Procrastinating report cards

So here's the kind of head space I get into sometimes. I'm in the bathroom, getting ready to go out for a walk or something, and I notice there is a strange mechanical noise, a little like a fan but louder and more tonal. And I'm saying to myself, hmm, there's a weird noise in the room. And then my next thought is, "Well I hope there is."


I know, it's not really that funny, but it's an example of how my consciousness can get shaken loose just a bit when I really pay attention.  I don’t usually take the time to think all of the subsequent statements, like "Otherwise I’ll be hearing that all the time" or "Otherwise my brain is just playing tricks on me" or "Maybe there's a weird noise all the rest of the time but not now" or any of those or else things. I’m sure my subconscious does all of that, but I don’t take the time to consciously think about it.


The larger point though, is that I think we’d all be better off if we did things like that more often.
Human beings are really into classifying things. Oh, this must be this or this must be that. But of course we never know anything with 100% certainty. So wouldn't we lead more interesting lives if we entertained the possibility that when we think what we think, we also acknowledge that things aren't necessarily that concrete? Or concrete at all. I think children do that naturally and we call it pretend play. But how do we know it's any more pretend than what we're doing?  We don't, but it's easier to get through the day assuming that we know what we know.


But I would suggest that people would be less in a state of tying themselves in knots and would be happier and free-er if we weren’t so damn certain about things all the time. Thinking can be a gift, but when you start thinking about thinking, or deciding that things are certain way and feel like you know that they are that certain way, you can really get yourself in trouble very quickly. I try to avoid doing this, but I see many people in my life trapped by the way they think things are and have to be. Even though they don't really know for sure.

Channel your inner artisan

Always on the lookout for a new catchword, and with "natural" so overused that it's lost its value, the food industry seems to have latched onto "artisan" as the vaguely appealing catchword of the day. It's a little odd because "natural" is an adjective and "artisan" is a noun. I understand that they're using it as an adjective but that doesn't make it one, any more than Blue Cross' spending millions behind their "Live Fearless" campaign" makes "Fearless" an adverb or that phrase grammatically correct.

An artisan is a skilled craftsman. I understand perfectly that calling a loaf "artisan bread" is supposed to imply that it was made by a skilled baker. In a sense I suppose that's true, if someone who operates a commercial oven does it with skilled craft. I mean, it's not impossible. But I don't think there are enough artisans making food to cover everything. Ultimately it's meaningless- "bread artisan" makes as much grammatical sense as "artisan bread."

Speaking of bread, one of my favorite, very true descriptors for bread is "Hearth-baked." Yes, all bread is baked in a hearth because hearth means oven and ovens are where things are baked. The chicken I made for dinner last night was hearth-baked, unless it was hearth-roasted, which is different I'm not sure how.

The only food descriptor I like more than "hearth-baked" is "fresh-picked." Of course it was fresh when it was picked! It might be old and flavorless or spoiled but that wouldn't make it any less fresh-picked.

What's going on this week?

Has it really come to this? It's worth reading at least a little bit of the original tweet and the responses.

It's now landed on the home page of the Washington Post.

I proctored the PSAT this week. Teaching kids how to sit in an uncomfortable place and take a bubble test for 3 1/2 hours. My two favorite things that happened occurred during the filling out of the answer form. First, one of the students raised their hand and told me "I just moved and I don't know my address. What should I do?" (I got it for them), and second, when they got up to filling in the "Gender"section Male or Female, someone muttered, "They're going to have to change that, aren't they?"

Adventures on two wheels

When I spend time in the Adirondacks, I go on and on about how much I love riding my bicycle there. But I do 90+% of my riding here, in suburban Philadelphia. It's kind of a different experience however you cut it.

The biggest differences between Adirondacks and suburbs are the number of intersections and the number of cars (yes, mountains and trees and lake too). The intersections kill your speed, and you hope that the cars don't kill you. I've been doing this kind of riding for over 10 years, so I have a pretty good idea of how it all works.

When I ride I'm inspired by Prince Humperdink from The Princess Bride. When he's told to be careful because something may be a trap, he replies, "I always thing everything is a trap; that's why I'm still alive." Every day when I ride there's something happening that could kill me, but because I know that and am looking for it, I'm managed to have not made contact with a car in 15 years and probably 30000 miles of riding.

I make that sound routine, but it isn't. Not only do you have to deal with traffic, you need to look inside the car and see if the driver is paying attention or talking on the phone or looking down or not looking at all. You can put all the flashing lights you want on a bike but if someone isn't looking they won't see you.

There's always a difference of opinion, sometimes vociferous, between cyclists and drivers. It's more extreme in the city, where the cyclists and drivers tend to be distinct groups. In the suburbs, most if not all of the riders are drivers as well, so the lines of battle are more gently drawn. The overall divide is that drivers think cyclists ignore the rules of the road, which riders think that drivers think the road is just for them. This plays out in a number of ways.

I think the biggest point of disagreement is over stop signs. Drivers insist that cyclists routinely run stop signs. This definitely happens from time to time. I know I've done it accidentally a couple of times and have seen it when I'm driving as well. I don't, however, see cars as being any more law-abiding. Very few cars come to complete stops at stop signs, especially at 4-way stops when there are no other cars around. I will say that I'm more likely to come to a full stop at one of those in a car than on a bike, because it's a pain to come to a complete stop on a bike. But I never intentionally blow though an intersection.

Here's the thing drivers- in almost every case where you don't want us there, we don't want to be there either. We're not doing this to spite you. We don't like having you crawl behind us any more than you like the crawling. And by the way, if you've going 15 miles an hour behind me for a minute instead of 25, your arrival will be delayed by 24 seconds, and if that somehow matters it's your fault and not mine. And here are a few other things that go through my mind when I'm riding

1. Passing me on the left and then immediately making a right turn in front of me is not very neighborly
2. I can't read your mind. Many cars have devices that let you signal to others when you are turning. Yours must not be equipped with those.
3. And by the way, if you remember your driving test, you're supposed to signal when you pull out from the curb
4. Do you really need to honk? Do you think I don't know you're there?
5. Nobody forced you to get such a big car. I'm sorry there isn't room for you to pass me yet
6. Making 3-point turns block the road for everyone, not just cars.

