This photo of John and Gus is one I found while searching through albums of photos for a montage one of Gus' brpthers put together for his memorial. It was taken a few years ago at Winesong in Fort Bragg. Surrounded by friends for this yearly event, Gus kind of was clowing for this picture. What his face says, is "I can't believe John wants another picture of the two of us". It is one of my favorites from 18 plus years of photos of the two of them.

The other pictures in this group are from a hike Abner and I took this past weekend with Matt and Bear. There were probably close to a dozen people at the summit of the overlook at Craggy Gardens along the Blue Ridge Parkway. This is at almost 6.100 ft elevation and it was a bright, warm and sunny day. Three people we encountered there know Abner. Only one of them knew me. Typical.

First of all, let me apologize to the few of you who actually check this blog somewhat regularly and haven’t seen anything from me in more than a month. It has been a strange time in my Asheville life and I have taken few photos and haven’t felt much like writing. Spring is clearly upon us though, and after hearing from Jini Bauer with questions about what was going on, I decided that I needed to get my act together and post again, strangeness notwithstanding.

On Valentines Day, my friend Beth Kiyosaki came for a visit accompanied by her traveling companion Irenka and Irenka’s Yorkshire Terrier Coco Chanel. As many of you know, Beth and I had become pretty close friends the last few years in Sacramento what with climbing together at the gym and early morning walks with Abner. Beth moved to Abiquiu, NM a couple months after my move to Asheville and is leading her own quirky brand of life there. I will leave it to Beth to tell those of you who know her what that’s all about, but suffice it to say, after more than two years without seeing one another, I really missed Beth and was excited about her trip.

We talked via cell phone as she and her companions progressed across the country until they finally blew into Asheville the night of February 14th. The plan was that Irenka would attend an Arts and Crafts Expo that was being held at the Grove Park Inn and Beth and I would play together during the days. In the evenings we expected to reconnect with Irenka for dinners from time to time. Bear in mind that I had never met Irenka before and hadn’t, in my mind, signed on for a whole week with a complete stranger in my house. Beth had warned me that Irenka was a bit of a princess but nothing had prepared me for the full-on real thing.

Now don’t get me wrong. She is quite an interesting character and was, in short doses, fairly entertaining. Coco, aside from her predisposition to jump on people and furniture, is a very nice and good-natured dog. She suffers a bit from having received no training whatsoever from Irenka but is nonetheless reasonably pleasant to be around. When they arrived, Beth and Irenka were both hungry so after a brief stop at my house to unload their possessions (and Coco) we headed out to dinner. I learned that Irenka was born in Poland, fled to Russia as a child with her parents when the Nazis arrived, and was educated at private schools in Switzerland before marrying an American and moving to the US. From information she drops, one gets the impression that she has money. You’d never know it from how careful she was spending it here.

After dinner we returned to my house where I got to see Irenka’s strengths as a passive/aggressive personality first hand. Even though it was Beth who I had invited to be my guest for a week, Irenka ended up in the guest room and Beth on the sofa. Beth is an incredibly good sport and had learned on the way out to Asheville that it was better to cave in to Irenka’s pressure than to resist. After all, they were to be here for a week and then faced the 3 or 4-day drive home so Beth couldn’t afford to piss her off this early in the trip. I faced no such peril.

In the morning, I took both of them to Biltmore for the by-now-standardized tour and we had lunch after. We then drove back to my house, rescued the dogs and drove back to the estate for a little walk. We parked by the Bass Pond and took a gentle meandering 20-minute walk up to the house via the Azalea Garden, Spring Garden, and the Ramble. We supplied the dogs with water and treats at the stable courtyard and then headed back down to the Bass Pond via the Walled Garden and the Conservatory. On the way back, Irenka began complaining about the length and strenuousness of the stroll. This seemed oddly inconsistent to me since she had waxed on previously about her skiing acumen and other activities that would tend to indicate a rather fit condition. Besides, although Irenka is small in stature, she looks like she has taken pretty good care of herself.

The rest of the weekend, Irenka was tied up with her conference except at night and sometimes even then, so Beth and I got to hike around with Matt and Bear, Regie and Spencer, and visited with Randy Shull and Hedy Fischer at their home. One night, all three of us went to Asheville Pizza and Brew to eat dinner while watching Casino Royale (the new version) for $2. It was fun but Irenka was a little pissy about how long it took to get the pizzas and that the ancient theater seats weren’t up to her standards.

