoria. And as expected, we didn’t get passport stamps for our entry into Canada; cheap bastards.

However, by the time we docked, the seas had calmed and the sun was out, and we walked through downtown and past the Empress Hotel on the way to our lodgings at the Hotel Rialto. After nearly a year, it was really, really enjoyable to be outside the authority of the Trump Presidency. Tired from our journey, we had Indian at nearby Sizzling Tandoor before going back to the hotel and crashing.

Monday I let Inna sleep late, then we hoofed it through Chinatown to pick up our rental car, where we wound up with a RAV4 rather than a VW because the Hertz dealer somehow lost the keys when he got out of the vehicle after driving it up. We’d hoped to drive along the coastline of Vancouver Island up to my brother’s home, but had to settle for the inland highway because they were pressed for time.

We had Thai food for lunch and a nice visit with my brother, plus my sister-in-law, whom I haven’t seen in several years. We took separate cars and met up at the top of Observatory Hill for a brisk but breathtaking panoramic view of the island. Then they headed home while I took Inna up to Victoria’s famous Butchart Gardens.

The gardens were predictably amazing, and predictably crowded. What didn’t run according to plan was the weather, as the predicted day-long rain held off completely. Inna bought me some gelato in the Italian garden, and we took our time enjoying the scenery.

Tired from the walking we’d done all week, we gave up on dinner and just got some basics at 7-Eleven, including some products that you’d have to find in imported food shops at home.

Tuesday morning we wandered around downtown a bit. We looked into the John Fluevog shoe store, chatted with the proprietor of North48 Bicycles, perused the surprisingly well-stocked MEC sporting goods co-op (c.f. REI), and discovered Baggins Shoes, who will print any custom design you want onto a pair of Chuck Taylors or Vans. Then we had brunch with my brother at Willy’s, a diner in town. Sadly, my sister-in-law’s back trouble prevented her from tagging along.

After saying farewell to my brother, Inna and I moseyed down to Craigdarroch Castle—a Victorian mansion rather than a medieval castle, of course—which was cute but not particularly engaging, though Inna found some interest in the stained glass and examples of actual filled-out “dance cards”. By the time we dragged ourselves back to the hotel, we were both completely done with the walking and tourist thing and ready to go home. We had dinner at the hotel—a cube of mac and cheese, topped with tandoori chicken!—before showering, checking into our homeward flights, and turning in.

Wednesday we were up and out, with a quick drive up to Victoria’s leetle jetport. Our Air Canada flight to Toronto was long but uneventful. YYZ was a nightmare of maze-like corridors, eventually leading to a mid-corridor dungeon of a waiting area, with a tileless suspended ceiling and bare light fixtures dangling from their wires. Impatient to get home, we took an Uber from the airport rather than wait for the bus, and were very happy to arrive.

Inna enjoyed Victoria and would have liked to have spent more time there. Like Seattle, we were very fortunate to enjoy unseasonable and atypically good weather. It was especially nice to see my sister-in-law, since her health hasn’t permitted her to travel for some time.

Between the two cities, it was a pretty successful trip, though as always it was really nice to get back home again.

I haven’t made a lot of noise about my mother’s death in January, and I don’t intend that to change. Everyone has their own method of dealing with loss, and I feel that making a big emotional scene is about the least respectful thing I could do in most cases.

I’m also not going to devote any more space in my blog to the hardships of five months away from home, enduring a very much unwanted Maine winter. There’s no need to discuss my role as caregiver during the ups and downs of her hospitalization, my tasks arranging the funeral, dealing with probate, selling her car and furniture, closing her apartment, and wrapping up her finances. I’ll even skip over seeing members of my family and a few long-lost high school friends I caught up with.

I’ll only briefly mention the powerful sense of relief once I had all those things behind me, and how very, very, very good it has been to finally be back home.

It sounds like I’ve ruled out just about everything I could possibly write, thus obviating any need for this post. But no, there is one thing I do want to share, and that’s a handful of laughs. One of that trip’s bigger realizations was how deeply important humor is to me, and its usefulness as a way to cope with even the most stressful times.

Amidst all the difficulties of the past four months, there were a handful of precious smiles worth remembering. Here’s a few.

One morning my brother and I were at her nursing home with my mother when she required emergency transport to the hospital. When the EMTs showed up, I briefed them on her condition, what medication she was on and when she had last taken each, the measures the nursing home had taken in response to her situation, and so forth. I was apparently so organized and on top of the medical lingo that—as I later found out—they actually thought I was the resident doctor!

During her emergency room trips, my brother and I sometimes hung out in the ER’s little kitchen area. Being me, I snooped through their cupboards and was surprised to find a gallon jug of molasses. Wondering what the heck they’d need so much molasses for, I consulted Google and immediately regretted it. Whatever you do, *DO* *NOT* google “emergency room molasses”!