Honestly, when I come to a 4-way stop and behave responsibly, drivers almost without exception wave to me to go first. I make sure to not only wave but say "Thanks" so they can hear me. It gives me a bit of faith that I'll be able to continue riding without incident.

Sunday morning surprise- from inflight

I was assuming I would get up around when I usually have been this trip and then go for a bike ride in the park. That's all. And then leave for the airport around 10:30. But imagine my dismay when I woke up to find that our flight was delayed by 4(!) hours. I went downstairs and had a cup of coffee, offered to me by a man who I'd seen around the hotel but had not had any contact with up to that point. His English was about as good as my French, which means both of us try hard, so we were able to kind of understand each other. It was a struggle but kind of fun. My limited French ability has been a real source of frustration for me on this trip. I kind of understand and can usually figure something out when I read it, but I don't process it quickly enough to converse. I won't let that happen again.

I went for my ride, but was not really able to enjoy it not knowing how the day would proceed. But the park was very pretty and busy. There were a lot of cyclists doing serious cycling, but I was on a Velib bike, which is entirely unserious. I cruised around for a bit.

Came back to the room and finished packing. We discussed a few possibilities of things to do, but ultimately decided it would be best to just go to the airport, so we got in a cab and headed out.

You know that thing about getting to the airport 2 hours before an international flight? Well on our way out, we could have gotten there a half hour before and gotten to the plane on time. This time, we arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport, which is not what the French call it (they use the original name Roissy- kind of like the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge in NY which everyone still calls the Triboro), to find it absolutely crawling with people. We we directed by a pleasant guy to get our tax refund, and then to the check-in line and then to another check-in line when the first one was taking too long. That whole process took about 40 minutes.

Then came passport control. While we were checking in, we heard a few repetitions of an announcement that security clearances may take longer than usual. Ha-ha we thought- they always say that. Then we stepped out of that area and into the main concourse, only to find a line stretching 50 yards or so through the terminal. And that was just for the quick check before we got to the passport control line. An entire huge room, called the Schengen Area for some reason, was filled with one of those chicane things with the back and forth lines with cloth ropes. It all funneled into 4(!!!!!) passport control booths. Easily over 1000 people in line, plus the 50 yards of line in the terminal itself. All told, it took us over an hour after check-in, just to get to security. So had the flight been on time we would have missed it after getting to the airport that early.

At this point, we had a choice of going to the gate area or to a lounge that we had access to. That lounge was pretty lame, unless you wanted to shower or sleep, which cost extra to do. But the airport has a free lounge right outside it, where there were couches and chairs and it was quiet, so we settled in there. This worked great for a while. Then an extended family with a few small children came. The grandparents sat near us, which was okay. Then one of the kids came over, then another, then the parents with the last kid. The all started encroaching on where we were sitting. And one of the kids was coughing, and the grandfather was trying to give her medicine and the kid was fussing and it just got closer and closer until we had to leave the whole area.

We decided just to go to the gate at that point. This airport has very strangely designed concourses, which are big and tubular and bright and kind of hot. And there are almost no bathrooms anywhere and the ones there were were hard to find and get to (like you had to take the stairs or an elevator). At least it's pretty quiet for an airport terminal. But the flight was really really late and we sat there a long time and then went through their very strange and complicated boarding procedure which involved multiple passport checks and boarding pass checks by numerous staff and then at the end you had to scan your own boarding pass to check in. The whole thing seemed wildly inefficient. But eventually we got on the plane.

Finally (and it's not final because we are still on the plane and have another 3 hours until we land) we had to wait while the removed baggage checked by people who did not make it to the flight on time. How you do that when the flight is over 4 hours late is a bit mystifying, but what do I know? So here we sit, for a while yet. But hopefully home within 6 hours or so.

Somewhat Solo Saturday

So Saturday. I've been sleeping later than I usually do at home, but not by much. Ronnie and I are a little freaked out at how well we made the transition across 6 time zones and what the ramifications will be when we return, but it's not like there's anything we can do about it and I'm certainly not upset that I've been sleeping well here.

Today I headed in the same general direction as yesterday, but by a different route. I can't say I saw anything amazing, but it's always fun walking around a city and the weather was spectacular. We've been very lucky here in general but today was perfect. This time, before I started walking, I went to the Velib stand and got a ticket for a day's worth of bicycle rentals. They have a very popular bike sharing system here, with stations every few blocks. It costs a couple of euros per day but that's for unlimited access for short periods of time (there's an extra charge if you keep it more than 30 minutes, at least on a daily ticket).  I wasn't going to ride just then, but I wanted to make sure it worked so I could do it later.

After I'd walked for an hour or so though, I decided that I'd rather ride back to the hotel than take the metro, so I picked up a bike near Pont Mirabeau and rode myself to Boulogne, where our friends live and our hotel is located. There isn't any place like Boulogne near Philadelphia; it's indistinguishable from Paris in many ways and one can easily walk from parts of it into Paris proper- it's adjacent to the 16th arrondissement. But it seems like a nice place to live; our friends have a great 2 bedroom apartment in one of the many multi-dwelling buildings in the city.

There was no market today but there was a customer waiting.

Anyway, Ronnie went to meet her friend to have some "girl time," and I set out once more on another bicycle. My plan was to ride along the Seine and just kind of check things out. I wasn't really thinking about how crowded everything was going to be, but I found out soon enough. It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon, and there were throngs of people everywhere. There are bike paths for most of it, either on sidewalks or dedicated space in the streets. The street parts were okay, but the sidewalk parts were not particularly respected by pedestrians, even though there were plenty of other places to walk. Yes, walking people! That sidewalk looks clear of people because there aren't supposed to be people walking there!

The most blatant place was on a bridge with a nice view of the Eiffel Tower, which seems to be the preferred place for non-Parisians to have wedding photos taken. Here. the bike lane was criss-crossed with long veils and trains. I thought briefly of riding over someone's train but decided not to.

Once I got a bit past the tower, it got so crowded as to be difficult to ride, so I turned away from the river to find a place to return the bike. In my effort to avoid crowds, I somehow ended up on the Champs-Elyssé, not a place noted for desolation. At this point I was just trying to find a return station, and Google Maps, which was a total fail on this entire enterprise, was trying to route me to a place a kilometer away. I got absorbed by watching a truck try to squeeze through a space about 4 inches wider that itself and once it squeezed through, there was a docking station about 50 feet in front of me.