Beth had warned me, by this time, that Irenka has the ability to make anything that displeases her into someone else’s fault. My favorite example was her announcement before arriving in Asheville that they would have to cut their trip short by 3 days because Irenka had to return to Santa Fe in time to leave for a film festival (Bob Rafelson is her son in law) in Cartagena Colombia. The shortening of the trip, however, was Beth’s fault for failing to point out to Irenka that February had only 28 days. You get the picture.

On Monday the 19th of February, Beth, Irenka, Abner, Coco and I set off in two cars for Charleston. The plan had been hatched weeks before to spend two days and nights at a beach house on Folly Beach as a place from which to explore Charleston and then Beth and Irenka would head off to Savannah, Atlanta, and Greenville SC before heading back west. The plan had been altered by the time we left simply because of Irenka’s startling realization about the length of February. She and Beth had agreed that they would eliminate Savannah and Atlanta and head straight to Greenville to see an old friend of Beth’s before heading west. Things were going according to plan for a while. Beth and I were in my car with Abner and Irenka followed us in hers with Coco. Prior to leaving she told me she was a fast driver and would stay close so I wouldn’t have to worry about her getting lost. This is certainly not a problem most of the way to Charleston. From Asheville, you get onto I-26 and just stay on it until it ends in downtown Charleston. At that point it was going to be important that she was with us simply to follow us to the beach. Irenka, however, appeared to be quite miffed that Beth, who had really come on this trip to see Abner and me as well as the area in which we live, decided to ride down to the beach in my car. The self-described fast driver frequently lagged far enough behind that I couldn’t see her at all in my mirror. Each time this happened Beth would call to make sure everything was OK.

Aside from that little piece of passive aggression, the drive down was uneventful until early afternoon, somewhere north of Charleston when my cell phone rang. It was John Ballenger calling to tell me that Gus Curiel had died at Casa Del Mar, their house in Puerto Vallarta. John had just found out about it and details were sketchy but it seemed that Gus had either fallen or jumped from the pool deck at the house and fallen to the street below. Depending on where the exact point was, the fall was between 25 and 40 feet. We talked briefly but the connection was not great and I didn’t want to be driving and having that particular conversation so I told John I would call him back as soon as we arrived in Folly.

We got there, checked into the Real Estate office through which we had rented the house, and picked up the keys. After a short drive, we located the house. It is a typical funky older Folly house. It was clean and reasonably well furnished but certainly not ready for us. No linens were there, the water was turned off, and there were several strangely out of place pieces of furniture sitting in the middle of the living room. I called the rental office back and told them about the problems, which they assured me they would take care of immediately. Meanwhile, I decided to use the time waiting to call John.

By the time I got hold of him, John was on his way to Sacramento. He had been in San Francisco when he got the news and was headed home to catch a flight to Puerto Vallarta the following day. We talked briefly about what had happened and I have to admit, it was quite surreal. The concept of sudden death is so foreign that I, for one, simply am not very well equipped to absorb it. We didn’t talk for long but it was very sad and I could tell that John was completely crushed.

Soon people from the rental office arrived and began taking care of all the problems with the house but by then, Irenka had decided that the house was not up to her standards and she didn’t want to stay there. The three of us decided to go for a much-needed stroll along the beach with the dogs. Irenka pouted and barely spoke the entire length (3 miles) of our walk. At one point, even though I was basically in shock over the news about Gus, I caught up with her and told her that if she wanted to stay elsewhere I would help her find a place where she would be allowed to stay with Coco.

When we got to the house, she said she wanted to pursue other alternatives. I called the one and only hotel on Folly, and they don’t allow dogs, so that was ruled out. After that, the reasonable alternative was to go all the way into downtown Charleston since Beth and I would have to come into town the following day anyway to do the planned sightseeing. That sounded OK to her and she asked me for recommendations. The only hotel with which I had first-hand information where I knew they accepted dogs was the Planter’s Inn. It is a lovely old smallish hotel in the center of the historic part of Old Charleston. Irenka asked about what I though it would run and I guessed that it would be somewhere north of $200 per night. Well, that was ruled out immediately, after which we started going through her AAA tour book. As it turned out, there were few hotels listed that were both in good locations and allowed dogs. There was, however, a Howard Johnson that would fit the bill and the rooms were $69 per night.

Irenka called the hotel, and after a brief chat, hung up without booking a room. She explained that by the time she paid the $69 per night plus the charge for the dog and the taxes, it would cost almost $100/night and after having paid her share of the beach house rent, she didn’t want to spend that much more. I was flabbergasted. I couldn’t imagine a woman who lives in Santa Fe and Aspen, two communities with outrageously costly hotel accommodations, could have possibly expected to find anything but a flea bag for less than $100 a night but there it was. A few pregnant pauses later and I realized that what she wanted me to do was to offer to reimburse her for her share of the beach house. Clearly the fact that I had sent Internet links to Beth to get this accommodation approved prior to booking it didn’t come into play here. It was now my fault that the house wasn’t luxe enough for Irenka and she expected me to eat the cost of this horrid error. Suffice it to say that didn’t happen.

