Much has happened and unfortunately in some cases, not
happened since my last post. Shortly
after I published my August remarks I was on a plane to California for my
almost annual reunion with old friends at Winesong. . .the fundraiser I have
attended for more than 20 years in Fort Bragg, CA which, for the uninitiated in
California geography, is a small town in Mendocino County on the North Coast.
I flew out at an ungodly hour of the morning, long before
daylight broke in late summer in Asheville.
Since it was unfair to ask anyone to take me to the airport before 5:00
in the morning I drove out and left my car in long-term parking but had made
arrangements with my friend Ben for him to pick it up later in the day. This meant having enough presence of mind to
note where it was and to send him an iMessage letting him know. Wandering around parking lots looking for
cars is no fun and while it is true that Asheville Airport’s long-term parking
isn’t like Atlanta, it still is big enough that finding my car could have taken
a little time. In spite of the early
hour, I managed to send Ben the message and then got on the expected tiny plane
to Chicago.
This went without a hitch.
That is an unusual remark about flying these days, which I have come to
loathe but the first brief leg of this trip really was trouble free. The plane left roughly on time and in spite
of its small size, with an aisle seat and a flight of less than two hours it
wasn’t so bad. We got to Chicago with
plenty of time for me to make the casual stroll between terminals to catch my
flight to San Francisco. That was, by
the way, the end of the part of the trip that was trouble free.
When I got to the departure gate there was no plane yet but
that isn’t particularly unusual these days.
It seems that as the airline industry has figured out ways to milk every
last penny out of these flights, one of the things they have decided to do is
cut down on the turnaround time they allow.
I am certain this puts additional pressure on already grumpy personnel
not to mention most passengers who now almost universally hate air travel.
When I arrived at the gate for the outbound flight I was
very disturbed to discover that United had elected to change aircraft from the 737
that was listed for the flight when I booked it and selected seats to a small
Regional Jet. It seated 4 across so
everyone had an aisle or window but once again it was very small and this time
very uncomfortable. Because the airline
now arranges your boarding based upon whether you are on a window or an aisle,
my aisle seat had me getting on in the last group. There had already been a delay because a
member of the flight crew was quite late arriving at the gate but once she
arrived they hurried us on. I was slowly
shuffling up the aisle toward my seat when I noticed a morbidly obese man
sitting part of the way back in the window seat and thought to myself “please
don’t let that be my row” but sadly, my wish went unfulfilled. I arrived at the row in which this
unfortunate man was sitting and realized that I was his seatmate. This was in the truest sense since his
enormity wouldn’t fit in a single seat and a substantial portion of him had
lapped over the armrest into my seat.
As I deposited my extra clothing and carry-on in the
overhead I analyzed how I was going to wedge myself in next to him and decided
just to sit down and see how it could all work.
Not well was the immediate answer.
In fairness I don’t think there was anywhere he could move any of his
bulk but I ended up with my right upper arm and shoulder wedged behind his
sweating back fat for the entire trip to San Francisco.
In spite of his having trouble breathing, he fell asleep
before the flight left the ground. I was
very uncomfortable immediately and while we were still at the gate but with the
door closed I asked the flight attendant if there were any other seats
unoccupied on the plane but she shook her head.
Clearly the only spot that I would be able to occupy without being underneath
this beast was the toilet, and they won’t let you spend the entire flight
there.
We took off and I sat virtually pinned to my seat with my
shirt soaked from this man’s perspiration but I decided that once we achieved
10,000 feet I was taking out my iPad and would do what I could to
co-exist. Unfortunately for Big Guy
every time I did something on the iPad the movement of my right arm disturbed
his sleep as we were in constant contact for the 4 hours it took to get to San
Francisco. It was particularly
unpleasant when I took out the bagel I had bought on the concourse to have a
snack partway across the US. Every time
I brought the bagel to my mouth for another bite he groaned. At a certain point I was so uncomfortable and
frustrated since I felt like he was trying to make me feel bad for disturbing
his sleep that I was close to letting him know what I thought about grossly
obese people who couldn’t fit into a single coach seat being allowed to buy
only one. I vacillated between being
angry with him and at the airline for allowing behemoths like this one to
occupy more space than they pay for.