From there I took a metro a few stops east to an area I wanted to walk around. Still very crowded, but eventually I got to a nice, busy but pleasant area by the river, where I strolled for a while.

This route left me in the 5th, near what had been just the Sorbonne but now seems to be called Sorbonne University so that people know what it is. It's a cool area- hilly with lots of small streets meandering around with nice shops. Eventually I wanted to find the Metro, and when Google Maps failed again, I had to use, wait for it, a paper map. Much like the Cassini technical team at NASA, I used outdated technology to find the Metro within a couple of minutes and headed back.

I bought some chocolates for souvenirs, and then went back to the hotel. Ronnie wasn't back yet, so I graded Calculus papers in the garden.That was kind of entertaining in a grading papers sort of way, but at least I got it done. Eventually Ronnie returned and we changed and met up with our friends for dinner. The meal, at La Table de Cybele on the other end of Boulogne, was excellent- creative mixing of ingredients and interesting flavors and textures. And it was a warm, fun way to spend our last evening. Not only do they have bike sharing in Paris, they have little electric car sharing as well, so we took a little car, the 5 of us crammed in, back to our part of town. Then we packed and went to bed, ready to leave in the morning.

Our dinner out

We had one night where our friends were busy, so we decided to go out for a nice dinner. I've heard there are a lot of good restaurants in Paris, and Ronnie picked out a few that had a Michelin star. I don't know why a tire company is rating restaurants, but I know this is a big deal, especially in France. Food is where the rubber meets the road, I guess.

So we made a reservation at a place called Le Violon d'Ingres, run by a  chef named Christian Constant. I wouldn't normally remember that kind of thing, but his name is all over everything. Like the plates and glasses have a double-C logo and stuff like that. As I said, it's clearly a big deal. I don't think he plays the violin but I guess Ingres did. We realized once we were taking the Metro over there that it was around the corner from an apartment we'd rented for a memorable trip here with the kids about 10 years ago, and by memorable I don't mean great. I don't want to talk about it.

But it's a nice neighborhood, near the Eiffel Tower, and the the restaurant is pretty, with lots of mirrors. There was no coat check or rack, but they had commuter rail-type racks up over the banquettes where we put our coats, which we both found a little odd. We sat down and had a really nice meal. By that I mean the food was very good and the service was great. There was absolutely nothing stuffy about it; our waitress was friendly, and not only was her English good, she had a great, kind of teasing sense of humor. She let us taste our wines before we bought a glass, and then let us taste again the second time, even though it was the same wine from the same bottle.

Beautiful presentation of the salt

Most of the service was done by that woman and a young man with glasses who never said anything, but quickly brought us interesting breadsticks and spiced almonds. Then came the amuse bouche, a cream of scrambled egg (I'm sure it sounds better in French) with minced chanterelle mushrooms floating on top. Rich-tasting but very light, and still good even though I'd had scrambled eggs, without the cream or mushroom parts, for breakfast.

Cream of scrambled eggs with chanterelles

My starter course was called Spider Crab Jelly with Creamy Rock Crab and herb infusion. Yes, it was that. The jelly was definitely not the predominant part- lots of crab and something creamy (cream, perhaps?) and caviar on top. Very tasty and fun to eat too. The orange dots, salmon eggs I presume, were very resilient and fun to try to pop.

Next came the main course, which was called Supreme of sea bass, crispy almond crust and curried oil and peppers. I tasted no curry, but it came on a bed of very fresh, perfectly cooked spinach. I don't know what "supreme of" means under any circumstances and it looked kind of like a pastry to me, but none of that was bothering me. 

I should note that one of my daughters is a serious Yelp food reviewer who would probably be disappointed with my food pictures, but it was all I could do to get myself to photograph my food in the first place. Meanwhile, almost everyone around us was on their phones constantly. For some reason I really wasn't expecting that here but it's definitely here.

Finally, for dessert I had something modestly titled The Fabulous Christian Constant chocolate tart. It was really good. Don't know if I'd reach back into my own bag of words to find "fabulous," but it was really really good. It was the only thing I couldn't finish, which was met by multiple questioning comments by the waitstaff. 

I should expand on the waitstaff beyond that, because they were excellent in every regard. My favorite was the young man with glasses who never said anything (I assume he was not permitted to) but was the one to bring and abruptly take away the breadsticks and almonds and then the (great great) bread itself. The bread was great but the butter was better. He was the most thorough scraper of crumbs from the tablecloth of anyone I've ever seen. It took him 2 or 3 minutes to finish the job, and I know it wasn't just because we're messy (and I certainly am) because he did the same thing to the table next to us as well, which they didn't notice because they were on their phones.

I'm not mentioning Ronnie's food here, I guess because she's not writing this and also because we didn't take pictures of it (and as we all know, if you didn't photograph it, you didn't eat it). But her food was excellent as well.

So we thought we were done, but before the bill came, so did an extra little treat, a burnt sugar cookie and some crunchy chocolate stuff. Here's a picture, but it's not great because chocolate looks like poop unless it's in a rigidly defined shape like the tart.

This stuff was really good. I'm a sucker for burnt sugar in general and this was the proper balance between crispy and sticky. The chocolate poo was good as well. The bill came and we were ready to leave, but before that, out came the silent guy with a basket of still-warm madeleines. Mmmm. We waited but nothing else came, so we left.

I can't say it was the best meal I've ever had, but it was a terrific all-round experience and I'd certainly recommend the place. 

A day with Paris architecture

Like I said, your finish writing about one day and you're on to the next already. My walk was a bit more directed today. I started by strolling though a weekly market a couple of blocks from out hotel. I have better pictures somewhere but I'm too lazy to look for them.

It's very nice, though not substantially different from most of the other markets I've been to. But I got some coffee there and was on my way.

I headed east and a bit south. I hadn't had a peek at the Eiffel Tower yet and I was ready. We also are staying a few blocks from Roland Garros Stadium, home of the French Open tennis tournament and I wanted to get a look at that as well. Roland Garros doesn't look like anything from the street, but it's definitely there. There are nice houses across the way.