At one point she was in the cardiac unit and a nurse and I were helping her walk. She fainted in our arms, and since the nurse was unable to reach a call button, she slapped a button pinned on her uniform. “CODE YELLOW, CCU ROOM 1! CODE YELLOW, CCU ROOM 1!” blared over the intercom and more than a dozen doctors and nurses ran into the room. Apparently “code yellow” is their shorthand for “patient out of control”, normally used for unruly or violent situations; kind of silly for an unconscious 90 year-old!

She was in and out of the hospital several times, occupying a dozen different rooms. However, after a two week stay in Room 118, her next readmission was coincidentally right back in to the same familiar room.

At one point, a prisoner from some local jail was in for treatment, with a policeman posted outside his room. His family brought a cat in with them for a visit, which is pretty surprising to begin with, in a hospital. But apparently the cat got loose in the middle of the night, resulting in a penitentiary-style lockdown of the ward and all the patient rooms until they recaptured it!

Whenever a newborn was delivered in obstetrics, they played a lullaby tune over the intercom. My mother enjoyed hearing it, although it felt very odd to hear it playing during two of my mother’s worse sessions.

The hospital allows visiting family to raid the small kitchens in the ward, so my brother and I started enjoying free ice creams during our occasional opportunities to step out of her room. I joked that I was doing my part to increase US healthcare costs.

One of the few things my mother would reliably eat was milkshakes, made with two cups of ice cream. So when the floor ran out of ice cream, my brother and I blamed her (even if we’d eaten more than our fair share)!

The doctors also ordered that the staff keep tabs on my mother’s blood sugar levels. We joked that it was because so much of their ice cream had disappeared…

It confused the hell out of me that I couldn’t buy a sugared cola drink anywhere in the entire facility: not on the floors, not in the ER, not in the cafeteria or coffee shop, nor in any of their vending machines. Apparently sugar is strictly verboten! But I couldn’t square that with all the free ice cream stocked on the floors for patients and family!

Ordering lunch one day from “Room Service” (when I worked there as a high school student, it was called “Dietary”), my mother wanted tomato soup. Asked if she wanted a bowl or a cup of soup, mom asked for a bowlful of tomato soup, but in a cup…

Auto-on, motion-detecting faucets… Great for keeping one’s hands sanitary, but a complete disaster when they’re placed in the only open section of countertop in the room. On multiple times someone would move mom’s dinner tray to the counter next to the sink, only to have the faucet helpfully spray the tray, the person, and entire room with water.

Although we came to know most of the hospital staff by name, one day a new nurse came in. Seeing two guests, she asked, “Husband and son, I presume?” Yeah, no. My brother might be aging, but he was still 22 years younger than my mother. I might better understand “Son and grandson”, since there’s nearly a full generation between he and I…

Her treatment included regular doses of morphine, which naturally zonked her out. Even at her worst, just before a new dose she would relate a list of things like medications that the nurse should know about and take care of before she “lost time” due to the effects of the morphine. My mother was always both very organized and very much a take-charge person.

She had been a lifelong nurse, so there were some things in life that were normal for us but which seem strange in retrospect. For example, most kitchens have a pair of tongs for grabbing hot items like baked potato or corn on the cob. We didn’t have that… Mom had several old pairs of stainless steel surgical forceps that she used for cooking!

And finally, the thing I think is ludicrous but which no one else seems to appreciate. Mom would naturally use empty cans or plastic containers to store stuff in. In cleaning out her freezer, I came across a couple plastic tubs that originally held a spread product called “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter!”, which my mother used for storing… (wait for it…) butter! Doh!

These were the kinds of things that kept us on our toes and provided brief moments of much-needed levity during an incredibly stressful time. Looking back, some of them remind me that my mother was a normal person. Normal people have all kinds of quirks and idiosyncrasies, which you discover during the rare times when you have to pore over their belongings in detail.

I suppose an end-of-year update is in order, since I haven’t posted to my main blog since last August.

It’s ironic that my last post covered Inna’s and my summertime trip to Maine, visiting my mother as well as my brother, who had made his annual trip from his west coast home on Vancouver Island.

Ironic because for more than three months now I’ve been back in Maine, caretaking my mother, who has repeatedly bounced back and forth between hospital and nursing home. After several weeks managing it alone, my brother joined me here, so we’re both dealing with another unwanted Maine winter. The only person missing from making this a full repeat of our summer visit is Inna, whom I’ve barely seen at all since last September.

So no Inna, no biking, no Begemot, no job hunt, no Thanksgiving, no Christmas. In their place there’s nothing but snow, ice, and freezing cold, amidst long, dark months spent inhabiting Maine’s fine medical institutions.