Besides, I am not at the point where I have to weigh my check bag before
I leave home just to make sure I won’t end up being one of those people sitting
on the airport floor desperately trying to stuff items from their checked bag
into their carry on in order to not be charge for overweight. Really?
If my luggage weighs 53 pounds I will get charged an extra fee on top of
the outrageous amount they get now for bags anyway, but this blimp doesn’t pay
a penny extra to occupy about 20% of the seat I have paid for. Does this make sense or seem fair?
The flight, mercifully, arrived early in San Francisco and
for some odd reason my luggage was already there. I guess it went on an earlier flight than I
did so at least I didn’t have a long wait wondering if my bag was lost between
Asheville and SFO. Unfortunately, in
keeping with United Airlines seemingly infinite ability to screw up everything,
their website had indicated that the flight was 45 minutes late rather than
about 40 minutes early so Faye and Jay had stopped to pick up snacks rather
than come straight to the airport to get me.
Consequently I found myself waiting at the curb for almost a half hour
but the weather in San Francisco was beautiful and at least I wasn’t underneath
Big Guy any longer.
Faye and Jay eventually arrived and after packing me into
their SUV we headed for the Golden Gate bridge.
On a Friday you don’t want to be in afternoon outbound traffic on the
bridge or the first 60 miles or so of highway 101 headed North. The amount of Bay Area traffic that heads up
to Napa and beyond every Friday is simply staggering. Even though we were on the bridge shortly
after noon it was already quite crowded so once on we drove to Petaluma before
stopping for a bite of lunch.
After a sandwich and a brief break in the sunshine we got
back in and headed up 101 to 128 through the Anderson Valley. This is a really beautiful if somewhat
neglected part of the Northern California wine scene and is, in my opinion, one
of the prettiest drives between highway 101 and the Pacific Coast Highway
(1). Faye wanted to make a stop at
Breggo Winery to taste a few wines and buy a bottle or two so we had a little
afternoon treat on the way up to Ft. Bragg.
The day was still sunny and gorgeous and already I was past the horror
of the trip out and was really enjoying the company of my good friends and the
lovely late summer feel of Northern California.
We finished up at Breggo and headed over to the coast and
then up PCH to Ft Bragg. Faye and Jay
and I were all staying at our friends Rick and Louise’s house in Ft Bragg so we
had only one destination. We arrived at
around 5:00 in the afternoon and fairly soon other people from the group that
gets together for this event pretty much every year started drifting in.
Without belaboring a description of Winesong weekend, since
in past years I have covered this event with some detail, suffice it to say it
was wonderful. There were a few regulars
missing and a few newcomers. The
albacore, salmon and abalone at Rick and Louise’s were, as usual, spectacular
along with all the rest of the food that constitutes this annual orgy of
consumption. The weather at the
Mendocino County Botanical Gardens where the event is held every year has never
been better and all in all it was a terrific start to my visit to California.
On Sunday morning after a somewhat leisurely start, Jim
Sundquist and I headed out for our trip to Sacramento. It was an easy drive and we arrived in town
at a perfectly civilized hour and I, once again settled into the guest room at
Jim’s. I have formed a somewhat odd
relationship with this room. This is, I
believe, the only place that I designed where I have spent so much time as a
guest so it is starting to feel a bit like home away from home. I have occupied guest space at Ann and
Bowers’ beach house in Florida as well and at Rick and Heather Degen’s place in
Truckee but in neither of those have I spent as many days and nights as I have
at Jim’s. I am actually starting to know
where to look for things like kitchen utensils and I am pretty good at doing
laundry and ironing there. Now if I can
only learn how to be a decent pool player. . .