It wasn't very nice out, which make it a bit less fun. It was cold and rainy and for some reason I decided not to wear a jacket. That was just stubborn and dumb. It didn't rain enough to really get me wet, but it was uncomfortable and unnecessarily so. One of the things about myself that annoys me most is that once I leave someplace I really don't want to go back, so I don't unless it's impossible to proceed otherwise (like if I don't take my car keys when I'm driving somewhere). But I don't like to turn around and get something. Not sure why that is; I'm pretty practical about most things.

Anyway, I walked past the stadium and through an area called Anteuil, where I bought some groceries and then walked across the river to get a look at the tower.

Eglise d'Anteuil 

 The tower looks pretty much like I remember it, which is a good thing I think. It was pretty crappy out and it was late, so I took the Metro back. We had breakfast; I made myself some eggs so I wouldn't almost collapse from eating nothing but simple carbs for breakfast like I did the day before. We met up with our friends to go for an architectural tour.

One of our friends is an architect and knows a lot about both the history and architecture of Paris, and he's considering trying to give tours, so he was trying it out on us. He definitely knows a lot of interesting stuff. Much of Paris features these large, grand building based on a plan from some dude name Haussman, who was the urban planner who pretty much designed the current city of Paris from scratch (just so you understand- I know nothing about any of this so I could be completely wrong, but I don't care to look it up right now). So it turned out pretty good, but not everyone was thrilled with the relative sameness, even though the plan allowed some room for stylistic flexibility. So there was necessarily some other styles coming into play fairly soon thereafter.

Typical Haussman style building

Above and below, something different from typical Haussman building

So we toured around the 16th arrondissement, whatever the hell an arrondissement is (actually I know what it is but it is not in any way important to a tourist aside from the general wisdom knowing kind of where you are at any particular moment. To give you an idea why you don't care, arrondissements municipaux, which are the ones you've heard of, are not the same as departmental arrondissements, which subdivide the 101 French départements. Got it? Want to know more?). We saw a number of very interesting buildings, ranging from art nouveau like we see above to fine examples of modernist buildings, like you see below

Eventually, the difference between the styles became even more overt.

 

To end the tour, we ended up at a house that's famous enough (in France, anyway) to be an exhibition. You know on the door and pay and then are told not to touch anything or scratch anything or lean on anything (I wasn't going to ask how one might scratch or lean without touching because it felt rude) and best of all, we had to wear booties.

My booties

And by the way, the word in French for booties is "booties." The house was very odd in an interesting way. Every place you wend gave you a different perspective (yes, I know that's always the case- give me some slack). It had a ramp, stairs, and atrium and roof garden and I guess some regular rooms, though it was hard to tell what was what because aside from the dining room, where there was a table, there really wasn't any furniture.

 

 

 
I know it's a bit off to use this particular phrase here, but the weird thing about it was that for all the preservation of original fixtures, the toilet was one of those complicated Japanese style things that sanitizes itself and puts a new cover on the seat automatically. But only if you know how to work it, which I didn't.

From there we headed home. Dinner was its own special thing, so I'll put it in its own post.

Paris walking

I actually slept reasonably well the first night and didn't wake up until 8. And off I went for my usual morning walk. Our hotel is a very pleasant little place that's on a mostly residential street close to a school. I walked through a sea of little kids on scooters with their parents on may way toward the school and once I walked past, though a line of adults walking and wheeling empty scooters.

Gotta tell you, the scooter thing is pretty out of control here. People ride them on the sidewalks and it's not just kids, who are hazards just by their nature, but adults as well. They go really fast and some of them have scooters with electric motors, or even worse, these single wheel things that are sort of like Segways without the part you hold on to. I remember when we were in Barcelona, the only thing that scared me on the streets was the plethora of motor scooters, but at least they were contained to the street. These scooters are everywhere, and it's like having people ride bicycles on the sidewalk. I actually saw a motorcycle riding on the sidewalk with two kid-loaded scooters next to it. Understand too that sidewalks here are pretty narrow compared to the US. It's not pretty.

The walk was kind of random and just took me here and there without anything super interesting, but it's just nice being here. I did see a bunch of Jewish men going to Rosh Hashanah services. Some of them wear kippot but many of them wear baseball caps. Our French friend suggested that this might be because it was (is) not really well thought of to be wearing a kippah in Paris. I got back to the hotel and we had what the French laughingly refer to as breakfast, which is essentially bread and butter and coffee. I mean, it's good but we both knew that we weren't going to be feeling great in an hour or two. We then went to St. Germain, a very nice shopping area, where we did some clothes shopping, and by we I mean Ronnie with me in the store too. It was a successful trip though, and we came back happy. And by we I mean both of us.

Later, we met our friends for lunch and then went to an area called Le Marais, Marais means marsh, though there is no indication that this area ever was one. It's been built up for 1000 years or so. It was at one time a center for the Jewish population. Not anymore, but there are remnants. There's a nice photography museum there, and we saw some really interesting stuff.

Above and below from "Acrobatics" by Hicham Benohoud

From "Ghost Stories," by Liu Bolin (he is costumed and made up to blend in with the packages)

There seemed to be a general difference among our Parisian friends as to how much walking is okay, but with a reasonably small amount of debate, we set off toward the Metro line that would allow us to return home without having to change trains twice. That route took us across the River Seine, which we ultimately ended up crossing multiple times. We stopped in a café by the side of the river for a drink, and were treated to a nice jazz band that started right after we sat down. We stayed for quite a while and just chatted and had a good time.

As we continued to walk south forward the metro, we crossed onto the Isle St. Louis

and behind the Cathedral of Notre Dame, which is in its own way just striking as the front. The sun was getting low in the sky and it was very beautiful.

Eventually we got over to the fifth on the small and got on the Metro home, where we had a nice dinner and then to bed. A nice day by any measure.

Not in real time

The thing with traveling, and by extension blogging while you're traveling, is when do you stop? When you're in a place like Paris, you feel like you ought to be going and doing all the time. And then when you stop you sleep and then you get up and start doing again.