Once she realized that I wasn’t about to subsidize her princess ways, all discussion of hotels ended. She sighed and said that she could “just sleep on the sofa in the living room”. By this time I was pretty fed up with Irenka. I asked her why, with three bedrooms, she found it necessary to martyr herself and inconvenience anyone who wanted to use the common space by sleeping on the sofa. Beth and I gave her a choice of upstairs bedroom with it’s own private bath, or the remaining downstairs one (I had already claimed the largest as it would have an additional occupant. . .Abner) with the bath shared with me. She indicated some complete displeasure with the upstairs option so Beth, with great relief headed up to her sanctum.

Beth and I both made up our beds with the linens that had been delivered while we were at the beach and we headed to town to a very rustic fish and seafood house for dinner. It wasn’t great, but it was fine under the circumstances. It was the off-season and most of the restaurants on Folly were closed. We made it through dinner without any arguments although Irenka made it clear that she loathed her food (one more demerit for me since I had chosen the only open restaurant available). By then, we were all tired and I was pretty spent. The news of Gus’ death combined with having to put up with the Empress Anastasia’s complaints all day long had just worn me out.

We got back to the house and Beth and I took Abner for a 20-minute walk before returning to bed down for the night. When we returned, Beth went up to her room and sequestered herself for the night. Irenka, in a last defiant attempt at forcing me to wait on her, first asked me if there were any sheets left that would fit her bed. I suggested she look in the linen bag just as Beth and I had. She located the sheets she needed and then stood in her bedroom with the door open so I could see her, and just held the sheet up in front of her like a dirty diaper. I don’t really know if she thought I would eventually cave in and offer to make her bed for her, but my response was to close my door.

The next day in Charleston was actually quite pleasant. We walked extensively in the historic areas of town. I pointed out the sights I knew and covered a great deal of ground. We stopped in the middle of the day for a nice outdoor lunch of Brobdingnagian sized deli sandwiches and did some shopping and gallery hopping as well. All in all, it was a lovely uneventful day. I tried to reach John to get more information but he had left for Puerto Vallarta so we didn’t get to talk until later in the day.

We drove to the beach house to rest and change for dinner, as well as to drop off the dogs who had accompanied us during the day. Then back downtown to dine at Slightly North of Broad (widely known by its acronym SNOB). This is my favorite Charleston restaurant and any of you who goes should consider this one a not-to-be-missed dining stop. Dinner was sensational. I think even Irenka couldn’t find anything deficient. She admitted that the massive bowl full of steamed mussels that were her $9.95 appetizer were the best she had ever had and the size of the portion overwhelmed her. Everything was wonderful and capped our last day together on a positive note. Thank God.

In the morning, we checked out of the house and I gave Beth and Irenka directions to Boone Hall Plantation, which was to be their final destination in Charleston prior to heading north to Greenville to see Beth’s friend who teaches at Furman University. Saying good-bye made me a little sad. Beth is a dear friend whom I really miss and I felt sorry for her that she was facing 4 more days of unrelenting manipulation by the Siberian Princess before she was back in the quiet solitude of her own home.

I got onto the freeway with the intention of heading straight home with as few delays as possible. Meanwhile, in all my conversations with John about what was going on in Puerto Vallarta, a wrinkle had developed. When Gus became a US citizen many years ago, he had opted to legally change his name. None of us ever used the new name (Kurt G Newman) and it hadn’t occurred to John or Gus’ sister Lydia and brother Abraham who had flown down with John to claim Gus’ body. The problem was that once they identified him, the morgue officials required some kind of proof that Lydia and Abraham were actually related to Gus before they would release the body.

Consequently, I spent literally half the time on the way back to Asheville on my cell phone talking to friends who might have had photos of Gus and Lydia together from our large group gathering at Winesong in Fort Bragg, CA last year. Between that and answering questions from people who were just finding out, it was a busy trip back. By this time, John had gotten pretty much the whole story. Gus, who many of you know, had a long history of using Ketamine recreationally without ever believing that it would harm him, had apparently taken a large amount in the two days prior to and the day of his death. At some point around mid-day, he had suffered some kind of psychotic break from reality, ran from the house, and leapt off the pool deck. We will never know what went on in his mind that caused this to happen but clearly this wasn’t a suicide. If Gus had wanted to kill himself, this certainly would not have been the way he would have done it.