The time in Sacramento was a whirl as it usually is. With about 10 days or so to spend there, San Francisco,
and Lake Tahoe and lots of people to see, it was a busy time. I spent a day or so in Sacramento and then
headed to San Francisco to meet Josh and Lanny and to catch up with a few
people I had missed when I had to cancel the SF portion of last winter’s
visit. It was great fun and I
particularly enjoyed getting to show Josh and Lanny a few things in the Bay
Area as they had never been there before.
SF virgins are always fun to initiate in to the pleasures of the Bay
Area. This included the Cliff House,
Golden Gate Park, Mt Tamalpais, the view point on the North end of the Golden
Gate, and some yummy food. I also got to
spend time with Ingrid and Larry and with my very old friend Risa, whom I
hadn’t seen in several years. Again the
weather cooperated quite well in San Francisco, as it did everywhere in
California while I was there.
After a brief couple days back in Sacramento where I got to
see John and do a little business, I was off to Lake Tahoe for a weekend with
Faye and Jay. Again it couldn’t have
been nicer. Jim came along and Rick and
Louise came up for the second part of the weekend so it was almost an extension
of Winesong weekend from a week earlier.
The scene at Tahoe was as good as it gets. I have never understood how so many people
leave the lake in September when it is as beautiful as it ever can be. The lake was largely still and the sun was
out almost 100% of the time. We didn’t
accomplish much other than eating and cruising around the lake on Faye and
Jay’s boat but that was fine.
Then it was back to Sacramento with a stop at Boeger Winery
on the way down from the mountains. It
is always nice to pop into this fabulous place to see Greg, Sue and Lexi and/or
Justin when they are around. Sue
provided a terrific lunch and Jim, Greg and I hung out in the tasting room long
enough for me to decide what I needed to replenish my red wine supplies.
In Sacramento for the rest of the week I mostly caught up
with a few old friends and had a couple meetings with lawyers and a landscape
architect as favors for friends who had asked me to participate in projects for
them. I tried to keep things low key
since I have concluded over the years that if I am in town for only a few days
I have to limit who I see and just accept that it is impossible to catch up
with 33 years worth of friends in a few days.
From Sacramento I flew on to Denver on Saturday to attend
the wedding of Ben Barefoot, my eldest nephew.
I had never met his fiancée (now wife) nor any of her family so this was
one of those events where one doesn’t feel particularly strongly connected to
the goings on, but it was really nice to see my family and to see Ben cementing
this relationship which is clearly important to him.
I also got to make a brief visit to Boulder which I hadn’t
seen in probably 30 years, and to Red Rocks which I had never visited
before. Boulder has changed significantly
since I was last there. The University
seems bigger than I remember and downtown is filled with slick new buildings
and pedestrian shopping areas that attest to its emergence as one of the
trendier spots in the US. On the whole I
think I would still rather be in Asheville but Boulder definitely has its
appeal and is worth a visit if you have never been.
Red Rocks, on the other hand, a brief drive West of Downtown
Denver, is spectacular and demands the short trip out of town if you are in the
vicinity. This is a small but beautiful
park with a fantastic outdoor performance venue built into the sandstone
monoliths for which the park is named.
One cannot exaggerate the beauty of this spot and I can only imagine
what it must be like to attend a really great concert there at night with the
lights of Denver off in the distance.
After three days of hectic wedding events I flew home to
Asheville with considerably less discomfort than on my outbound trip. At least United is flying full-size planes
between Denver and Chicago so, while still uncomfortable in coach seating, it
wasn’t the misery of the flight to San Francisco. Besides I had more than three hours to kill
at O’Hare where Wicker Park, my all time favorite airport restaurant is
located. This is a very good sushi place
that is located between concourses that I have been frequenting for probably 3
or 4 years now when I have to fly through Chicago. The space is actually quite pleasant, the
service is attentive and friendly, and the sushi is almost universally superb.
When I got home I dealt with all the kinds of things that
one deals with after a 3 week long absence.
I had a delinquent bill or two and some issues around the house to
attend to but on balance it wasn’t so bad.
There was the frustration of one of my rentals being empty again but I
guess this is simply something that happens when you own rental property. I actually hate having these houses but the
timing is not right to get rid of them yet so I just have to grit my teeth and
deal with them.