But how does that feel, really? When do you get a chance to think about what you've done and what you're doing next. Does some of the pleasure get lost if you don't pause to savor it? On the other hand, how much do you miss by sitting in your hotel room, typing? When you finally stop to write things down, the experience itself has passed and you're dealing with memories of feelings instead of the feelings themselves. There's no easy answer, at least for me. I will post some pictures and videos later, but wanted to get this thought out there first, and unfortunately, much of what goes into a blog will be the memories part. It's not bad, but it's not in real time either.

First full day in Paris

Of course the first day ends up being a blur you try your hardest, in my case successfully, to fall sleep a while and you're awakened by flight attendants shoving a box with yogurt and a packaged biscuit at you. You consume that, when the plane lands and you get off. At this juncture it feels like four in the morning. Anyone who has taken an international flight will recognize what happens when you get off the plane. You are essentially injected into a large glass tube that pushes you from the plane down to
some sort of processing center. This invariably includes 3 to 5 hallways and escalator or two and a couple of passages where you can see everybody else in the airport that you can't get out of where you are to go say hi.

We emerged from the airport into a taxi which took us to our very cute little hotel. We were fortunate in that our room was ready, because we were ready for our nap. Our way of dealing with the whole overnight eastbound travel is to get to the hotel, nap for a couple of hours and then push through the rest of the day. That gets us awake enough to function but eventually tired enough that we can go to bed in the evening, even though its much earlier at home.

We then went and visited with our friend for a bit, and then went back to the hotel. Then back to the apartment and then back to the hotel and back to the apartment. Somewhere in there we had lunch and rested a bit and I went to the cheese shop and the supermarket. Yeah, a bit of a blur. We're not technically in the city of Paris; we're in sort of a close-in suburb called Bourgogne that's still on the Paris Metro. There's a busy Main Street with lots of shops and places to eat. It's obviously a residential area- there's nothing touristic about it. But because it's the Paris environs, everything still looks nice and is done with style.

Oh yeah, nice looking baked goods too

It's very pleasant to walk around. Those little Razor scooters are very popular with the kids
And there's a school near the hotel, so the sidewalks are busy with them. Eventually, we went to our friends' apartment and had dinner and hung out and talked until late. Finally got to bed around midnight. That was a very long day.

The obstacle course

The way to Paris is cluttered. I live in Philadelphia and there are all sorts of irritating objects littering the path. Yes, I know there’s a whole ocean but the airplane takes care of that part so it’s not the same kind of bother as the other stuff.

The first object in the way is money. It’s expensive to go to Paris; it’s much cheaper to go to places that nobody wants to visit- I can get great fares to pretty much anywhere in Ohio, for instance. But I did notice that the price to fly to Paris is much cheaper from Newark than from Philadelphia. It's possible that’s just because it’s about 80 miles closer, but the reason isn’t my concern. The point is how much irritation will I endure for the pretty substantial savings.

We left our house around 4 and dropped the dog off at the home of a friend who also boards dogs professionally. I will not mention her name, not because she isn’t wonderful, but because she has limited capacity and I don’t want to make it harder for me to get a spot. If she will guarantee me a spot, I’ll do all the advertising she wants.

Then came the drive to Newark, which is somewhat bearable under the best of circumstances, but perhaps less so in a misty kind of rain.

We parked in an off-site lot, because there are no airport long-term parking lots that aren’t desolate and inconvenient and overly pricey. The better off-site lots may be desolate but at least they’re less expensive, half the price in this case, but they can be challenging to find. I like Waze in general, but their directions to the parking lot sucked and caused me to drive in circles, or more accurately large ellipses, in order to finally make it to the lot. The lot itself is in an area that makes Philadelphia offsite parking look like Versailles, but it’s cheap and close to the airport.

The next impediment is Newark airport itself. I’m sorry, it’s Newark Liberty Airport . No, they don’t serve Freedom Fries here, though it wouldn’t be out of character. I find the chest-thumping use of words like liberty and freedom to be totally offensive. There is nothing Liberating about Newark airport. Quite the opposite in fact; it’s the most over-signed place I’ve ever been. I’m not sure what it is about this particular airport that makes that happen, maybe because it has 3 levels instead of the usual two and a truly odd amount of wasted space, but there are signs everywhere, giving an excellent lesson on how too many signs is just as bad as not enough.

Then there was Delta check-in. We pretty quickly found the international check-in (as in turned away people checking in for domestic flights after they'd waited on line), which was perhaps a tad understaffed.

Yep, about 20 people on line and one representative, who was mostly taking first class passengers. 

That impediment cleared, we were pretty much home free. We breezed through security because we were the only ones there (because they were only checking in one person every 5 minutes or so at the desk) and then we popped into the Delta lounge. Normally we couldn't have gone in there, but I decided to try out American Express Platinum this year because they bribed me with points and rebates. But one of the benefits is you get to use Delta airport clubs. This place was not in any way luxurious, but it was pleasant and reasonably comfortable and they had free snacks and drinks, and nice bathrooms. It was a good place to spend 45 minutes until they announced our flight.

Last but not least was the airplane. We had bought what are called Comfort + seats. I'll get to the seats themselves in a moment but first that name. If this is Comfort Plus, where is just regular Comfort, or Comfort Minus? I've heard people use many words to describe the physical sensations of sitting in coach airline seats, but "comfort" is not among them. I will say though, that for a long flight, even though Comfort Plus doesn't mean what they think it means, that it's totally worth the extra $75-100 for what it gives you. What you get is a slightly better upholstered seat, more legroom, and most importantly, a little extra recline. It's not like a business or first class seat where you can lie flat, but it goes back as far as the extra few inches of pitch (that's what airlines call the space between seats- I don't know why) will allow. 

Even though this is nice and I'm glad we did it and it allowed me to get some sleep, it makes me mad that coach seating has gotten so bad that this seems like a really good thing. Is a comfortable sitting space really that much to ask?

So eventually I fell asleep, aided by an adult beverage or two, eyeshades, earplugs, and a neck pillow. It worked so well it makes me wonder why I don't just walk around like that all the time, so I could get some rest on a moment's notice.

Like all of these overnight flights to Europe, whatever sleep you're getting is interrupted an hour or so before landing by the crew turning on the lights and somehow simultaneously handing you a box of breakfast. I had some yogurt and coffee and cheese and was ready to face the day. We got off the plane and went to passport control, which involved doing this:

and then a long wait for the bags, but eventually, obstacles and all, we made it.