It’s hard to look forward more than a day or so. Mom’s health is a perpetual roller-coaster ride; meanwhile, there’s the added stressors of managing her finances, trying to dispose of her accumulated belongings, finding a nursing home placement for her in Pittsburgh, and figuring out how to transport her there. And lo! here comes tax season, when I get to file taxes for two!

To make this vacation extra fun, over the holidays I contracted a really nasty influenza. While that gave me recourse to avoid holiday familial obligations, it cost a solid two weeks of weakness, nausea, coughing, and other unpleasant symptoms that I’m just coming out of.

And I have to admit a very deep-seated depression regarding the election and the prognosis for American democracy. For whatever misguided reasons, the people have ceded control to a selfish, petulant, xenophobic, entitled, compulsive liar who seems intent on systematically dismantling everything America once stood for: quaint, 19th century concepts like truth, ethics, democracy, justice, rule of law, fairness, rationality, integrity, respect, and compassion. It’s astonishing and demoralizing to anyone who still believes in those averred American values.

Meanwhile, the people—from whom all power emanates—stay willfully and myopically focused on things that don’t really matter. It was painful to see so many people wishing “Good riddance to 2016”. If the loss of Prince and Princess Leia (sic) upset you that much, then I have some sobering news for you: 2017 and the complete trainwreck of a “post-ethics” Drumpf Presidency is gonna make your hated 2016 feel like a goddamn Carnival cruise.

So, yeah. Happy new year.

When I go back to Maine, it’s usually a quick trip that doesn’t involve anything more than visiting family and doing a few basic chores for them. After a long trip to get there, and facing an equally tiring trip back, the last thing I usually want to do is sightseeing or a lot of driving around.

However, I recently brought Inna along on her first visit to Maine in decades, while my brother and niece were in also town. Because of that, we spent a lot of our time doing touristy stuff and taking photos, which makes the trip worth writing about and sharing.

We attempted to leave Pittsburgh Tuesday afternoon, but were thwarted at the gate when our first flight was delayed beyond our connection’s departure time. Worse yet, our fallback was a 6am flight the next morning, which meant we had to get out of bed at 3am!

After a pizza and way too little sleep, we drove back to the airport, to discover a longer security line than I’ve ever encountered in Pittsburgh. But we got through it, flew to Dulles, and happily made our connection to Portland. The only redeeming part of the early morning flights was the view as we flew directly above Boston.

Landing in Portland a little early, we grabbed our rental car and I took Inna on a quick tour of infinitely-famous Portland Head Light and the Eastern Prom before driving up to Augusta. Inna met the family, and we spent the afternoon swimming at Three Cornered Pond, which (as an ocean swimmer) was a new experience for Inna. After demolishing a roast turkey breast, we checked into our hotel and passed out.

Thursday Inna and I went off on our own and explored the coast. We drove up Mt. Battie, which provided an awesome view of Camden and the islands peeking above a thick sea fog. We also explored the wooded, rocky shoreline along Camden Hills State Park, which was interesting and new to me. Then came the inevitable tourist shopping crawl through Camden. After grabbing lunch, we were off down the coast to Popham Beach, where we hiked across the huge expanse of sand and dipped our feet in the frigid Atlantic Ocean.

Then it was time to head back to Augusta to meet the family for Thai food (or in Inna’s case, sushi). Although we covered a lot of territory, Inna and I hadn’t pushed ourselves beyond our already-exhausted state, and wound up having a really nice day together.

Friday was a whole-family expedition back down to the coast for a traditional lobster dinner at Shaw’s Wharf in New Harbor. Then we went on to Pemaquid Point, where Inna and I crawled around on the rocks for a few minutes. I was a little disappointed that the rest of the family wanted to turn homeward after visiting the gift shop, rather than spending any time enjoying the surf crashing on the rugged rocks. But even I was tired from eating and so much gallivanting around, and the responsible parties had to be home in time for a cable serviceman to hook up my mother’s new tv. So we headed home.

Inna and I said our goodbyes before going to the hotel, since we had to be up at 5am the next day (again!) to catch our 8am return flight. We hopped through Newark (our original layover location), where we had plenty of time to hang out before our afternoon flight back to Pittsburgh.

We were both dragging and eager to get home when we took the airport shuttle back to our car, only to discover that the battery was dead, putting up one final roadblock between us and getting home. That was corrected after an hour of sitting in a hot parking lot. We eventually pulled into our driveway and received a loud welcome from a our cat peering from the open bedroom window.

It was a very nice trip, and Inna and I both really enjoyed seeing the sights along the coast. It was unfortunate that we lost a day in Maine due to the travel mess. And all the early-morning travel thoroughly exhausted us, so we were both ecstatic when we finally got back home.

Oh yeah, and for the whole photo album, click here.

What if you could go back to high school and have just one day for a do-over. One chance to go back and interact with those kids in a different way, without all the fear and risk. With more patience and a healthy sense of compassion. What would that look like?

