A not so funny thing happened to me, part 1.

Today is Tuesday, I think. The only way I can really tell is by my pill case. I'm not sure why I still have one of those. I used to need it but as I've gotten healthier I'm down to one prescription, one sort of prescription for an over-the-counter thing, a Claratin and a baby aspirin to keep my baby headaches away. Magnesium to prevent muscle cramps, which can happen for me when I'm sitting a lot, as happens when traveling.

So Tuesday was laundry day. Not for me, I just got here. That would constitute some pretty poor planning on my part if I needed laundry service 3 days into an 8 day trip. No, R&C have been here 10 days and need some things washed. Delicately. So I asked at the hotel here and they said they did not know of a local laundromat, but that the Internet Point around the corner did service laundry. I went around the corner to check, and sure enough, there was a very pleasant, English-speaking man who seemed to understand perfectly what "Wash cold, dry on low" meant. I dropped off the clothes and promised to be back the same afternoon.

Meanwhile, time for another breakfast. Hotels in Italy pretty much all offer breakfast. This one was very like an American breakfast buffet. I wish they had raisin bran instead of All-Bran, but oh well. The last place just had corn flakes. I should note however that they seem clueless as to how to properly cook bacon here. Bacon in a broiler is not hard, but everything here was black on one side and pink on the other. Who knows. Good bread though, and decent coffee. The coffee here is generally good, though you have to know how to order. For me, that's doppio café con latte. Double espresso with hot milk. Perfect. A couple of those in the morning and I'm ready to boogie.

Today was the big tout- 6 1/2 hours on the Forum, Palatine Hill, Colosseum and the Pantheon.

Pantheon was first. It was somewhat diminished for me by the fact that I've been unable to successfully get cash from an ATM since the airport. So eventually I had to go to one of those little exchange places and get an awful exchange rate. I'm not sure what's wrong. As I said, it worked in the airport. Hopefully my reining cash will be sufficient, but I don't really think so. I'm going to try  other banks tomorrow. Ugh. It all made me extremely angry and frustrated, standing for 15 minutes on a line while the guide and R&C stood and waited.

On the way, we stopped at an ancient site that also serves as a cat sanctuary. Apparently this is a thing, dumping your spare cats at ancient site, so now there are signs telling you not too. Hard to tell whether this is effective.

We only saw two cats but it was hot out and maybe they were lounging in the shade. We also passed what is apparently a little shopping area for priests. It's the place you stock up on your sacred garments and accessories. Weird. We did see one priest striding though with a shopping bag. I wonder what their return policy is.

Anyway, the Pantheon is incredible. Our guide is an archeologist who is, I'm sure less than thrilled with being guiding tourists as opposed to digging stuff up, or whatever those people do when fully employed. But it's an amazing piece of business, if for nothing else than it's actual existence in its current state. Most everything in Rome has been stripped, first by the barbarians, then by the Popes, then by anyone else who could. But the Pantheon was converted to a church almost immediately after Christianity was legal, so it was spared. And what a wonder it is.

The biggest marvel of the whole thing is the dome. The idea that they were able to build this perfect dome at the beginning of the first millennium is just extraordinary to me. But the Romans were great builders. The thing is a perfect sphere, essentially, with a floor down where you need to stand or sit. It's hard to describe where an location lies on a sphere. " Near the top? On the side? Uh, on the round part?"

 As we strolled around, trying to find me an ATM and get to the ancient site, we saw another one of the typical Rome things, ancient buildings surrounding more modern (like 16th century) sites.

We also saw the place where Mussolini like to stand to make speeches, because it was a really small balcony with a low bracket, which made him look really tall.

Eventually we made it to the ancient Forum. I had not realized that after the republican forum was no longer big enough that that they built several others.

Unfortunately, the current condition of the Forum is such that it's a little hard to tell what it actually looks like. They buried it an built over it and took a kind of "hey, life goes on!" kind of attitude about it in general, and to be honest, what's left is kind of in ruins, if you know what I mean.

From Tuscany to Rome

Another day. It was our last day in Tuscany. We decided to go see a couple of other hill towns before heading south to Rome. We spent part of the morning taking pictures around the hotel, and then left for San Gimignano, a hill town famous for having the most remaining tower homes still standing.I guess it's one of the more popular hill towns. I'm only saying that because there were no spaces left either in any of the lots or on any of the streets surrounding the town (like most of these towns, you can't drive inside the towns themselves. The streets are too narrow for cars and a quick scoot up the main street would probably slaughter several hundred tourists on any given day). And there were hundreds of cars circulating looking for the nonexistent spots, so we abandoned ship and headed for another town.

The next place we hit, Monteriggioni (yes, all the towns sound like obscure sorts of pasta. I can't help that), is best know for having its entire defensive wall still standing. There's a short section where you can climb up along the wall of a platform and look over the countryside. Really beautiful.

Waited on line at the one non-restaurant food shop and got a platter of meats and cheeses for lunch, which we ate in a small park (everything in this town was kind of in miniature- it's incredibly cute). We went out the back gate to take some pictures in the olive trees and grape vines on the hillside, then a quick espresso and off to Rome.

The drive to Rome from Tuscany is pretty long but pretty, with occasional hill towns perched off to the left or right of the expressway. The car we have is very very small and has room only for the luggage and us. Just.