Back to school daze

I've never understood the name "Back to School Night." The only people who are actually going back to school on Back To School Night are the teachers who had been there working earlier in the day. I suppose some of the parents may have been at school earlier picking up their kids, so they are coming back. But I don't really think that's what it's referring to, though the issue I guess is that I don't have any idea what it's referring to. It's akin to in service. I know what it means but I don't know why it means what it does. Okay, getting too tangled up in it, so let's move on.

We're in day 2 of the year, and here's what I've noticed so far:

• I always thought I hated meetings. Now I'm sure of it. Meetings are great when you need to discuss something as a group or if you are announcing something that nobody else knows. Otherwise they are in some way wasting people's time, and there is a huge falloff in their usefulness after a certain point. If you're someone like me who gets things the first time you tell me (or 5 seconds after you put the Powerpoint slide up), then every moment spent subsequent to that wastes my time. When that happens if I'm reading a non-fiction book that's supposed to be explaining something I can just stop reading. But in a meeting I'm stuck unless I just up and leave. I don't react well in those situations. I get contrary.
• Relatedly, one of the reasons I get on well with adolescents is that I am one in many way. I take things literally and my immediate reaction if you tell me to do something (as opposed to asking) is to say NO! So somehow, just in the past 24 hours, I've gotten several emails where the subject line says "Important" or "Important Notice" or even "Important to read this!" That last one is particularly annoying because once you call an email important, it's pretty obvious what you mean is that people should read it.                                                                                         That aside, my immediate reaction when I see "Important" in the subject line is "I'll be the judge that," because subject-line-"Important" implies important to the reader. We know that you think it's important because you sent the email, and unless we care about that we're not going to care about your email.
• I work in a department with 8 women. This was amusing at times last year when, for example, there was a mouse in the office. I won't name names but you know who you are. One of the perks for me is that I have one of the 3 bathrooms basically to myself (for those of you not familiar with my workplace, our offices were formerly hotel rooms and the math department is 3 connecting rooms, each with its own bathroom). It's even referred to as "Frank's bathroom." As in, Teacher 1: "If I get pregnant you'll know because last kid I threw up all the time." Teacher 2: "Well if that happens, can you do it in Frank's bathroom?" Yes, an atmosphere of mutual respect. We definitely have the most fun.
• Rather than earnestly getting involved in the running of the school as I did last year, this year I am going to limit myself to heckling. So far that's been fun, especially during inexplicably long email threads.
• I also vow to not get irritated if things aren't working smoothly because experience should be telling me that they just won't, so I will focus on attaining an air of detached bemusement.
• The nicest thing about being back at school is seeing the kids. During the summer and in service, school meant two things- throwing out old papers, and listening to people complain about stuff. Who did what to who, what "they" are doing to whoever, that kind of thing. The teaching stuff is what's fun for me; I really am doing this job simply because I enjoy it.
• Nothing to do with school but the corner of Montgomery Avenue and Old Lancaster/Levering Mill is the worst intersection I've ever had to deal with regularly, at least when you're headed from Merion toward the city. That whole block by Hymie's and the nail places is awful and the people waiting to make left turns are a hazard.

And so it goes. This was a long week, even with only two school days. More to come.

What I did on Tuesday on my way to Boston

I broke a car Tuesday. Actually I broke 3. I hadn't had an accident in over 30 years and regularly make long drives with no problem, but somehow the combination of rain, many miles of stop and go traffic, and a non-operational car radio lulled me to sleep in a bumper-to-bumper jam on I-84 near Danbury, CT. I awoke to see my car slamming into the back of the car in front of me, who in turn hit the car in front of him.

Nobody was hurt, and the other two cars were drivable, though one was in pretty bad shape. Our minivan, which we were driving up to Boston to move my daughter out of her apartment, was not drivable, though I was able to get it onto the shoulder.

My immediate reaction, the printable part at least, was (1) I'm okay and (2) Ronnie is okay. I then ran out to see if the other guys were okay, which they were.

We had to wait for the police to come and then for a tow truck to remove our car. Based on the whole experience I have a few pieces of advice.

1. If you're going to rear-end someone, hit an ex-marine. They are resilient and tolerant of discomfort and whatever you do to them they've seen worse.

2. If not a marine, hit someone who's coming from their mother's funeral. That's what the guy in the front car was doing and he was in a kind of "what else can happen?" kind of mood.

As an aside, I should note that the entire scene was almost weirdly cheerful. Both of the people I'd hit were joking around and not angry or even acting inconvenienced. The police officer was serious and in control but helpful and efficient.

3. If you're going to mess up a car, make it a rental car. Ronnie and I kept talking about how much more annoying it would have been if we'd crashed our own car 150 miles from home.

4. And if you're going to wreck a rental car, do it near an office of the company you rented from. This will save you time and aggravation.

The minivan got loaded onto a flatbed and we got in the cab and off we went. When I asked the driver at first if he could take us to the rental car office (as opposed to his shop) he said no, but the police officer convinced him to take us. Along the way, the driver kept pointing out stuff. The best thing was when he said "You're not the only one having a bad day, that guy up there left his pizza box on top of his car." And sure enough, 3 or 4 cars ahead we saw someone stop and pick one of those pizza delivery cases up off the ground. He also pointed out a crosswalk near a college where he said about 5 people were killed by traffic every year.

Eventually he dropped us at the rental place, took everything out of the van and drove off. We went in the office and they took some information and then put us in an identical minivan, which was great and a little weird. It did strike me as strange that the thought process is "Oh okay, you wrecked the first car we gave you, so here's another one."

In any event, the whole thing set us back a total of 90 minutes. That's it. I know it will cost some money too, but the whole thing could not have been more pleasant, considering what had happened. Kind of crazy but I'm not complaining.

Maybe I can't write poetry, but I know it when I see it

For the first time since the day after we arrived, I woke up to the sounds of rain. I was expecting that- it had been predicted. Nonetheless, the sky was very pretty so I went out and took a couple of pictures.