Let me tell you about my weekend…

Friday afternoon I grabbed a rental car and drove back to Maine. I had a quick dinner with family, which was surreal enough, considering my brother and niece were visiting from British Columbia. But this post isn’t about my ambivalence regarding family…

After dinner I checked into my hotel and drove over to Margarita’s Mexican restaurant for the first of two gatherings of people from my high school class. Friday night was essentially a small pre-party before Saturday night’s main event, which would be the first reunion I’d ever attended.

After wandering around I finally recognized the organizer, Jamu (names will be altered to protect those who pretend to innocence). Thankfully, she was someone I knew, so it was nice to chat with her for a while. She also introduced me to the twenty or so people who had come, and was kind enough to hang with me while I dipped my toes in the edges of the proverbial social quagmire.

Over the next couple hours I talked a lot with Dido (a woman I’d never interacted with at school), and Debo (about yoga), and twin sisters Mave1 & Mave2. The likely highlight of the evening was a conversation with Rodi, who seemed reasonably interesting. But I got put off when I tried to talk to Kelo, the girl (woman) who used to sit behind me in homeroom.

If you’d known me in high school, you probably would have been surprised (as I was) to discover that I probably spent 80 percent of my time talking to women, rather than men. I guess I’ve gotten much more comfortable relating to women on the whole. It’s not really a huge surprise for the “me” that I am today, but it’s a pretty dramatic change from the “me” I was back then.

I did have brief conversations with a couple guys: Tola (our mothers are friends) and Deki (who has apparently become as rabid a Tolkien fan as I used to be when I was in high school).

Except for Jamu, I hadn’t known any of these folks in school, but it was nice to talk with them nonetheless. Apparently the people I remembered best weren’t showing up until Saturday’s official gathering. But it still wound up being a nice evening, and I was (surprisingly) one of the last people out the door at the end.

Two observations… Passing around the class yearbook, it became abundantly clear that all of us needed reading glasses, and none of us had brought them. And even in that small group, two of the women had recently been through cancer treatment.

That was Friday. After sleeping very poorly, on Saturday morning I got up early and headed out for a 40-mile bike ride from Augusta to Manchester, Readfield, Belgrade, and back. Since my annual charity ride is only two weeks away, I had to find some way to spend some time in the saddle.

I swung through the old family farmstead, which some time ago was bought, torn down, and replaced with a state government office building. I remembered picking wild strawberries in the fields, my first “hunting” trips in the woods out back, the old apple tree at the edge of our huge vegetable garden, the stand of pines out front, and the camp that my grandfather built. They’re all gone; the only thing that remains from my childhood (and my father’s) is a horrid-looking willow tree that everyone always hated. Figures!

The ride also included a lakeside rest stop in Belgrade, riding past the now-bare former site of Farnham’s (our favorite roadside farmstand), coming down Sand Hill at speed, and then the long and difficult workout climbing from the river’s edge up Winthrop Street to the airport. It was a nice ride, doubly so because it provided the only moments of and peace and “rest” (if you will) that I’d have all weekend!

After showering at the hotel, it was back to family-related activities, which featured sandwiches for lunch and then mini golf with mother, brother, and niece (yes, I won). I was incubating a headache, so I was grateful that my brother’s presence hadn’t drawn any additional family members. Even so, I pled fatigue and went back to the hotel for a quick nap before freshening up for the party.

Way too soon, it was time for the main event: the official high school reunion. I showed up fashionably on time, and did my best to step into socializing mode.

Again, I talked to more women than men, and there were a lot more folks that I actually remembered. The inseparable Nihe & Kamcca agreed with my observation that the inestimable Mr. Ayotte had taught us as much about life, philosophy, and wisdom as he had French.

To my chagrin Anqui and Diru (one of the few alumni in the Boston area) both firmly agreed that I was definitely not attractive in high school, but that I was cuter now. Oof!

Among the guys, I talked to Chrise and Ticho. Both of those could have been awkward conversations, but went fine, which was cool. Ticho works in Boston, and has been playing out in a band on and off over the years.

And I finally got to shake hands with Scojo, one of my earliest childhood friends, whom I rediscovered a few years ago when I learned that he too is a cyclist and serious cancer fundraiser, having survived testicular cancer himself. He’d even ridden the PMC back in 2008, but we hadn’t been able to connect. So finally seeing him was certainly one of the evening’s highlights.

Although I had hoped to, I didn’t get much chance to talk again with Rodi. And I again had difficulty cornering the elusive Kelo. Toward the end of the evening that was remedied when out of absolutely nowhere she trotted up to me and tried to pull me out onto the dance floor! I resisted, but between wanting to connect with her and hearing someone near me say, “Oh just go on up,” I acceded. I was flattered that for some reason she had called on me, and it was definitely a highlight. Even if, as I now believe, she had done it purely for someone else’s benefit.