We fought some traffic on the way into Rome. It was the end of a holiday weekend and lots of people had been out in the countryside, I guess. We had some difficulty getting to the hotel as Google Maps, our only reliable source, kept freezing. And then it kept trying to direct us to across the street from the hotel. There's no place to pull over anywhere in this street, though there's a curb cut for a few meet just in front. We finally got in front, then parked the car a few blocks away so we could get set. Then we had to go to the airport to drop off the car, because yesterday was big holiday in town and the city office was closed by the time we arrived.

The airport is far and a pain in the butt, and I couldn't drop the car off myself, because I was not a registered driver, only Ronnie was. And the car had sustained some slight damage. The last thing I needed at that point was to have them confront me on the damage and then find I was not the proper driver. So Ronnie dealt with them, but they didn't notice at the moment. Once we left it can be done by email. We then took a cab back to the hotel and we were finally done with that chapter. Whew!

We rested for a little while and then headed out for dinner. We decided to eat near the Trevi fountain,

since that seemed a nice place to visit on out first night. We had a nice dinner on a small street near the fountain, which is a truly insane piece of business. I'm not sure what kind of crazy person dreamed that thing up.

Really, that's the best you could come up with?

Anyway, it was mobbed at 10:30 on a Monday night and came complete with street hawkers and people wanting to take your picture. But ultimately we made out way down near the fountain and threw our coins in.

Then some gelato and it was a nice way to end a long day. Tomorrow is a big tour day- Roman Forum, Palatine hill, Colosseum, and Pantheon. Looking forward to it.

The rest of that day

After leaving the farm, full of food and knowledge about cheese, farming and life, we moved on. Just to give you an idea about this cheese-making lady, she says, "Perhaps you saw the goats? Oh no! Marco is out walking them until 8. We walk our goats most days so that they get the best grass. Walking is very good for you, you know. If you walk and eat good food and breathe healthy air you will have a healthy life, don't you think?" Can you imagine that as your mom? Actually, I'm guessing a few of you can...

From there we went to Montalcino, another hill town. The guide was smart enough to drop us on the uphill side where we met Cesare, a coppersmith and general character in the cute old Italian guy kind of way. His main avocation, aside from fashioning wonderful things out of copper, was encouraging people to have as many children as possible. As he gave us a tour, complete with patter in rapid Italian (translated by our guide except when she stopped and blushed slightly, as she told us later he was directing his fertility talk at her), he fashioned us a little commemorative plaque.

He claims to be good friends with Rick Steves, the tour guide guy, and I'm sure he's just the kind of person that would make it onto his show.

From there, we walked down the main street, downhill the whole way. I should note that the weather has been absolutely fantastic. Ronnie and Celia had great weather the whole time too.

We got back and then had to decide what to do for dinner. The hotel has a restaurant, but it's a small hotel and on Sunday nights they have their traditional Tuscan dinner. Neither I nor my wife or daughter are traditional Tuscans. Lets just say it looked savory. And heavy and gamey, and served at one big table family style  for 35 Euros (about $43) per person. How popular was it with the guests? We got an alternative recommended in a nearby town and ran into 3 other couples we'd seen there. I had a delicious pizza with mushrooms and Tuscan ham and Ronnie had grilled lamb and Celia had a hamburger on a homemade bun. All really good and a nice family restaurant full of international tourists (get used to it if you're coming here).

And then we walked up the street and had gelato and they also sole Math beer. I kid you not. I always knew that for me, math and beer went together very well. I'm glad the Tuscans are hip to this as well.

And then it was to bed. A long day of driving awaits and we land in Rome eventually. 

First full day in Italy

Though honestly, yesterday was a pretty full day. Plane, train, bus, and finally car.

Surprisingly, I made it through the day yesterday, only dozing off briefly at seemingly random moments, much to the amusement of my family. Made it all the way until 11:00 PM. So almost exactly 24 hours after leaving Philadelphia and 36 hours after waking up in Bala Cynwyd, I went to bed in Castellina in Chianti.

Incredibly, I slept for 10 1/2 hours. I genuinely cannot remember the last time I slept for anything like that. A normal night is 6 and I rarely go beyond 7. So we shall see how this plays out over the course of another day.

Today we had a tour, which Ronnie arranged that sounded promising, as it included food and wine and olive oil and cool towns. Our guid was Elana, a talkative young woman (is that the basic tour guide job description, extremely talkative at all times?) First stop on today's tour was Poderino, farm in San Quirico d'Orcia, a Unesco heritage site where we tasted wine and olive oil. Spectacularly beautiful and delicious. Very tasty olive oil.

The guy who ran the place was very pleasant and upbeat and chatted away to us as if we could understand anything he said, which we couldn't. All we had was two pieces of toast, one just soaked in olive oil and one with tomatoes and salt and olive oil. And a glass of their wine. Yummy.

From there we headed to Pienza, the home of Pope Pius II. Wonderful aromas in the cheese shops and panoramic views from the top of the wall. Pienza falls into the broad category of hill towns, which pretty much means what it says. They're towns of various sites, perched on top of hills so that they could see their enemies coming from a long distance and assume good defensive positions. The problem with these towns is that in a lot of ways, living on top of a big hip is a pain in the butt. You have to go down somewhere to get everything. Water supply is usually limited to cisterns and you can't grow much of anything. Plus, they're hilly. Even walking on the street can be difficult, though Pienza was very tame in that regard.