The biggest thing I was hoping to do when I got home was
firm up my puppy plans including a trip up to Boston, North Conway, NH and
Ithaca (to see my niece and her husband who both teach at Cornell) with a drive
home via Radford VA to pick out a puppy from the women I had met in
August. I called and emailed a couple
times and eventually talked with Janet, only to find out that the breeding of
their female Pyr had not worked and there were apparently no puppies to be
had. I feel a bit foolish for having
gotten myself emotionally so attached to the idea of a puppy that didn’t exist
yet and will try not to make that mistake again but it has now been more than
13 months since I lost Abner to cancer and I really miss him and miss having
the companionship of a dog. The house is
just terribly quiet and empty, and hiking and all the outdoor activities I have
enjoyed all these years with Abner seem pointless without the company of a dog.
At this point I have begun the process of looking for other
alternatives but have not been able to settle on any. There are possibilities from a couple of
litters on the West Coast but transporting a puppy from California or Oregon
isn’t a simple process. Many airlines no
longer allow them at all and some, like Delta, inexplicably have a restriction
on taking them after November 1st if they don’t qualify to fly in
the cabin. It seems odd that the airline
would be concerned about the impact of cold weather on the ground since the
temperature for the 4 hours you would be at high altitude would be about 65
below zero.
I am still hoping to do the visit to New England in January
to see the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, and go snow shoeing for a
few days in New Hampshire with Rob. It
would appear that seeing my niece isn’t going to happen because she will be out
of town until the end of February. I
have hopes of having something firmed up on getting a puppy before any of this
traveling occurs so it is possible that these plans will change, or at least
the timing might.
Fall in Asheville is very pleasant. The sun shines most days and the weather has,
for the most part been mild.
I was visited by Jake Leineke (huge surprise) Eli Rose and
Tracy Borneman, and Dave and Carla Frenznick all during the month of October, which
made the month go by quickly. Eli and
Tracy had been here before but only briefly and the others were newbies to
Asheville so I have been playing tour-guide a lot. I am once again intimately familiar with the
inside of Biltmore House.
I have also had new nubby tires put on my bike so I have
started doing a little off-road biking.
Asheville is hilly and old with relatively narrow roads so limiting
oneself to the terrain you can do with road tires doesn’t really offer much use
of a bike here. It will be interesting
to see how much I can handle with this new setup.
I have also been playing bridge with a couple groups of
people at the Osher Lifetime Learning Institute. This is a facility for seniors on the campus
of UNCA that used to be called the Reuter Center for Creative Retirement. I never joined it when it had that dubious
title but somehow it seemed more palatable with the new name. So far the only activities I have opted for
there are a couple bridge games but I am considering signing up for Spanish
classes for the winter semester. We’ll
see how that goes.
Now that we seem to be past the bulk of the fall tourist
season things will start to get quieter here.
I have no scheduled visitors at this point and probably will do little
or no travel prior to the trip up North in a few months. I am going on Medicare in a few weeks so the
process of shopping around for supplemental plans and getting everything set up
has taken some attention but that is now all settled and I am looking forward
to having this great coverage.
I am also more than two months into lifestyle
experiment. I am living without cable
TV. Actually I have no broadcast TV of
any kind. I have a couple streaming
services that I am subscribing to and watch the occasional program using a tiny
Roku device attached to my television but for the most part I have to say I
don’t miss it. I committed to myself
that I would try this for a minimum of 6 months before making any decision pro
or con. I had really felt ripped off by
Charter Communications, the cable provider here. For almost 9 years, in order to get HBO and
Showtime, which were almost the only channels I watched, I had to pay for more
than a hundred channels I never watched and it finally seemed like an
inexcusable waste of money. If they are
unwilling to offer a la carte pricing I am no longer willing to pay for a
bundle of channels 95% of which I don’t want.
I suspect with the increase in what is available through these streaming
services, the cable companies will have to either modify the way they price
their services or they will fold.
So that brings you up to today. I think I will eat something and then go ride
my bike.
