Category: Travel

I take off for a quick trip to Belgium later today. I wish I had a really good reason for going, but mostly it’s the cheap airfare. And moules frites and good Belgian beer. Lisa and I have never been to Belgium, but it’s been on our list of European trips for a long time (this is the list organized thusly: wine, beer, wine, beer, wine, beer, vodka, otherwise known as Italy, England and Ireland, France, Belgium, Spain, Germany, and Russia. We’re currently rethinking the last one). So no blogging unless I find free Internet cafés over there.

Whew. Whirlwind journey almost over. I have a long train ride between Metropark and Boston tomorrow, and then I’m really back. Apologies for radio silence: some things came up. I’ll probably write about a few of them shortly.

In the meantime, I wrote this update on Saturday: Sorry about the unexpected silence the last two days. I was staying with a friend who had no broadband and had given up his home phone. I spent a few days catching up with old college and work friends. I’m certainly happy to have had the chance to visit with everyone, but I’m really ready to come home now.

I spent most of the day with Esta. We drove into Charlottesville for dinner and nostalgia, and now we’re sitting in Cocke Hall blogging. At least she’s blogging–my site is down and I’ll have to post this later.

Today’s update features Joseph Cornell and words as art, plus your narrator’s realization that he’s not up for all day museum marathons any more.

Today is museum day. Unfortunately, the American Art Museum is still closed, so I can’t go in search of Joseph Cornell there — but I can at least revisit “Medici Prince” in the National Gallery. My plan is to go until I drop.

Today’s update is posted, complete with pig’s feet, no chicken feet, and bad rhyming dictionaries. Tomorrow I go to the Tyson’s Apple Store to see what they have that’s so much bigger than the rumors.

Well! All in all, a surprising day. The first surprise was the lack of snow—though, given that it is Washington, DC, a city in which weather is as unpredictable (and boring) as a leaf in the wind, this wasn’t actually too surprising.

The gig at the Monastery went quite well. There were seven of us, so with me left as more or less a pinch-hitter, I sightread through the Mass and then relaxed and enjoyed singing the material with which I was familiar. I found sightreading much easier this morning, probably because it wasn’t 11:30 PM. Dim sum followed with Jim Heaney, his girlfriend Deb, and Skip and George. I regret to report that no chicken feet were consumed.

My next stop after Cheeselord Manor was to be the Littles. George was my neighbor at Virginia my fourth year, and when Lisa and I met Bethany with George at my five-year reunion we all hit it off tremendously. Bethany and Lisa have a lot in common—as Lisa points out, they’re both short Italian-American women with impeccable taste and fabulous hosting instincts. The plan was for them to meet me at the Monastery and to proceed from there. Unfortunately, through a snafu they couldn’t make it, and I drove from Chinatown to the Cathedral to plan the next move.

I went down the hill to Georgetown in search of a city map, as mine is currently locked away someplace. I found a good one in Olsson’s, but not before an unpleasant surprise. Au Pied du Cochon, which was a little hole in the wall that could be counted on for good single malt and bad cassoulet when my friends and I were hungry after singing the Tenebrae service at Georgetown, is no more. A Gap is in its place. My blood runs cold—my memory has just been sold: my bistro is a … true slime mold? [Note to self: get better rhyming dictionary.]

Afterwards I got in touch with George and Bethany and came to their house. Continuing in the same string of real estate luck that found them a townhouse complete with wine cellar full of 1974 Mondavis, they found a 3500 or 4000 square foot house up the street from the back gate of the Italian ambassador’s residence that was built in the 1940s and that they purchased from the original owner. I’ll probably have a few things to say about the house, but I’ll leave off now with the observation that the kitchen contained built-in steel pull-outs for foil and paper towels; the mostly unfinished attic contained a cedar closet previously used for minks; and the first floor powder room currently sports an intriguing combination of brown wood paneling and red and black lace wallpaper(!) that calls to mind some of New Orleans’ more notorious establishments. And a dog that likes cheese. I can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings.

I just realized I described the “Cheeselord” part of Cheeselord Manor, but not the Manor part. The house that Skip and George own is best described as having a crumbling gentility. It’s situated on a corner lot in Northwest DC, measures about 20 x 60 on each floor, and has three floors, a finished basement, and a tower garret room. The “crumbling” part is due to the old roof, which Skip and George recently replaced, though they haven’t had the chance to fix all the interior damage yet.

The house was built in 1912 (as Skip puts it, the year the Titanic sank), and used to be offices for a nonprofit organization. These days, the front room sees a lot of Cheeselord rehearsals, complete with an upright piano that may be older than the house is and wood floors that have a tendency to slope in unpredictable directions (the last is notable as the Cheeselords have been self described as a “drinking group with a singing problem”).