Then to lunch, where I finally remembered to take pictures of food. This place is an organic farm that serves only things it grows itself.

It was a very cool place, and the lady who runs it was incredible. Yackety yackety yack, effortlessly dispensing wisdom about how to make the best natural cheeses and the benefits to people of breathing fresh air and eating fresh foods. It was like talking to your mom on speed if your mom were an artisinal cheese maker, which mine was not.

I'll finish this tomorrow.

The trip to Italy

Oh my god, it’s been a long time. And why would you even bother tuning in when it’s been this long?

But for better or worse, when I’m overwhelmed I seem to lose the energy to write. And if you’re going to function on a high level, you’re always running the risk of overwhelm. It’s really kind of crazy how much I’ve been up to for the past few weeks, but I think I’m kind of past that now, or at least away from it for the moment, so I have a moment to express myself.

10:15 EDT

This is a running diary of my trip to Italy, starting with my journey from Philadelphia to Rome and then Tuscany. I’m currently enroute to Tuscany, in the pretty part of Italy. Okay, I guess most of Italy is the pretty part of Italy, but Tuscany is particularly nice. My wife and daughter have been there for about a week and I’m on my way to join them for a week. This seems very strange; I’m in the middle of the school year and that’s not what you do in the middle of the school year, but circumstances led me here and I’m not unhappy about it.

This flight has been one of the best I’ve ever had. First of all, I’m going to Rome, so that’s a big plus over, for example, going to Cleveland, or even Memphis. But more than that, international flights are generally nice. First of all, I watched Sherlock, the Benedict Cumberbatch one, on the in-flight video and wow, that’s great stuff. I’m hooked.

Even better, I met Michael, one of the flight attendants. They gave out free glasses of cheap red wine with dinner, and said you had to pay if you wanted more, but I asked nicely and they gave me more. But I was wired after Sherlock and wanted a third glass, so I went back to the galley and talked to the flight attendant who was just a really terrific human being. We talked for like half an hour, he told me about his partner who lives in Lisbon, and introduced me to the rest of the crew and we talked about all kinds of stuff, starting with how he’d been sober for 22 years and veering all over the place. He gave me a few bottles of the good wine, not just for the plane but for my ensuing bus ride tomorrow morning. What could be better for a morning bus ride through Italy than some excellent Chilean wine?

So I’m happy. I’m going to finish my wine and try to go to sleep so that I can function in the morning, when I have to get from the Rome airport to the bus station and then on a bus to Siena I’m completely up for this.

In the past week, I’ve prepared my final exams for the two classes who have to take them, gotten lessons together for the classes I’ll miss, helped my students review for my exam and the SATs, gone to 3 Phillies games (including the no-hitter), eaten at a divey Mexican place in South Philly and at The Palm with my dad for his 86^th birthday, done 2 loads of laundry, helped my daughter prepare for an interview and just generally kept busy. I was home by myself for a week and hardly watched TV. That’ll give you an idea.

10:47 Italy time, 4:47 EDT

Now I’m in Rome on a commuter train from the airport to the bus station, where I’ll get the bus to Siena, where I’ll meet up with my wife and daughter. The train is beat up and graffiti-scarred, but it has a big advantage in that it goes to where I want to be and it’s relatively cheap. I’m two doppio espressos, a croissant and a yogurt to the good and I’m on my way. I know it’s going to hit me at some point, but for the moment I’m okay.

I just want to note one of my favorite Steve Martin standup lines- “Those foreigners have a different word for everything.” You can’t be more geared for tourists than Italy is; it’s the leading national industry. The historical sites are great, but the real draw is that the Italians are just cool. Not in the American sense of cool, but genuinely cool in a completely natural way. In general there’s no pretense here. Everyone is sociable and friendly and warm. It’s hard to beat, and compared to other places in Europe, it’s really nice. But still, all the stuff here is printed in Italian. It’s soooo inconvenient.

Wow, this is really a commuter train. We stop every 5 minutes or so and people are getting on at every station. I feel bad that I have my whole seat area taken up with luggage. I think we’ll be in Rome soon. Once we get there I have to figure out how to get to the bus station that’s supposedly a few hundred yards from the train station. Plus I’ll want some lunch because it’s already almost 11 here and I’ll be on the bus from 12:30 until 3. I’m presuming there’s somewhere in Rome where I can buy food.

This whole thing has a very disconnected feel to it, I guess because 15 hours ago I was standing over a photocopier at work. Everything’s been so complicated lately. My other daughter had an interview with the Phillies on Friday, so she came home Thursday night, just as I was getting ready to leave. And to add to the amusement we had a delivery of patio furniture scheduled for Friday afternoon. Yes, I know I had work and was leaving for Italy on Friday afternoon, so feel free to call me a lousy planner. I’ll cop to it. Big thanks to my friend Kathy for meeting the truck when I couldn’t be there.

Throw in a crazy Wednesday night, when I met my dad for dinner in New York (I still want to just call it “the city” but that might confuse people and we wouldn’t want that). Since I was training up, we planned to meet at a restaurant near Penn Station, but my dad called me when I was on my way to say that there were no tables available and that instead we were meeting at a place in the East 40’s. That’s not very close to Penn Station. I got over there okay and we had a nice dinner. My dad has a driver so they dropped me at Penn Station and I took the escalator down and just as I was about to step on the train I realized I did not have my backpack.