Ironically, notable absences included all the people that I was closest to during high school: the popular Mika, Josa, Jemu, Jere, Keja, Chila, Meho, and others. That was a bit of a disappointment.

Another disappointment is that I really didn’t make use of the occasion to plug my PMC ride. I really should have been more forward about asking for donations, but it just didn’t seem to be the right thing to do.

As the night wore on, I started feeling exhausted by the effort of being social, and took more time to sit back and watch others, which was pleasant in and of itself. I hadn’t talked to all of the 120 alumni who had come, but I’d certainly done the rounds. Between the conversation noise, the increasingly loud music, and the sheer freneticism of bouncing from person to person to person for four or five hours, on top of visiting family, I was feeling pretty overstimulated, and—after two days of heavy use—my voice was as done as I was.

With so many people to talk to, conversations couldn’t get as involved as they had been in the smaller group on Friday, so in that sense I preferred the pre-party, although it would have been cool to have more of my friends in that group, rather than all strangers.

Overall, the reunion was interesting from a number of angles. Given the passage of so much time since graduation, most of the cliques that once separated people have dissolved, so it was nice to be able to relate to folks from a place free of group identities and social stigma. Only a couple people were fixated on status and career, and just one boor had a blatant goal of recruiting others to support his specious business venture.

Would I consider going to another reunion? Well, overall this one was good, but I think I’d prefer the opportunity to sit down and get to know a smaller number of select people in more detail, rather than have a hundred shallow conversations with lots of strangers. And I did renew enough connections to reach out to the people I’m most curious about.

As for future reunions: I might do another large event, but I would hope that the organizers continue to support smaller adjunct gatherings, like Friday’s pre-party. Although I did enjoy reestablishing contact with people that I haven’t seen in decades, I certainly don’t need to dive back into that big melee anytime soon!

Yes, I’m a cyclist and I haven’t owned a car for 15 years, but that doesn’t mean I hate cars. In fact, I was quite an automotive enthusiast for most of my childhood.

My father dragged me down to the local race tracks even when I was very young. I grew up with photos of my favorite racecar drivers adorning my bedroom. To this day I remember battles between local heroes—now enshrined in the Maine Motorsports Hall of Fame—like Homer Drew and Bob Libby at places like Beech Ridge, Oxford Plains, Wiscasset, and Unity raceways.

In addition to watching NASCAR legends like Richard Petty, David Pearson, and Cale Yarborough on television, I had a whole fleet of plastic model cars that I’d built up, and a slot car track to play with. I would spend endless hours pedaling my Marx Big Wheel in counterclockwise circles around the driveway in imaginary races… wearing out at least three Big Wheels in the process!

Naturally I had the full set of racing flags: red, green, yellow, checkered, white, black, and the blue and yellow “move over” flag. I sometimes confused people driving through our neighborhood by playing race car flagman at the intersection in front of our house.

At even that young age, I didn’t think I had the cojones to be a world-class stock car driver, so I chose the next best thing. When I grew up, I wanted to be a race car mechanic. Never mind that I had no mechanical aptitude whatsoever, nor any access to cars, parts, and tools to tinker with!

At eight years of age, I was already an avid reader of magazines like Hot Rod, Road & Track, and Car & Driver, as well as the wonderful and memorable CarTOONs comic book.

My buddy John Gousse and I would dumpster dive behind the local car dealerships, picking up discarded NADA blue books so that we could study the body styles and engine options of all the current models. I could not only identify any car’s make and model on sight, but also its specific year, options package, engine size, and zero-to-sixty time.

With that kind of upbringing, it shouldn’t be a surprise that I suffer from the typical American affinity for the automobile. Growing up, one of the biggest questions in the world was what kind of car I’d own once I got my drivers license.

Well, let’s talk about that a bit, because the main point of this post is to take a look back at the family cars that I remember most vividly. The photos that follow are close approximations of the vehicle we had, although the colors were often different. A couple of the later photos are of our actual vehicles.

There’s only one place to start this list. The first car I remember us having was also the one with the most character and style: my father’s 1961 Chevy Impala. Its gloss black body was in bold contrast to its fire engine red interior. But what captured my imagination were its lines: all fins, sweeping curves, V-shapes, and daggerlike arrows, with six bullet-shaped tail lights. Even the emblem carried crossed red and checkered flags! It screamed speed and class and elegance.

It also was the protagonist in one of my family’s most memorable misadventures. In the days before my brother was to get married to a girl from Texas, he and my father went to Boston’s Logan Airport to pick up the bride’s family, our future in-laws. The car’s engine had been replaced improperly, and as they drove through the Sumner Tunnel beneath Boston Harbor, thick black smoke started pouring from the tailpipe, and the car died just as they reached the end of the tunnel. Welcome to the family!