Skip and George have known each other for years since Georgetown. Skip directs a diagnostic lab around the corner, used to be a monk, and sings countertenor; George has more muscles than I’d know what to do with and a deep bass voice, and composes music when he’s not doing medical things. I met the guys in the Cathedral Choral Society when Skip invited me to come over for dinner one night while they sightread the Tallis Lamentations of Jeremiah. As an old Renaissance music buff, I eagerly accepted, little knowing I’d spend some really amazing years with the group. We did a lot of music, from early medieval chant and conductus through Renaissance and Early American to late twentieth century masters like Arvo Pärt and John Tavener (and of course George). Today I’m singing with them at the group’s second home, the Franciscan Monastery in Northeast DC, which is best known for its replicated catacombs under a fairly magnificent sanctuary. I can’t wait.

I would say I’m tired, but that hardly seems adequate. It’s been a long day, and a good one. I left my inlaws’ place in New Jersey this morning around 10 am and started driving south on the Turnpike toward Washington. On the way, I decided to call my mother at my grandfather’s in Leola, PA; the family Christmas party was to be on Sunday and I wanted to make sure she got in OK. “Oh,” she said, “it’s actually today, from 12 to 6.” I looked at where I was and decided to forgo an afternoon in DC — and spent a lovely time with my relatives in the church basement, catching up.

I’m now at Cheeselords Manor, where my friends Skip and George live. I used to sing with them in a twelve voice men’s Renaissance ensemble called the Suspicious Cheese Lords (it’s badly translated from the title of a Tallis motet, Suscipe Quaeso Domine). I’ll be guesting with them tomorrow morning at DC’s Franciscan Monastery. I feel humbled after running through the music–it’s been too long since I sang.

Not much time for an update today, I’m afraid. I’m tired of there being no snow in Boston so I’m heading south to where the action is.

Okay, that was a little flip. I’ve been wanting for a while to see some of my friends in the Washington DC area, and I haven’t been back since July of 2000 when I left to come to MIT Sloan. It was a transitional time–I sold my car, hopped in a moving van, and dropped myself in the middle of Cambridge while Lisa started looking for a new job. I need to see what’s going on with my friends. And I’m getting a chance to sing with my friends in the Suspicious Cheeselords.

I will be stopping in New Jersey overnight to pick up my car. While I’m there, I hope to borrow my in-laws’ DSL connection to post the alpha release of Manila Envelope for general consumption. After all, I will have about five hours in the train to fix all the bugs. 🙂

So queue up Paul Simon singing “Graceland.” My traveling companions aren’t ghosts and empties; they’re a PowerBook G3 and an iPod. It’s time for some catch-up.

Thing #2: The moon in the mountains of Buncombe County, North Carolina, outside Asheville, is bright enough to walk by.

Thing #3: Buncombe County is the origin of the word “bunkum,” or “bunk.” Apparently Felix Walker, the representative from Buncombe County, started it in the US Congress by making a longwinded speech for show to his constituents while he was on the House floor. This may give you some perspective on some of the things written on the pages of webloggers. We tend to make a lot of speeches for Buncombe. 🙂

Today was the first day I broke out my tweed jacket. Jim’s ex-girlfriend used to say that she knew when fall arrived, because I would be wearing my tweed. It’ll only be in the fifties today, so I suppose this counts as fall.

The tweed was a souvenir from our trip to Ireland a few years ago. We bought it in a small shop down the road from the town of Ardara. [Heh: I said “small shop,” but they have a web page. Then again, so do I]. The fall there was much more dramatic even than New England, as I think this illustrates:

As always, fall brings with it insanely busy times. This has been one of them. The week is almost done, thank goodness.

Enough. Working now.

Sing along with me now: “I’m back in Seattle again”… Blogging in my bathrobe drinking Starbucks. Gotta love civilization, even if you’re scared to death about what’s happening half a world away. There will be some tense shifts in this piece. That’s one drawback about writing offline–it’s less spontaneous and therefore either requires the writer to edit more carefully or the reader to be more forgiving.

I started writing this: sitting in Logan Airport (now there’s a phrase that is scarier than it used to be!), listening to the gate personnel announcing that the flight to Denver is oversold. Listening to all the alarmist talk about heightened security and concerned about mile long lines at check-in and security checkpoints, I got on the subway at 8:30 for an 11:10 a.m. departure. Now, almost two hours later, I’ve been sitting in the gate area long enough to read the Sunday New York Times cover to cover and consume a grandé Americano.

Aside: Why do they call espresso with hot water an Americano? Because it’s weaker than regular espresso? Because it’s bloated and engorged with water?

Unlike SeaTac, Logan doesn’t have freely accessible wireless networks for passengers’ convenience–in fact, as far as I can tell, Terminal C has no wireless networks at all. So I’m writing this offline–in TextEdit, naturally–waiting for the boarding process to start. I’ll upload it later.

Lisa flies to Italy later today for a week with her Italian project team, working on the contract that she helped the company win. I don’t know how often I’ll get to see her over the next few months–her schedule is totally up in the air.

As for me, I have two days in Seattle ahead of me. Should be a fun time, even the part spent on business. For the plane, I have my laptop, my DVD drive, and copies of O Brother, Where Art Thou and And Now For Something Completely Different. Life is OK.

…At least, that’s what I wrote before I heard from Lisa in Denver that the bombing had started. I’m old enough to remember Desert Storm quite well, and I’m hoping that this one ends more decisively, but I have my doubts.