Normally, being without my backpack for a couple for days would be no big deal, but of course I was leaving for Italy in less than 48 hours. So I changed my reservation from the 9:20 to the 10:05 train and cabbed back over to the restaurant to retrieve my bag.

That done, I decided that I didn’t want to cab back. It was nice out, I’d had a big meal and I like to walk. So I did. One would think I would have looked at a clock at some point, but one would be wrong in that regard. If you’ve been around Macy’s near Penn Station, you know that there’s a digital clock on the southwest corner of 34^th and 7^th. That clock was iconic when I was a kid- digital clocks were brand new and this one kept time to the second. In this case, I rounded the corner of 35^th and 7^th and saw that it was 9:58 and some seconds. Keep in mind that the actual train part of Penn Station is a 33^rd and 8^th. Needless to say, I took off. I seem to have lost almost none of my ability to navigate crowds and pretty much ran straight through from 35^th and 7^th down to the train platform, boarded the train, sat down and it left. Maybe it was 90 seconds after I got there. Maybe less. But I did get there.

12:25 Italy time

Now at the bus “station” near the train station. Unlike the train station, which is a building, the bus station across the street is unmarked (aside from the presence of many buses) and scruffy, with bad signage and just a few stalls to buy tickets or cigarettes. I found the right ticket office by process of elimination (lots of people saying “no” and pointing) until I finally saw a logo I recognized. So now I’m sitting on the bus, sweating because the engine isn’t running, and slightly panicking because I didn’t realize there were reserved seats. I’m trying to keep a double seat to myself, but it’s impossible to know if that will stick. My reserved seat is next to the guy sitting in front of me. And we’re pulling out… Whew! At least until the next stop.

I’m still feeling surprisingly good all things considered. I guess I slept for a little while on the plane, though I couldn’t tell you for how long. I started watching Saving Mr. Banks, which I was enjoying, but dozed off until they turned on the lights and made us uncline our seats. Zipped right through passport control and just had time to get cash and a potty break before my bag arrived. The whole trip could not have been easier. If I can stay awake until bedtime tonight I should be okay tomorrow.

I should note the so-called dinner that they served on the flight. They announced it as chicken with rice and gravy, which couldn’t have sounded more appetizing, or pasta with tomato-garlic sauce, which I figured could be eaten. I didn’t see either garlic or tomato. It was a small plate of macaroni and cheese with a little bit of broccoli (I think). Maybe 2/3 of what comes in an Easy Mac container. It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t anything.

2:30 Italian Time

It’s quite pretty here on the road from Rome to Florence. Lots and lots of old-looking buildings (I presume they are actually old, but you don’t want assume that kind of thing, just like with a person). I’m getting a little tired of riding in conveyances of various sorts, having done plane, train, bus so far with car to come. I also kind of need to go to the toilette. Hopefully there’s one close to the bus stop in Siena.

Listening to some old New Pornographers. I’d kind of forgotten how much I like them. Neko Case and AC Newman seem to be mostly doing solo things these days, but many they are great in a band together. The only other distraction here is this incredibly hot Italian couple sitting across from me and pawing at each other constantly. They’re both gorgeous and I’m not sure which of them I’d rather sleep with.

Okay, I think I’m losing it. Once “did I say that out loud?” thoughts like that start making it out of my head I’m no longer totally in control and would be better off avoiding human contact until I get some rest. But I’m really not sure. The only thing I’m certain about is that I won’t actually sleep with either of them. I’ve been traveling for 17 hours straight if you include my ride to the airport, so you’ve got to excuse me.

The road we’re on now is awful. Uneven and rutted. Kind of like City Avenue but somewhat more scenic. Seeing a lot of old farm houses with solar panels. Why not? And lots of hay rolled up into balls. Little towns or even just houses perched on top of hills. Grape vines everywhere. It’s very green and it looks like it’s about to rain. Only another half hour in the bus.

7:30 Italy time

In the hotel room in Castellina. It’s kind of a hotel room. It’s in a old mansion and to call it a suite seems understated. Incredibly beautiful. I’ll post pictures tomorrow.

I spent a couple of hours in Siena waiting for Ronnie and Celia to catch up to me. It’s a nice city, and it wasn’t terribly annoying to deal with it even with a suitcase. We finally met up at 5 and came here. I’ll write more about it tomorrow but I want to get it posted for the moment. Been up for 36 hours and had 20 straight hours of travel.

Final thoughts on Sedona

On our last morning I wanted to do a short walk. So I climbed the steps to go for a walk around town. This area is called Upper Sedona, I suppose based on elevation. I do not believe that there is a Lower Sedona and I'm not even sure about just plain old Sedona, but no matter.

Upper Sedona consists entirely of tourist restaurants and souvenir shops. It's amazing to see such a concentration of similar stores. You think there would be some differentiation. You can almost imagine the frame of mind of somebody doing this. "I'm going to open a store in Sedona that doesn't sell junk." Then, of course, once you open the store, you're completely driven by what's sells. The junk sells. So that's what you sell. Unless, of course, you have an idea for a store that sells jewelry. And jerky. And flutes. 