So at the height of all this communication, the bluetooth earpiece for my cell phone jammed and continually called Carver Realty. I realized fairly quickly that it was jammed and I couldn’t get it to turn off or release it’s connection with my phone, so when I crossed the state line into North Carolina I got off at a rest area, left the earpiece in the car and walked about 200 feet to a bench to get the connection between the phone and the bluetooth to break off. I made the rest of my calls from there and then turned the phone off for the rest of the ride home.

The remainder of that week is something of a blur, but by Thursday, the problems with getting Gus’ remains back were solved and Abraham and Lydia headed home with his ashes. John remained in Puerto Vallarta until Saturday and then flew back to Sacramento. Everything the following week seems to merge in my mind until late in the week when John called and told me that Gus’ family had decided to have his memorial service on Saturday and that he really wanted me to come. He also said that they weren’t comfortable having him speak at the service so I suggested that we have our own event. . .more of a party, afterwards where he would be surrounded by his friends and loved ones and he could say whatever he wanted.

He agreed that that was the way to go and asked me to call Jan and Duncan to see if we could do it at their house. They agreed immediately and arranged a really beautiful event for the Saturday afternoon after the memorial. The service itself was a very sad event and really not at all what John or any of the people I knew in attendance needed. It also was definitely not what Gus would have wanted. This was a lugubrious affair in an overheated depressing funeral chapel in Yuba City. It was conducted by a relatively long-winded priest who claimed to have known Gus his whole life, but whose comments seemed somewhat canned and inappropriate. A few family members spoke or sang and that helped a little, but in the end, it was a disappointing way to say good-bye to Gus.

At Jan and Duncan’s things were different. There were lots of people there, mostly John’s friends and family, and three of Gus’ siblings and their spouses. It was a warm and sunny afternoon and it allowed people to get together and talk in small groups and deal with what had happened. It also provided a setting in which John spoke without restraint. He talked about the depth of his love for Gus and how crushed he was by the loss. He told anecdotes about his life with Gus and praised his good qualities, and he spoke in considerable detail about how alcohol and drugs ruined and ultimately ended his life. It was a speech that John needed to make and there wasn’t a person there who was unmoved.

I stayed around until Monday morning and then headed home, thinking that I would be leaving in 8 days on the 13th for my long-planned trip to Puerto Vallarta with Jim and Jean Ann Rogers. Well that was not to be. . .at least not now. When I got back to Asheville (after a harrowing trip home that included having to rent a car in Atlanta to drive the final couple hundred miles) Jean Ann was having something of a health crisis involving a mysterious sudden gain of 14 pounds of fluid that rendered her puffed up and uncomfortable. After blood tests and other proddings, her doc suggested that until they knew exactly what was going on, he didn’t think it was a good idea for her to travel abroad so the trip was canceled. We have since rescheduled for December.

And so, I am now trying to get back into my comfortable Asheville mode. Abner and I are back on daily hikes. I read my New York Times every morning and do the crossword in bed at night. The house is still for sale as a FSBO. Since I don’t have anywhere to go if I do sell it, I am not in a huge hurry. Soon guests will begin arriving for the Spring season and I will be busy with my life as host and tour guide so who knows when the much anticipated move will occur. I guess one of these days I will find either the piece of land I want (and can afford) or a house that is well located with a great view and that I can work with to make it into what I want. I am getting rather sanguine about this. My move to Asheville has been characterized mostly by great good fortune so I really can’t get too worked up about not having found the home of my dreams. I figure that one of these days it will happen.

Saturday afternoon, after showing the house for what seems like about the 40th time (not really but it is a lot) I took Abner for a neighborhood walk since there wasn’t enough time left to do a real hike. 4 blocks from my house, we were ambling by the Harvest House, which is a small converted commercial building now used as a community/neighborhood center, when a man and woman sitting together talking spotted us. The man called over to me as Abner and I were walking by and asked if my name was Steve. I was a little surprised and said that it was Steven. Steven Goldstein, he asked. Yes, I replied warily. He stood up and walked over to us and announced that he was Harriett Nichol’s son and my cousin.

I hadn’t seen Roger (whose name no longer is Roger) in something like 27 years and although I had heard that he lived somewhere around Asheville, our paths had never crossed. We don’t know each other. We were never close as cousins and in fact hadn’t uttered a syllable to one another in almost 30 years, so it never seemed to make any sense that I seek him out. I already feel like I know half the people in Asheville so I am not exactly hard up for people with whom to converse.

His name is now Raphael Peter (something of a mystery but there you are) and is the head of a local theater group. We chatted briefly and then each of us went our separate ways. I really doubt that we will get together but it was a bizarre little speed bump on our afternoon walk.