My father’s next car was a green 1970 Plymouth Fury III. The contrast with the Impala couldn’t have been starker. Big, boring, bland, and boxy, the Fury (or “Furry”, as I’d call it) was a typically sturdy but boatlike American Chrysler sedan.

What scares me is that this car actually stands out in my mind. After the Fury, my father went through three consecutive Oldsmobile Delta 88s, none of which had any personality whatsoever. They were big, comfortable, and reliable, crossing the continent numerous times, but it still makes me sad. My father must have been quite an automobile enthusiast himself, but the last four cars he owned were utterly mediocre.

Over his lifetime, I believe my father owned eleven cars, none of which were imports. On the other hand, five out of six of the cars my mother owned before my father’s death were imported. I vaguely remember a green Volkswagen Beetle—my mother’s second one—in the driveway of my childhood home.

But the earliest car I truly remember was a yellow 1970 Datsun 510 sedan. A very basic Japanese econo-box, at the time of the 1973 Mideast Oil Crisis, it must have been a blessing for my folks. It was nothing but a curse, however, after they sold it to my brother, who claimed it misfired, overheated, and ate oil. The Datsun mark eventually was incorporated into the Nissan brand.

The Datsun was followed by my mother’s only American car and first brand new car: a 1975 Chevy Vega. It was bright red, with a black vinyl top, kind of reminiscent of that old Chevy Impala. This was the car I learned to drive on, and the car I took my license test in. My mother liked the color, and I generally liked its sporty styling; it was, after all, our first car with any character since that old Impala. Its aluminum block engine burned oil, though.

The car my mother—and therefore, I—had during high school was a white 1981 Subaru GL wagon. I nicknamed it “Ur-a-bus” for its utilitarian design and because that’s what you get when you spell Subaru backwards!

A grossly un-cool car for a high school student to have, it made up for it in one key way: it had a neeto space-age glowing amber dashboard with digital readouts and an overhead schematic of the car that indicated open doors. This earned it the nickname “the Starship” from my friends, who then referred to me as “the Admiral”.

The Starship accompanied me through gaming conventions, SCA events, move-ins and -outs from college, and many dates and late-night returns from girlfriends’ houses. Unfortunately, it was also the victim of my “learning experience” of causing two accidents within two weeks. In one, I rear-ended someone while driving a girlfriend to a concert; in the other, I attempted a U-turn on a busy street from a parallel parking space, and got hit from both directions. I still have a piece of paint that flaked off from one of those impacts in my scrapbook for 1983!

Despite the number of times I bounced it off other vehicles, my mother kept that Subaru until my father died, at which point she adopted my father’s habit of buying American: a mid-sized Olds, and then a Buick. Only in 2005 could I convince her to buy a Toyota Camry. It’s served her well, despite Toyota’s current recalls and troubles.

Meanwhile, once I started living off-campus at school, my girlfriend Linda and I needed a car of our own. With college bills and student jobs, our choices were limited. We wound up with the used blue 1982 Mazda GLC you see at right: basically, another underpowered Japanese econo-box. My buddy Mike Dow co-signed for our car loan.

The one cool thing about the GLC—the “Glick”—was that it had a moonroof. That was tremendous! It was the car we took off in after our wedding, and our transportation for several trips to Pennsic. Along the way, we made our own air conditioning by turning canisters of compressed air upside-down and blowing the freon onto ourselves.

We used that GLC hard. We dented the driver’s side door by throwing it open without catching it. And one Christmas Eve, an entire rear wheel assembly flew off on the highway and we spent the rest of the day frantically looking for someone who would perform the repair so we could get to my parents’ for the holiday. It was a good car, but when I got my first job in the real world, it was time to splurge.

But before I get to that, I have to mention one other used car. With Linda and I both working, it became clear that we needed our own cars, and Linda found a friend who was getting rid of a maroon 1984 Dodge Daytona. It wasn’t in great shape, but it was functional, and certainly sportier than the GLC. So she drove that car for a couple years, eventually taking it in the divorce. I only mention it here because yeah, it was in a sense one of the cars I’ve owned.

But the car I bought when I joined the working world was another Mazda: the blue 1990 MX-6 GT sport sedan shown below. It was my first new car, and it too came with a moonroof—one you didn’t have to hand-crank! It was nicknamed the Toxicmobile after it’s licence tag: 869-TOX.

The best part about the MX-6 was its turbocharger. After the Glick’s feeble 98 horsepower, the MX-6’s 145-hp was delightful. The only issue was its horrible turbo lag; you could literally floor it, then count four seconds before the engine suddenly kicked in. But it was a wonderful car, and I thoroughly enjoyed my daily ride to work, which concluded with a fast, downhill slalom through Westborough Office Park. Finally, a car that handled, accelerated, and just overall kicked ass!