There's also a thriving commercial spirituality industry here. At any number of places you can get psychic consultations and aura readings. Most of them will photograph your aura for you. I would like one of those cameras. They will also take you out to tour the vortexes. Supposedly, the Sedona area is rich with swirling energy fields that can have life-altering benefits. I do kind of feel the need to explore the whole vortex thing. I feel like I can do it with an open mind. I figure receiving energy from the vortex might be like putting your Bluetooth device into discoverable mode. If my phone can do that, why not me? And I haven't any knowledge about their existence, one way or the other. Just the fact that it wouldn't be the first thing I would think about when I landed the spot, doesn't mean it isn't there. 

Fortunately, they seem to have not corrupted all of the natural beauty here for commercial purposes. You need trails and such to really access some places, but they haven't ruined anything in the process. There doesn't seem to be any building of any sort on public lands around here and so hikers, jeeps and bicycles and I presume folks on ATVs as well can use it and enjoy it. I can certainly see finding a place a few miles outside of the busyness to settle down, if you're into this kind of thing.

Some of it is just commercial, some of it was just fun, some stupid, but the beauty is absolutely real. And I'm okay with all that. And I think you can enjoy this place without being completely enamored of all things red rocked.

We did stop by Bell Rock, one of the famed vortexes on the way out of town. The description on line clearly said that you could feel the energy as soon as you got out of your car, so we felt no need to hike up to Bell Rock itself. It's a nice enough looking rock.

Maybe I just wasn't in the right frame of mind to feel the energy (sort of like forgetting to put your Bluetooth phone into 'discoverable' mode, I'd imagine), but I felt nothing. Oh well. It was a nice easy trip home, so maybe that was the energy somehow.

The one full day in Sedona

Whenever we go to a new place I like to go for a walk and see where we are. Today I didn't want to just screw around, because we're probably 150 feet down from street level and at 4000 feet, so I didn't want to exhaust myself just getting to wherever I was going to walk. So I asked the concierge at the hotel. he showed me a map, told me how to get up the hill by stairs and "just go up this street and there's a nice trail at the end."

I'm sure he's right. But he didn't mention that the end of the street, which looked like a couple of blocks on the map, was in fact a mile away, uphill. By the time I got to the trail head, it was time to turn around. I did go onto the trail for about 3 minutes, and it was quite beautiful, but that was the extent of it.

After that we had breakfast and departed on a Pink Jeep Tour. Not sure what the origin of that is, but everyone knows about Pink Jeep Tours. There are a bunch of trails through public lands that are dedicated to jeep and ATV driving. They're bumpy and steep at times, but they take you out into the middle of stuff you wouldn't be able to get close to otherwise. The rocks here are really quite amazing. Mostly reddish, but with striations of grey as well. The erosion patterns are very cool. It must be a great place for rock climbing and mountain biking. 

Our guide was a 40-ish guy who did no dumb cutesy shtick, for which we were very greatful. In the jeep with us were 3 little girls, aged 2-4, who giggled throughout the trip. They had a great time and were very cute. Their adult companions, not so cute and a bit annoying at times, but it was all in all a lot of fun. We will see how my back feels tomorrow after all that bouncing around.

That was pretty much it for activity for the day. We had lunch at the edge of town, having gotten a ride up to the top of the driveway, but still having to climb everywhere we went. The town is at 4500 feet- not extreme altitude, but still noticeable altitude, so that was no particular fun. But we got through it and were able to get back to the hotel by stairs, which were okay for going down.

After that, it was time for our spa treatments, which we got down by the stream in a tent. This was quite pleasant, especially the absence of the spa music. Who makes up that stuff? It's awful. I had told them that I didn't care whether I had a male or female therapist, so they assigned me someone where it was impossible to know the difference. It was a little disconcerting, to be honest. Not the most obvious choice for deep tissue work, but it was fine.

We then sat and relaxed until dinner, which was pizza at a cute little place about 5 miles out of town. Not too bad for the middle of Arizona. Then back and to bed. Home tomorrow.

Scottsdale to Sedona

We left Scottsdale around noon. The morning was more of the same- quiet, followed by a flurry of activity, as we went from it being just me, then me and Ronnie, then everyone and breakfast and the daughter having to leave back for college but not without raiding the refrigerator and supply closet for food and paper towels and the like. We left at pretty much the same time and headed north towards Sedona. I was sorry that we didn't take the scenic route, though parts of the way we came were nice. The highlight was when we passed a sign that read, "Entering Prescott National Forest" at a time that there was not a single tree anywhere in sight. Arizona can be like that.

Sedona has plenty of trees. It's in an area called Verde Valley, and it's certainly more verde than where we'd been. There's a large creek (I know that sounds like an oxymoron but it's big enough to be shown on maps) that runs through the center of it, which made it a major agricultural area before rising real estate prices drove the farmers out. Now they harvest tourists, here to see the red rocks and experience the energy fields. We haven't visited any of they vortexes (vortices, anyone?) but we might on our way out of town. Supposedly there's swirling energy coming out of the earth in a few places.

I'm not sure what gives, but it's plenty scenic here. This is the view from our hotel room balcony if you bend uncomfortably and look in the right directions (hey, better than nothing).

The hotel we're staying at, (I make good English, eh?) is called L'Auberge. I don't know what an auberge is and am too lazy to look it up. But it's a nice little place right on the stream, 80 rooms or so, a kind of cross between a luxury resort and a summer camp. It's got a great spa (by reputation and based on what I had done to me) and a terrific restaurant (again, based both on reputation and experience).