So spring is trying to muscle into the last gasps of winter here. It was 77 degrees out today. I have been hiking in shorts and t-shirts for most of the last week. My crocuses have already croaked for the season. The yard is now resplendent with daffodils and grape hyacinths. The greenery of the irises is pushing up and I think the few tulips that remain will probably appear soon. At the estate, the forsythia are blooming along with some bright white flowering shrubs that I ask about every year but can never remember by the time the next spring rolls around. The azaleas, which here lose their leaves in the winter, are leafing out and will probably start blooming by the middle to the end of April. And yet, the weather service is forecasting a high of 48 for Saturday. The old timers say to not kid ourselves. They claim that every March or April there is one last good storm of winter before spring really arrives. Since we haven’t had any real winter storms this year, it might be nice. I’ll believe it when I see it.

So I guess that’s it for now. I’ll try to keep this thing up to date a bit better. It has just been a strange time since I returned from Barbados and I just wasn’t clear headed enough to write.

I hope you are all well. I will post a few pictures in the next few days. TTFN

This morning I accidentally almost shaved off half my beard. There is a reason for this. On Tuesday night, I returned from 10 days in Barbados with my parents, siblings, assorted in-laws and two nephews. I took the electric trimmer I use to maintain a consistent length to my beard. Normally I leave it set at 4 and the length is pretty much where I like it to be. Anyway, this morning was the first time I have used it since returning and I didn’t notice that in flight, the dial that determines closeness apparently was pressed against something else in my bag and it shifted from a setting of 4 to 1. I failed to notice this until, blithely trimming away, I noticed that the remnants that the trimmer’s little vacuum failed to pick up that were falling into the sink were larger than usual. It took a few seconds for me to have one of those “oh shit” moments. I stopped and checked the dial which clearly said “1”. By that time, I had done the left side of my face. It should be back to normal in a couple weeks. Meantime, I look stranger than usual.

All this, by way of introduction to my January posting, provides some excuse for why this post is a little late. I been gone.

December finished with the flurry of lunches, dinners and parties that inevitably accompany the holidays. The frequency of these is made even worse due to my birthday occurring on the 23rd. I now have enough friends here that, like when I lived in Sacramento, I get invited to a whole bunch of events. I think I need to learn to turn down some of these. By the end of the month, I felt like I couldn’t fit into my pants.

In early January, my friend Risa Ogroskin came for a visit from San Francisco. Risa is an old friend whom I met in the late 70s when my architectural practice was still new. At the time she worked in an interiors showroom I frequented. Over the years, Risa has gone on to repping individual lines and now represents Bernhardt Furniture. Because Bernhardt is headquartered about an hour east of Asheville, when Risa had a trip schedule to visit the mother ship, she contacted me about spending a couple days here on the way. She blew into town on a Friday night a week before my scheduled departure for Barbados, and she stayed until mid afternoon on Sunday when she had to head down to Hickory with a Bernhardt colleague who had also come to Asheville a little early. Seems they all have friends who used to rep the line in Florida who moved here a year and a half ago so much cross visitation occurred. Risa’s visit was, as you can imagine, very hectic but fun. I told her she needs to come back with her husband Joey sometime when the pace can be more leisurely.

So Risa left, and I started doing laundry. I have to keep my trips a secret from Abner for as long as possible. He becomes depressed and sulks if he sees me putting anything in a suitcase. Over the years, I have gotten better at last minute packing jobs and also hiding the luggage from him in parts of the house he rarely visits. On Friday the 12th, however, Cassandra Beaver, the new housesitter, arrived from Charlotte for a trial run/orientation session with Abner. I familiarized her with the house and with Abner’s various rituals and even went on a walk in Biltmore Forest with Regie and Spencer so they could get acquainted as well. By the time that all had finished, I really needed to get onto the packing whether he saw me or not.
I took 10 days worth of undies and t-shirts, a few pairs of shorts, minimal socks, jeans and sandals, and let it go at that. Since my family has been doing these wintertime tropical trips since 1974, and also due to my many trips to Puerto Vallarta during and after the construction of John’s house, I have gotten to the point where I realize that no matter what I take, in the end all I wear is t-shirts and shorts. I usually wear a reasonably decent pair of slacks on the plane just in case we end up eating somewhere that requires a slight upgrade of attire, but that’s about it.