Sadly, the Toxicmobile’s story doesn’t end well. It suffered a couple rear-enders on infamous Route 9, and had to have the whole transmission replaced. Then, when I moved into Boston proper, it sat unused for months, except for the times I had to drive it to the shop after some Red Sox fan smashed a window. It became clear that I didn’t need a car in the city, and I’d save money by renting a car whenever I needed one.

I miss the Toxicmobile a lot. As my first new car, it was a mark of success. As a sport sedan, it was just a ton of fun to drive. And it was an integral part of my life from 1989 to 1995, a period that saw my first real job, my divorce, a two-week road trip to Austin and back, a new career at Sapient, a new relationship with my first girlfriend from high school, turning 30, moving into Boston, and lots of involvement in the local music and alternative scenes.

But I also just miss driving. For now, I have to limit myself to enjoying the cars I rent for business and pleasure, although I rarely get to drive them very hard. I managed to scrape up a little Honda Fit econo-box on a recent work trip. And figuring out how to pilot the right-hand drive car we rented in the Caymans was a learning experience, that’s for sure! And I totally fell in love with the Jeep Wrangler we rented in St. Thomas; those things are just stupid fun!

It still amazes me that after being such a car freak as a kid, I’ve lived without a car since 1995. Fast and unique cars always seemed to be one of the great pleasures of adulthood, but now that I’m here, I find them an extremely expensive luxury. But if money weren’t an object, I know two things that would be at the top of my shopping list: a Jeep Wrangler for bouncy, sun-drenched fun, and a 263-hp Mazda Speed3 for screaming fast fun.

Mmmmm… Cars!

I have an older brother who lives in Victoria, British Columbia. Every other year, he flies back to Maine to visit family, and on the opposite years my mother goes west to visit them. However, my mother is 83 now, and for the first time she really needed someone to travel with her. I actually haven’t been out there myself since 1993, so last week I accompanied her on what will probably be her last trip west.

Last Thursday I took the T to Logan, where I met my mother, who had come down from Maine by bus. She was pretty anxious about the trip, and doubly so because she was having some health issues. We flew from Boston to SFO, then north to Canadia. The advantage of flying with someone in a wheelchair is that you are the first people to board the plane; the disadvantage is that you’re often the last people off.

The flights weren’t too bad, although boarding the regional jet north from SFO was a challenge due to the 5-level ramp from the gate down to the tarmac. In Victoria, we were the last people in line at customs, but we finally got to my brother’s house at 11pm Pacific… sixteen hours after I left home.

Friday I was the first person up, which was poor judgment, since my 15 year old neice’s pet bunny decided to throw a tantrum when it realized that someone was awake but not feeding it. We drove into town and picked up my rental road bike and miscellaneous other supplies for the week.

Around noontime, the family drove off to enjoy high tea at the Empress Hotel, which I was delighted to escape, preferring instead to explore the Saanich peninsula by bike. The weather was cool, but improving from misty rain to mostly sunny, a pattern which would repeat throughout our stay.

I warmed up by climbing 400-foot Mt. Tolmie, which was a nice little knoll with a beautiful view of Vancouver Island. Next I made my way to the top of 850-foot Mt. Douglas, which was a major challenge. It’s very reminiscent of Great Blue Hill or Prospect Hill in Waltham, but instead of ascending in short leaps with flats in between where you can rest, it was the most monotonic climb I’ve ever done. I finally gave in to the unforgiving incline, making two brief stops to let my legs and heart catch up with me. After admiring the view, the descent was bone-jarring and filling-loosening due to the horrible patch job they’ve made of the (and I use the term loosely) road.

Full Photo Set

From there, I followed the Seaside bike route north through Cordova Bay, then hooked up with the Lochside trail, which hugged the coast and took me from Victoria’s suburban Yuppie warrens into very rustic farmlands. However, the path degraded to a gravel rail trail, then dirt singletrack before I arrived at the Victoria airport. I took a more inland route back home, aiming to climb Mt. Newton but missing the turn. However, I did climb 750-foot Little Saanich Mountain, aka Observatory Hill, which was a steady, manageable ascent up to an astronomical observatory and the “Centre of the Universe”. The smooth pavement made the descent an absolute joy, in contrast to the crappy surface on Mt. Doug.

In the end, I logged about 45 miles. It wasn’t the most scenic ride in the world, but the hills were nice, and it was good to be back on the bike after all that time cramped up in an airplane… even if the bike was a heavy steel loaner!

I was especially pleased when we decided to order Thai take-out for supper. After Day One, the trip was going pretty well!

Saturday was a grey day, and we had nothing planned but seeing the musical The Fantasticks at a local theater. The play was reasonably interesting, the cast did a good job, and the music was tolerable (which for me is saying a great deal).