The town itself looks kind of iffy. Tough to see anything there except for t-shirt shops, tour operators, crystal vendors and frozen yogurt places. And very busy and crowded. The hotel is just down the hill from the town but is very quiet and pleasant.

We had a great dinner and then completely crashed right afterwards. Out hosts in Scottsdale are late night people, which we are too, but we did not want to get switched over to Pacific time. We'd been eating dinner at 9, which is midnight eastern. Here, we ate at 8. Best we could do. But asleep by 11, thank goodness. Tomorrow will be time to visit the area and maybe venture into town.

Life in the desert

It's now Sunday morning, Easter Sunday for those who keep track of such things. We had a very long, fun day yesterday.

Once everyone was up and around, we went for a hike on the Sunrise Trail in the McDowell Sonoran Preserve. I remember that at one time my friends found me kind of annoying because I was always trying to cover every possible eventuality, but they (the ones who are still my friends anyway) came to appreciate that I was doing it for the collective benefit, not just to suit myself. So went the leaving-the-house process. Our host was convinced that a certain level of sun protection and hydration was required and would not let us leave until we had outfitted ourselves properly. The amount of cajoling and suggesting was truly remarkable, and it took forever to get going, but once we did we were certainly well prepared.

The hike, from one side of a mountain to the other, with optional spur trail up to the peak, was quite a bit harder that we'd been led to believe, and Ronnie smartly cut her part of it short, splitting us into two pairs. I carried on because I wanted to see it and how hard could it be anyway? The short answer, quite hard indeed. It took me and my friend 2 1/2 hours to complete the 5 mile trek. On a regular walk for me, 5 miles is about half that. Uphill was increasingly (though never overwhelmingly) steep and unrelenting, and downhill was more somewhat easier but still treacherous in spots, but the view from the top was pretty great.

Got back, showered, and then ventured out to our hosts' new house, which is in progress for eventual move-in. We had some wine and cheese and hung out in the backyard. Our friends here are genuinely warm and loving people, and it's been very easy to reconnect with them. I hope they are finding this as positive as Ronnie and I are.

After that, we did a couple of pick-ups and drop-offs of kids, raised a fuss in a Starbucks, and visited our friend's place of business. This guy was a pharmacist who wanted to get out of the business of either running his own store or working for a chain store, so he and a colleague opened a veterinary practice, specializing in custom medications for animals large and small. They caught a wave of consumer interest in such stuff and it's now a large enterprise employing 85 people shipping hundreds of prescriptions all over the country every day. We got to see the whole operation, from where orders were taken through putting the medicine in capsules or forming it into tablets through shipping. Two stories packed with desks and equipment.

From there, we went to something even more remarkable, an installation at the Desert Botanical Garden where glass sculptures by somebody named Chihuly were integrated into the native plants- mostly cacti but some desert trees as well. It's pretty indescribable, so here are some photos.

Insane, beautiful stuff. I've never seen anything like it. I'm sure it's beautiful during the day as well, but at night it was wonderfully surreal. On top of that, the Garden was mobbed. Well, maybe that's an overstatement. It was crowded. Every inch of it was crowded at 9PM on a Saturday night. It seems like an opportunity to snidely comment on the nightlife options in Phoenix, but I'm not so sure. It was a real not-to-be-missed experience. The place stays open until midnight on Friday and Saturday nights and there are kiosks selling wine and beer and margaritas in flashing illuminated cups. Wow.

From there to a Mexican restaurant for a late (9:45 PDT) dinner, featuring blackened tuna tacos and a blood orange margarita, and then home and immediately to bed. What a day!

Back from spring break

Not me but the blog is back.

I'm aware that I could have continued to write while I was on break, but I just didn't feel like it. I'd say that I've been neither busy nor lazy. I graded all the tests I had sitting around, some for a few weeks, got enough of my taxes done to file an extension, eliminated a decent chunk of the paper that besieges me on a daily basis, went to a couple of ballgames, did a Seder, all that kind of stuff. But the break had no flow to it because various scheduling things chopped it to bits, and having a day taken away at the end didn't help.

But now I'm sitting in a friend's backyard in Scottsdale, looking down at a pool and up at a mountain.

This trip is a follow-up to our Bat Mitzvah visit back in February. Because we enjoyed visiting with the friends whose kid was celebrating, we decided to come back here when we had a moment. And five days seemed like enough, even with travel soaking up one of them.

These folks are Ronnie's friends from high school, who I met only a few weeks after I met Ronnie. And I've always enjoyed their company and they mine. So why not? 

The flight here was the usual flight crap- stuffed into little seats with virtually no service of any kind, rationing whatever snacks we could find in the incredibly bereft Terminal A at PHL and smuggled on board, and trying to read/sleep our way through 5 hours. We made it. That's the best I can say.

These folks live near the end of the road, on a cul-de-sac where the edge of Scottsdale bumps up against some hills. It's really hard to drive around here and understand why a huge sprawling metropolitan area sprung up here. Certainly nothing else springs up here without great difficulty. I'll try to get pictures of a couple of things to give you an idea, but aside from the apparent law requiring all buildings to be squat and adobe-style, there a lots of places that really look like they've been plopped down where they are simply because there was open space. Maybe that's what actually happened. So you get commercial buildings with nothing but flat desert on 3 or even 4 sides of them. It's just kind of weird.