On Saturday morning, I attempted to say good-bye to Abner but he was pouting in the living room and wouldn’t get up for love or money. He also wouldn’t look at me. I got down on the floor and petted and kissed him good-bye, feeling as guilty as he wanted me to feel, and jumped into the car at about 7:30 for the drive to the Charlotte airport. Why I was flying from Charlotte is another story that can be summed up very briefly. Goddamned Delta Airlines. If any of you are planning a trip to Asheville, do not come on Delta even if their schedule looks good and their rates seem to be the best. They cancel more flights than they fly.

I arrived at remote parking in Charlotte after a 1 hour and 45 minutes drive from my house and was on the shuttle to the terminal by 9:20 AM. Since this was an international flight, I had to check in inside the terminal, get a boarding pass, and check my luggage before heading for security. Even with all that, I was at the gate by about 9:45 for my 11:30 flight. I had brought the Saturday New York Times with the week’s most difficult crossword puzzle though, so I figured I could kill the time prior to departure. What I hadn’t figured on was the flight leaving more than an hour late.

I had a long layover in Miami that was shortened considerably by the late departure from Charlotte, and spent what time I had there purchasing food for the flight to Bridgetown. American Airlines has stopped providing any food in Coach even on their international flights, and since I was scheduled to arrive at the Bridgetown airport at 9:45 PM and still would be facing Customs and Immigration, I figured I would have to provide myself dinner on the plane. American will sell you a pathetic bagel with one slice of turkey (the processed reconstituted unrecognizable kind) and once slice of completely flavorless white cheese for a mere $5 if you would rather not purchase your own food at one of the multitude of fast food establishments that have sprung up in the concourses of airports since the conversion to disgusting inedible overpriced slop from the airlines. I choose a porta-salad. . .not legendary, but not bad.

We got into Bridgetown pretty much on time, but then stood for an hour in the immigration line while a single officer checked each and every passport of the people ahead of me. After 45 minutes, a second one showed up speeding things up a bit. I can’t even imagine how long the people who were last off our plane waited. I was pretty close to the front of the line. Barbados has an economy that is almost entirely based upon tourism and yet they had 4 immigration officials for passengers carrying Barbadian passports and only one for the rest of us. Even when the line for locals disappeared, the 4 would sit and wait for the next plane to arrive and never once did one of them offer to take over some of the hundreds of people in the visitors’ line. It was one of the worst experiences I have ever had arriving in a country. Making it worse was my position in line, in front of a pretentiously dressed American couple who talked loudly about how awful the wait was and how worldly they were. I knew as soon as I saw his outfit (try to envision a yachting commodore in a Hollywood movie from the 30s. . .blue blazer, crisp white dress shirt and conservative tie, yachting captains cap—no kidding—and deck shoes with no socks) that I didn’t want to get ensnared in a conversation with them. I almost succumbed when they were babbling about the construction of the new airport terminal, which he deemed to be based on classical Egyptian themes, but I resisted. As we got closer to the front of the line, they started bitching about how the air conditioning in the building was insufficient (I guess wearing a cashmere blazer might make you a trifle warm). Every time the line would move, I would leave about 4 feet or so between me and they Rasta-guy in front of me but they never got the hint and would move to a position about 4 inches behind me. Every time they would move up she would bang her carry-on bag into my back and chirp out a brief “scuse me”. I was so tempted to point out to her that if she weren’t so close to me she might, a) not bang me in the back of my leg repeatedly with her bag, and b) might have enough air around her that she and the Commodore would notice that the air conditioning was, in fact, working just fine. Still I resisted.

Eventually I got through the line and found my bag, which had long since been removed from the now inert baggage carousel. Customs was a non-event and I was in Barbados but it was about 11:00 PM. My driver was there so my only other wait was while he went to whatever lot he had parked his van in, and then we were off. I got to see Barbados late at night but even then it was apparent that much had changed in the 15 or so years since my last visit. Roads are being widened, buildings are going up everywhere, and it just looks like a whole lot bigger place.

We got to the condo in a little over a half hour and the only ones still up were my parents and Jan. After quick hellos, everyone went to bed.

In the morning I got to see the assembled group for the first time and it was just like old times. There is a certain familiar comfort level that has evolved over the years of taking these trips. Several of us went into Holetown, the closest burg to the condo complex in which we were staying, and had lunch, hit the ATM and did a little shopping (mosquito repellent for me) before heading back to an afternoon of sluglike behavior. I taught my sisters, my brother-in-law, and my nephews to play Hand and Foot, the canasta based game that I have been playing with friends in Asheville. While there was a little resistance at the beginning, soon they were all completely into the game. We ended up playing pretty much every day. I can see that this could become a feature of future trips.