Aside from that, I was able to handle some key errands, including the all-important grocery run and a trip to the bank, where I was surprisingly able to obtain fistfuls of small US bills for entry into Where’s George. When the weather cleared again, we had a wonderful supper of steaks on the grill. It was a good way to let my legs recover from all the hills I’d ridden the day before.

Sunday’s weather was a reprise, starting out rainy but ending sunny. We began the day with brunch at The Marina, a fairly upscale establishment in Oak Bay that hosted a surprisingly good all-you-can-eat buffet. I utterly stuffed myself with waffles, french toast, bacon, sausage, ham, smash browns, cookies, chocolate cake, and probably a half dozen other things I’ve already forgotten. Gotta build my strength back up, see? Because…

Then it was off on a bike trek through Victoria’s Highlands district, which featured a lot of hills, but nothing quite as excessive as Mt. Doug. Despite being a single lane road (Millstream Lake Road) for much of its distance, the Highlands route was very nicely paved and a pure joy to ride, swooping up and down and around for kilometer after kilometer through mossy, rocky, majestic Pacific Northwest woodland. At one point a young deer crossed the road no more than 10 meters ahead of me. It was arguably one of the most beautiful rides I’ve had, and one I’d be delighted to revisit.

But there was another whole half of the ride to go, with a very different feel… Returning to town, I briefly followed the Galloping Goose trail, which after crossing a trestle bridge over Victoria’s Upper Harbor, rapidly disintegrated in a deluge of construction. I found another bridge into downtown and suddenly found myself in front of the Empress Hotel, the British Columbian Parliament buildings, and the soulless tourist hell that is any cruise ship terminal.

I followed a tour bus as we skirted the James Bay coastline until I reached the Ogden Point Breakwater and Beacon Hill Park. From there, the Coastal route brought me around several well-developed but scenic rocky headlands and small, rocky beaches, then back to my brother’s neighborhood around UVic. I logged another 45 miles, and had a frozen lasagna for supper, which was plenty after the huge brunch at the Marina.

My brother had signed us up for a kayak expedition Monday morning, but I wasn’t really looking forward to it, because the forecast called for rain and temperatures below 60 degrees. Nonetheless, we bundled up and drove up to the rental place in Brentwood Bay, where things weren’t quite as bad as advertised: it was foggy and misty, but not actively raining, and the temperature was quite tolerable. We met up with our guide, a savory young Scotian named Trish, and another gentleman who would accompany us on our paddle. I was delighted to find that we were given standard fiberglas sea kayaks, rather than cheap and worthless composite boats.

After a skills refresher, we followed the coast north for about five miles, exploring the coves along the way. It was quiet and scenic, and generally a pleasant experience, save for getting a bit wet (I’d foregone securing my skirt in favor of access to my camera) and developing a blister (from windmilling and too tight a grip on my paddle). But we saw eagles and herons and a waterfall and several oceanfront mansions, and admired the mist rising from the steeply wooded hillsides.

The return trip was more direct, as we’d seen everything once on the way north, and also because a breeze had kicked up out of the south, making the paddle back a bit more arduous. However, we returned to the dock after three and a half hours, soaked but satisfied with the effort.

The remainder of the day included returning the rental bike, packing, and an excellent meal at the 5th Street Bar & Grill. We were up Tuesday at 4am to catch our 7am flight home, which passed reasonably uneventfully, save for the constant sharp ache in my hamstrings from the kayaking.

Overall, I think the trip was quite successful. My mother enjoyed it (especially after her health issues resolved themselves), and I found my usual preferred balance between activity and rest, complementing my bike and kayak expeditions with a couple rare talks with my brother and his wife. Had we spent more time in Victoria, I might have enjoyed a full-day bike ride further afield (probably the Malahat) or some window-shopping downtown, and we lacked time to fire up the Vandercook for the letterpress project my brother and I had talked about; but on the other hand, it’s best to leave before one strains the host’s patience, and my mother and sister-in-law’s mobility issues would have made a longer stay more trying.

Thus ends (to my knowledge) my only major trip this year, and the final use of my current passport, which will need to be renewed soon.

Ornoth's profile

Frequent topics

books - 28 uses
boston - 49 uses
buddhism - 101 uses
cats - 27 uses
cycling - 58 uses
dargonzine - 36 uses
death - 31 uses
friday five - 67 uses
humor - 114 uses
inna - 39 uses
meditation - 37 uses
music - 36 uses
philosophy - 36 uses
photographs - 50 uses
photos - 32 uses
pmc - 145 uses
travel - 41 uses
voice post - 101 uses
work - 28 uses
writing - 26 uses

Entries tagged with brother

Pee En Doubleyew

Laugh as Cry

Sweet '16

No Sleep Till Popham!

Back to the Future

Car Talk

Two Thousand Years B.C.

Ornoth's profile

Links

Frequent topics