I don't begrudge people living here, though I'm not sure what they'll do when they run out of water. And we got to go to a cool place for dinner, an old bar called Greasewood Flat. It's in an old junkyard, and had old mining equipment lying around, plus some animals and a well-used horseshoes, well, what do you call a place where you play horseshoes? A court? A field? A course? It's none of those. I'll call it a pitch, which is really the word for a soccer field, but that's what you do with horseshoes, I think. They have burgers and beer and live music and fire pits. They even made a matzah grilled cheese. And of course it looks like it's in the middle of nowhere, even though it's across the road from the Four Seasons.

So our trip is off to a good start. I'll keep y'all posted.

Was that only 100 years? It seemed so short.

It started out like any other catered party- tents and piles of food and young men and women in black scurrying around with plates of things and drinks. But it didn't really stay that way, because this was my uncle Mike's 100th birthday party, and he was going to do it his own way, thank you.

I should say from the start that I lack the writing ability to really capture this, but I'll give it my best shot. The party started at 1, and I decided that I'd take lots of pictures, so I ran around checking things out, while spending some time talking to my cousins. That's what I really came for, and in many ways, hanging out and talking was my favorite part of this. But then around 2:30 they moved the food back and out of the way, and in came these people.

Yes, those are Tongan dancers, ladies and gentlemen, and here's a small taste of what they did.

Now you may be saying. "Of course, what hundred year-old retired school teacher doesn't have 30-plus Tongan dancers performing at their birthday party?" Or possibly you would not be saying anything of the sort. More likely, you'd be saying something like "Wow!" or maybe "WTF?" or both. I was agape. I knew there would be a Tongan performance- my cousin Michael spent a long time as a seminarian in Tonga and has been accepted into the community as a brother. But this was only the beginning of 20+ minutes of dances and songs honoring my uncle, who was just sitting there. soaking it all in.

After a series of songs, they turned the microphone over to Mike himself. My uncle is a poet, and his part was funny and poignant and lyrical. The key passage was his recipe for longevity, which began "Invest in bonds," which got a bit of a laugh, until be began to expound on the kind of bonds he was talking about. Bonds of friendship and family, love and devotion. It was quite beautiful really, even for a cynical city boy like me, because of its simple truth.

After that, the food service returned and people ate and talked and laughed. It was a collection of people the Mike had worked with, lived near, played poker with, fished and hunted with (his house is the only place I've ever had to pick shotgun pellets out of my dinner) and otherwise touched. This was an elementary school principal so beloved that they named the school after him. And we all had a champagne toast and a swan-shaped cream puff.

And then, almost magically, it was back to family time. The assembled multitudes trickled out and it was just us family and my younger cousins' (my first cousin's 20-something daughters, whom I've been told are first cousins, once removed. That sounds like a completely made up thing to me) boyfriends. We sat around a big table and drank leftover champagne and wine, took pictures, raided the remaining catered food (sliders!), and gawked at the thousands of old photos loose and in a dozen or so albums on the dining room table. I survived having old awkward photos and naked baby pictures pointed out to me repeatedly and reciprocated in kind. Ronnie snuggled on the couch with my niece and nephew, my niece having gotten ahold of my unlocked phone and replaced my beautiful Lake Placid lock screen with a purposely hideous selfie.

And finally we nudged our way out. Back to the hotel with hundreds of pictures and a host of great memories. I won't let it be as long next time, but if nothing else there's always birthday 105.

The night before the big event

There's a celebration scene near the end of "Roxanne," Steve Martin's funny modern day Cyrano de Bergerac, where the mayor of the town, played by Fred Willard, calls out to the assembled crowd, "I'd rather be with the people in this town, than with the finest people on earth!" And after a moment to digest that mangled thought, everybody cheers.

 

There were moments this past weekend when I felt that way. I had flown out to California for my uncle Mike's 100th birthday party, and was immersed in my extended family. It was a whirlwind kind of visit, showing up late Thursday, spending most of the day on Saturday hanging out at the house in suburban Sacramento that Mike and his wife, my dear departed Aunt Lucille, had built in 1952 and raised my three cousins. These cousins, ranging from 6 months to 4 years younger than me, are the closest extended family I have. My mom and aunt made sure we spent as much time as possible together, even with her in California and us in New York.

 

I was actually a little nervous about going, because I have not been good about keeping in touch the last couple of years. It's been reciprocal, but I blame myself because I know I dislike making phone calls and I don't know what they think. So I made sure to try to call before we came. I did get to speak with one of them for a while, enough to make me feel less nervous.

 

My two "older" cousins are women, hence the quotation marks, and if I have to be completely honest I've been kind of madly in love with both of them since I was 12. And they had taken on the task of creating this event, along with my one guy cousin, who has some interesting connections that enlivened the proceedings.

 

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Friday was family-only day, a nice way to warm up for the 150+ expected for the party itself. We really did next to nothing but hang out. It was me and Ronnie, my sister and her kids, my dad, and my cousins and their kids. And it was as warm and joyful as you can imagine a get-together the night before a huge event could be. In spite of one cousin checking every weather report available to make sure that Saturday would be nice (accuweather said 'delightful,' while the Weather channel said only 'pleasant.'), the other making sure the house was in order and the third working on the next day's program, everybody was able to relax a bit, watch baseball, drink beer and eat pizza. And laugh. A lot.

 

And speaking of relax, I know it only comes up as a typo, but I think 'relaz' is a far better word for it. That final x is too percussive don't you think?