One day 6 of us went out on a fishing charter courtesy of Lisa’s husband Dave. What he didn’t know is that in all the years of going on these trips, no one has ever caught a fish. This excursion kept the record intact. We had two nibbles in a four-hour excursion and all they did was eat the back half of the baitfish. The guys who ran the charter said that they could tell that the fish were barracuda from the way they were getting the baitfish. Other than that, though, it was just a quiet afternoon on the water. We had been promised beverages and snacks. The snacks consisted of a can of Pringles. Not exactly what I had expected but it is convenient the way you can stack a bunch of them in your hand while you eat them.

Most of the week that everyone was there, we hung around the condos, and read, swam, walked the beach and played cards. We went into Bridgetown one day to tour the Mount Gay Rum distillery (or at least the small facility they have in Bridgetown. . .the larger facility is in the North of the island and is rarely visited) and had a tasting at the end of our tour. I have now determined that I don’t like rum. We even tasted product that they age for up to 14 years before bottling, but I didn’t really care for that one either. They have a relatively low alcohol (64 proof) mango flavored white rum that wasn’t bad, but I think I just am not a rum kind of guy.

The condos are in a small 8-unit complex called Merlin Bay. Each unit comes with a cook and maid. They each have 3 bedrooms and baths, living, dining and kitchen, 3 terraces and a 12-foot long plunge pool in which you can cool off privately. Each unit has steps from one of its terraces down to the main pool which is a 25-meter free form extravaganza surrounded by coral stone paved terrace and waterfall. From this terrace, there is a walkway and stairs leading down to the beach. Since Merlin Bay is on the west coast (Caribbean side) of the island, the water is warm and calm. Breakers are small and it is easy to swim or float in the sea. The beach is immaculate. The only thing you see besides very fine sand is the occasional piece of broken coral. This is not a beach where you see shells. Between ½ mile and 1-1/2 miles off shore is a precipitous drop off. This is the edge of the coral reef that surrounds Barbados. Since the shellfish that do inhabit the reef are mostly out near the edge, and the sand that extends a long way out to the drop off isn’t a good host for animal life, you simply do not see shells.

We went out to dinner a couple nights at lovely restaurants with sensational food and astoundingly high prices. Do not go to Barbados thinking this will be the bargain of the Caribbean. It may not be as expensive as St. Barts but it is sure up there. Dinners can easily top $100 per person before wine. The food at both The Tides and The Cliff was excellent. Both restaurants were gorgeous with The Cliff having the more spectacular setting and architecture.

Most of the family flew home on Saturday the 20th. I stayed until the 23rd so I could have a few days with my parents, and they are heading home tomorrow.

I bought a snow globe for my collection at a duty free shop at the Barbados airport and got quite an education in the procedures of getting home with purchases from duty free that include liquid. When you get to Miami (or any other port of entry I presume) and go through US Customs, you exit outside of the secure zone and have to go through security again. If you have purchased anything at duty free (like booze or a snow globe) that has more than 3 oz of liquid in it, you had better put it in your checked luggage after you get through customs but before you hand the bags over to the rechecker for your onward connections. No one warned me about this so I showed up at security for my flight to Charlotte with a snow globe in my carry-on bag. The TSA people were very nice about it but said there was no way it was going on the plane with me. I had to put it in my checked luggage. When I went to the American counter (three different locations as directed by three different employees) the verdict was that there was no way to retrieve my already checked bags and that my only choice was to buy another bag at one of the multitude of vendors who have set up close by for exactly this kind of situation, and to check it separately.

With much annoyance, I bought a the crummiest smallest nylon bag I could find (and it still was huge for a small snow globe to be its only occupant) and begged gobs of tissue paper from the sale clerk so I could pad the rest of the bag around its precious cargo. Then I went back to American to check the bag only to be told when I got there that because I already checked two bags in Bridgetown, I would have to pay extra for this one. At this point I was about ready to throw the snow globe against one of the American Airlines signs and let the offending liquid run down onto the floor and explode if it was going to. I explained to the guy who was trying to hit me up for more money than the snow globe and bag were worth together, that the only reason I was in this mess was that the airline had failed to announce to everyone on the flight that liquids purchased at duty free would have to be put into our checked bags as soon as we got our hands on them. He agreed that this whole mess was really their fault and let me check the new bag without additional charge. While waiting to get on the flight, all of us passengers could see the bags being loaded, and I spotted a limp nylon bag of the same color and shape as mine, being loaded onto the flight and clearly completely saturated. Great, I thought, they have already managed to smash the show globe so now I own a useless soaking nylon bag with shards of glass and a fake pirate head inside of it.

As it turned out, it was someone else’s bag. They had apparently put a bottle of rum they bought in the duty free into their newly purchased cheapie bag, but had neglected to add the tonnage of tissue paper to protect if from the abuse of luggage handlers and it never even made it onto the plane intact.