Then the rain stopped, everything was still, the lake was smooth as glass, the clouds in the distance were sliding by and changing the light moment to moment, and I realized (1) I had to take a time lapse photo and (2) I had to go out and be in it. So fully clothed (no shoes), I ran outside and got on the paddleboard and headed for the middle of the lake.

I can't remember ever being on the lake by myself before. I didn't even see anyone on the shore. Of course, it had stopped raining just moments ago after steadily going for 3 or 4 hours, but it was still striking. I paddled out to someplace I could see the entire lake, then stopped to watch the clouds and the water. It was deeply moving, and for whatever reason I decided to lie down on the board, which I did for 10 minutes or so, sharing the lake with 6 loons and nobody else. It was indescribably beautiful, watching the clouds drift by the mountains beyond the southern end of the lake.



I knew in the back of my mind that I was going to have to take my daughter to the airport this morning, I had no idea what time it was and how long I'd been out there. So reluctantly and slowly I began to paddle back, now viewing what was going on at the northern end of the lake.

On that end of the lake there are a couple of nearby hills- big hills, but not big enough to be mountains. I could see some scattered banks of fog hanging low along the hillside. You know the phrase “the fog lifted?” Well I spent the next 10 minutes, standing on top of a lake surface, and watched an updraft take a piece of the fog bank and stretch it skyward like it was a piece of taffy, until it became so thin and translucent that it simply disappeared. Then I watched, all at once, the remainder of the fog bank get pushed or pulled or lifted up the hillside like a series of rivers flowing up the hill and cascading over the top like waterfalls.

I was completely slack-jawed the entire time. It was literally jaw-droppingly stunning in every meaning of the word. It rendered me almost speechless, so I decided I'd better get it written down. I've never seen anything like that and it moved me to my soul. It was totally completely spontaneous, so it was the best kind of moment- one you can experience on its own terms without any expectations or judgements to apply or evaluate it. It felt like real magic.

New house, same stuff

Life in the new house is similar to life in the previous house. Usually my day has focus on riding my bike somewhere. The first day here I rode to Saranac Lake, which is 10 miles from here, and back. It's not a wonderful ride but it has some very pleasant and some reasonably challenging moments.

Like every other ride around here, you start off going downhill and so therefore have to climb to get back. On that ride, there's about a one and half mile climb back into town.  It's not super steep, but that's still a long way to be pedaling uphill. And of course it's right at the end after you've already done 17 miles. But they're all like that.

Yesterday I went north toward the Whiteface ski area. I took a roundabout route because it took me through my favorite 4 miles of road that I've ever ridden. There's a back road that connects routes 86 and 73, the two state highways that intersect at Lake Placid.  It follows a small branch of the Ausable River and cuts through farmland and woods, keeping the river in view for most of the way. It's relatively flat, the pavement is good, there are very few cars and the air smells amazing. I usually enter it on Route 73 near the ski jump, used continuously since it was build to for the 1980 Winter Olympics.

The Lake Placid Olympics, best known for being the site of the Miracle on Ice US hockey team story, was what they call the last small Olympics. They built a new skating rink (the rink from the 1932 Olympics is still in use as well), ski jumps and (I think) a new bobsled/luge track. And that was about it. All of those things continue to be used for training and for high level competitions. The downhill ski races were at an existing area on existing trails.

There was none of this building up a whole village from scratch thing going on. Completely different from now, where it's a multi-billion dollar boondoggle that ends up mostly being discarded when the games are over and saddling the host with a pile of debt. All the Olympics did here was improve the town as a resort attraction and destination for athletes.

Anyway, once on the main road, you are treated to glorious scenery, along a somewhat larger branch of the same river. See what I mean?

Whiteface is the big mountain in the background. The riding is mostly downhill to the ski area, which seemed counterintuitive until I realized that yes, you start at the bottom of the hill. Once I turned around, it was a long, beautiful uphill slog. I fill my lungs with the good air and hope my legs don't give out. Tomorrow I intend to do a 45 mile ride.

The rest of the day was spent in and around the lake. We walked to town, paddled on both the SUP and a kayak, and I walked my lap around the lake. There's a famous book about meditation called "Wherever You Go, There You Are." This place is all meditation all the time for me; I feel completely here. It's been a long time since I've felt this relaxed and at ease. Can't beat it.

Neither here nor there

Saturday was limbo day. Not the good kind of limbo where the fun music plays and you bend yourself under bars; the kind where you are between places and have nowhere to go.

Lake Placid weekly leases are clear and consistent. You check in at 4:00 on Saturday and out at 10:00 the following Saturday. Houses must be cleaned, things rearranged. We knew this was coming, but we'd never experienced it before. So what do you do with 6 hours in Lake Placid without a place to be? As much as we love the place, there are a limited number of things to do here and an even more limited number of places to go within easy driving distance.

So what do we do? Well, we take our time getting out of the first house. We probably could have stayed longer. By the time we left at 10:45 the cleaners still hadn't shown up, and we probably could have hung out on the dock without them even noticing we were there. But leave we did.

First we went to town to get some coffee. While there, we met a couple who had showed up in Lake Placid for a wedding and hadn't realized that it was black tie, and could we tell them where they could possibly find dress shirt and a bow tie and cummerbund. I've never even seen anyone is sports coat here, but we suggested a couple of places they might try and we saw later that we steered them right.

From there we went over to the nicest hotel in town to see if we could get a massage in their spa. They had something available a little later, so we went to the one decent sized town near here and walked around (and saw somewhere that sold bow ties and cummerbunds), checked out the farmer's market, had a surprisingly good slice of pizza and then headed back for our massages.

I work my legs really hard here. I've ridden 10-25 miles on my bike every day except one, a total of about 150 miles. I also walk the 3 miles or so around the lake every day. So not surprisingly I had some soreness, which I had the massage therapist attack, which she did with vigor (a lot more elbow and forearm than hands). The pain involved in a deep tissue massage is intense and difficult to describe, but you put up with it the best you can because you trust in the end it will make you feel better. In this case, it really did and I haven't returned to that level of soreness since, in spite of my best efforts to induce it.