 

Since one of my themes for my second adulthood, as Ronnie calls our empty-nestishness, is to be closer with the people I really care about, this seemed as perfect an evening as I could have hoped for when we planned the trip. And yeah, I'll take these people anytime, wherever they rank on the fineness scale.

Wouldn't want to live there, but it's a nice place.

Well that's more like it. This morning I'm walking on a different bike path, this one along the American River. The air is cool and the sun is bright and it's absolutely spectacularly beautiful. The pictures don't do it justice.

I'm feeling good today. Yesterday was a wonderful day, hanging out with my family in a house that I've visited enough times to feel at home, drinking beer, watching baseball, catching up. It really reminds you of what's really important.

Honestly, I try to treat everything I do as important. What's the point of doing it otherwise. It's a big part of my life philosophy, to leave every situation I encounter better than the way I found it. But there's a big difference between momentary importance and lasting importance.

To be in a place that's not my home where I feel so completely at home is well, almost literally transporting. I think I mentioned I tend to divide places in two places I could live in places I could not. This is a place I could not live. It's just not my kind of scene. But I can tell you that being here makes me as happy as I feel anywhere in the world.

Kid stuff

I spend a lot of time with people's kids. I guess that doesn't narrow the population down at all, but I mean I get to know a lot people without ever meeting them, because I get to spend time with their kids. You can learn a lot about someone by getting to know what kinds of kids they created.

Creating a kid combines both nature and nurture, and one of the things that I enjoy about meeting parents during conferences is getting the answer to "Where did that come from?" It's certainly not an exact science, but if I see a kid that I really like, chances are good that I'm going to like their parents too.

This brings me back to my cousins, who I am visiting this weekend. This is really the only extended family that I have. I have cousins on the other side of my family, but I was never close with them, though I'm very fond of my uncle on that side. But these cousins are special to me, and I've always felt like they were quality people, good-hearted people. And this weekend I'm getting a renewed opportunity to get to know their kids, and I've gotta say, it's confirmed everything I thought.

I don't feel comfortable about going into more detail, because I've made a policy of not writing about other people. It feels like an invasion of privacy and this blog is specifically about me, it's not a 3rd person thing, but I'm comfortable saying that these "kids" (they range from late teens to mid 20's) are spectacular. They are a credit to their parents, just as their parents are a credit to them. I hope people feel the same thing when they meet my kids.

Birthday greetings from California

Currently in Sacramento. Actually in the Sacramento suburbs, which believe you me are almost has hoppin' as Sacramento itself. We're staying in a place called Rancho Cordova. I don't know where that name came from- there are no ranchos anywhere and it doesn't look anything like Cordova. It's strip malls and chain hotels. I'm guessing there are corporate offices around somewhere- those usually attract clumps of chain hotels, but I haven't seen them. And to give you an idea of how attractive it is, here's a picture of the bike path that I went talking on this morning.

What you can't see in that picture is that the side of the bike path is littered with dozens of little airline bottles of cheap whisky and empty cat food containers.

The second nicest feature of this area is the American River, which runs from Folsom Dam (yes, there's a prison there as well) down through town and then somewhere- I don't know, maybe to the Pacific, which is about 100 miles from here. When I was a teenager I was here and got in trouble for getting stoned with my cousin's soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend while floating down that river. Now, 40 years later, it's a place for a pretty, peaceful walk.

But the nicest feature of this area is my family that lives in the vicinity. I'm here for my Uncle Mike's 100th birthday party. His kids and their kids, my cousins here, are among the people dearest to me. So there's a part of being here that feels like home.

Tomorrow there's a big hoo-hah, with 150 people coming, eating catered food and toasting Uncle Mike. But tonight, it's pizza with family, and I'll take that anytime.

Last weekend, home alone

I'm currently on my way to New York pick up my wife, watch my daughter singing a concert, and then head back home. I been home alone and Thursday, three days ago. As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm okay alone. I don't get lonely, I don't get bored, I don't get bummed out. I'm perfectly happy just to be.

But I'm generally not alone. I have a wife and kids and I have a life that revolves around them. So then what do I do when I'm all alone? Well, I'm a guy, so I drink a lot of beer, make a mess and leave the toilet seat up. Well, no. The difference between being an adult guy and a kid guy is you think about what's going happen tomorrow.

My wife likes a tidy house. I'm not a tidy person, but I like tidy house pretty well too. I'm just not a person who keep things tidy on an ongoing basis. This requires periodic cleanup. Like this morning, I had a whole list of things to do before left the house. 

I put dishes away, I put papers in a pile on the dining room table, I recycle newspapers and beer bottles. Yes, I did drink some beer. But that's not really unusual anyway. I hung up coats, put the dry cleaning the closet, wiped down the countertop, like down another, put all of my reading glasses in a pile, actually a Negro. Sorry, I'm doing this on the road by speaking into my phone and I'm actually putting my reading glasses in a neat row.

Why did I do all this? I love my wife of course, and in a two-person household, life is better when both people are happy. And the neat house make my wife happy, as I said. Perhaps even more importantly, that somebody gave the thought to making the house neat feels good for her, as it would for anyone in that position. The one thing I didn't have to do with the toilet down. I've been living in household girls long enough that I never leave the toilet seat up anyway. This is a different philosophy than my friend Mike, who also lives in a house full girls, and who regularly leave the seat up, "" just to keep them on their toes.