Finally, we went up to see John Brown's farm. John Brown, you may recall, was the crazed abolitionist who let a raid on a US army depot in Harper's Ferry, MD, which set off a chain of events leading to the Civil War. For whatever reason, he actually lived here. He had a farm in a beautiful spot where he and his very fertile wives (one at a time) had 20(!) children. Yes, the second wife had 13 children. Pretty hard to imagine. Three of his sons died with him in the Harper's Ferry raid and the 4 of them are buried on the farm. As we were looking at the gravesite, I got an email saying the new house was ready, so off we went to unpack once more.

Laketime

Lakes are many things. They're very wet, of course, which is sort of the point. They're quiet things by themselves, but invite people (and birds at times) to make a lot of noise. They're smooth and reflective by nature, but that is easily upset, even with a small breeze or someone paddling. Unlike the ocean or even a river, they're contained, which adds an element of peace, especially when juxtaposed with mountains.

Mirror Lake, along whose shores we're staying, is absolutely perfect for paddling. It's about a mile long and a quarter mile wide. No motor boats allowed. Our house is kind of in the middle the long way, which give one lots of options for routes to take.

The first choice is, do you want to be in the water or not? For in the water you can either swim or go on a paddleboard with a rambunctious child who will push you in at some point. For on the water the three preferred choices are the aforementioned stand-up paddleboards (aka SUP- you stand up, not the paddleboard), kayaks, and paddleboats. There are a few canoes and waterbikes as well.

Of all these options, the paddleboat is definitely the easiest and least satisfying. It's very nice if you're going to a short distance, but good luck if you find yourself in the middle of the lake with the wind in your face. I'm not sure if it's by design, but the fact of paddleboats is that after a certain point, if you pedal harder, the teeny paddles move too fast to catch any water and so the thing just stalls. I was in a kayak yesterday afternoon watching these three tween-looking kids try for what seemed like a half hour just to turn around and head back to their hotel. They weren't still out there at 8 this morning so I guess they eventually made it back.

Swimming is set up for the Ironman Triathalon that happened a couple of weeks ago and an Ironman 70.3 (?) that's going to be here in a month. The 70.3 thing exists I assume because whoever runs Ironman is trying to extend their brand to cover any legit triathalon. I'm not sure how good that strategy is, because there have always been lots of triathalons but Ironman stood for something. It was 140.6 miles, with a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike and 26.2 mile full marathon at the end. I've ridden my bike on the Ironman route and it's hard but not impossible. The real Ironpeople do it twice though. Anyway, anything less would seem to require a less impressive sort of metal. Pewterman maybe.

Back to swimming, here they do one lap around a lake-long line of buoys. I assume they do 2 laps for the big race unless the do it in Lake Placid lake, which is bigger, instead. But every day I see people in wetsuit tops swimming around the buoys. It's pretty impressive really. I can swim about a half mile in open water before I have to rest, and I'm not a bad swimmer or anything.

Aside from all this there's yoga on the lake, and if you haven't done a downward dog on a paddleboard you haven't really yoga'ed I guess.

The lake is pretty quiet early in the morning and around dusk. Those are my favorite times. I typically kayak in the morning and SUP in the evening.

Not our house

We're in Lake Placid, renting a house on Mirror Lake (Lake Placid lake is adjacent to the town but not right in it). Part of the fun of this kind of stay is exploring someone else's house.

The first thing one needs to do is to mark your territory by using all the bathrooms, so make sure you conserve your bodily functions until you arrive. Once you do that you will no longer feel displaced and can begin to move in.

Coming to a new house you have to get a sense for the layout, figure out how best to enter and exit, scope out the best bedroom, find where the TV is and which remotes you use, and where might be a comfortable place to sit. Then you dump your things in the appropriate places and go to explore what is always the key element of a vacation home, the kitchen.

Part of the fun of this is to see what kinds of random stuff gets left around. Some of this is based on how often the owner is in the house and the rest depends on how much non-perishable stuff the previous tenants bought and left. Sometimes there will be almost nothing there except salt and pepper (often multiple salts and peppers). This particular house has a surprisingly well stocked pantry, with extra virgin olive oil and cans of soup and more. Other things that get left are sugar, flour (in a bag marked "December 2016" in this house), vegetable oil and, for some reason, tea.

There must be something about coming to a vacation house that makes people think they're going to drink tea. Sometimes they do drink a little bit of it but, but really when it comes down to it, people don't like tea, mostly because it doesn't taste very good. Even if you call tea "good" everyone knows that means "for tea that is." So they either don't like it enough to take the extra home with them or think it would be a nice thing to leave "for the house." It's unusual for there to not be multiple boxes of tea. I think there are 5 in the house we're at now, plus we brought 2 that we'd gotten for a gift. I think it would be nice to leave them for the house.

Then you can look in the refrigerator. The door will usually contain some condiments of varying ages. Mustard, ketchup, mayo, jelly. There might be some butter or salad dressing. Our current house has some whipped cream too. Most of this stuff ends up being usable, but check the expiration dates. At least at the places we go, the people are good about having a clean refrigerator for you.

Then there are the cabinets. What's in which cabinet? Plates? Glasses? Coffee mugs? Enough wine glasses? People bring even more wine than tea to these houses, but they rarely leave any. Silverware, sure. The biggest question involves whether or not there are any sharp knives. We used to stay in a place where we knew we needed to bring a sharp knife. And a vegetable peeler. All the houses here favor big, heavy plates and bowls. It makes emptying the dishwasher better exercise than at home, but I'm not sure if there's any other point to it. Lots of big heavy coffee mugs too.

We're in the Adirondacks, so most of the houses have that theme, in case you forget where you are. There are lots of images of moose and bears, neither or which I've ever seen here, and some loons, which I have. Some houses have chandeliers made of deer horns. I've never been quite sure what to think about that; I think deer shed their horns regularly but I'm not sure enough about that to be quite comfortable. Our current house has little of that.

There are also cute little signs about lakes, woods, mountains and such. This house has a nice little poem in the master bath about their "little cottage by the lake." This little cottage has 3 floors, 4 large bedrooms with full bathrooms, 2 screened porches with cushy bed-sized swings, an open-plan main floor with a 50 inch TV (all the bedrooms have TVs as well), multiple gas fireplaces, a teak ceiling and top of the line appliances. Just a little $2 million cottage.

But after a couple of days you almost feel like you live here. And that's the point I guess.