The flight back to Charlotte was uneventful albeit another hour late in leaving. Much of the delay was made up in flight and I got to my car, paid the charge for parking 11 days and headed home.

When I got home, things were largely unchanged. The temperature has dropped more than 20 degrees but that only means they were closer to normal. It is sunny and beautiful today and I am planning on taking Abner out for a short excursion this afternoon between errands. I have a couple weeks to myself before my friend Beth Kiyosaki arrives from Abiquiu, NM with her friend Irenka for a mid-winter visit. This will be Beth’s first time here and will be the first time we have seen one another since I left Sacramento.

Germane to that, on January 17th, while tanning my ass in Barbados, I celebrated 2 years of life in Asheville. I am still looking to improve my housing situation with a view and more space to hang my art collection, but on balance this has been a great two years. Any of you who contemplate taking the plunge and trying a new place after spending what seems like a whole life in another, I can tell you now from personal experience, it can be really great. Of course, you have to pick a place like Asheville for it to be as wonderful as my experience has been, but you can’t imagine how stimulating a big change can be. I highly recommend it. Wakes you up. . .that’s for sure.

I will be here for a little less than 7 weeks before I head off to Puerto Vallarta with Judy, Jean Ann, Jim, Greg and Nancy. I will try to get in one more post before that trip. As always, visits from all of my old friends are welcome and encouraged. Just try to give me some advance notice so I don’t end up with more than one visitor or group at a time, and of course just be sure that you don’t come when I am moving to my fantasized new house.

Photos will follow.

TTFN

Our beach was very clean and calm. The waves rarely made more of a break than you see here.


Mom and Dad got dolled up to take me to the very fancy Cliff restaurant for my last night in town.

This last photo is of the whole bunch of us.In the back row is my sister Jan, Chris Fong, my brother's wife, my brother Michael, Dad, Mom, my sister Lisa and her husband Dave, and in the front are my nephews Ben and Jon. I am the grey-haired old fart in front on the right, but you all know that. 

Ruined windmills seemed to be everywhere we went in the North.

This is what the view was from the deck off my room. Many card game took place in this exact setting.
Lots of party boats came and dropped anchor right off our beach. It seems that this is one of the more popular spots to snorkel or just float in the calm water.

The townhouses were really lovely the way the wer clustered around the pool in lush gardns. 

The East Coast of Barbados, particularly up north, is wild and reminds me a little of Scotland. The hills are hillier and the Atlantic is much rougher than the Caribbean. The beaches are still quite beautiful but the only people in the water are surfers.


Dad and I took an excursion one day and explored the Atlantic coast and some of the little villages in the North. This was a high point on a hill right before a historic (17th Century) Great House that was buried in a dense forest of Mahogany. This alley cut through the trees was almost like a tunnel. 

Mom and Dad tend to relax a lot on these trips.

On occasion, they can be persuaded to go on an outing. Here they are walking toward the bakery in Speightstown with my brother Michael and his wife Chris in slow pursuit.
Jon looks awfully comfortable here himself.

The windmill is one of fewer than 100 that remain of the original 506 that used to dot Barbados. Sugar cane has been the big cash crop there for centuries and made Barbados very important in the 18th century. There was a time when Bridgetown was the second largest English speaking city in the world next to London. 

Barbados is not one of those mountainous Caribbean islands that you see in pictures from the water. It has lovely rolling hills that at one point in the northern part of the island, reach 1100 feet high.


In the current construction boom, an old hotel on a great site was torn down and last year Hilton opened this large and grand beauty. 

This is the view you get of the marina in Bridgetown as you leave at the crack of dawn to go fishing. As the charter assistant pointed out, it is called "fishing" not "catching". We fished but, as usual, we didn't catch.

Lisa looks pretty comfortable on a deck chair in the early morning sun. You can see how rough the Caribbean is off the West Coast of Barbados.









Cruise ships large and small visit Barbados. This one was tiny compared to a big Carnival Cruise ship that was also in port. We guessed that this one was half the length, two decks shorter, and probably at least a third narrower in beam than the big ship, and the big one wasn't even one of the monsters that routinely prowl the Caribbean searching for bargains on china, crystal and wristwatches.

























Dave, Ben and Jonothon looked pretty relaxed most of the boatride. I guess with no fish biting there wasn't much to be concerned about.

My Brother in law, Dave Post, actually is a pretty bright guy with a good job where people respect him. . .or so he would have you believe. This is a picture of Dave turning himself into Bugs Bunny with the aid of only two Tic Tacs.

There seems to be some photo obsession on these trips. This is Dave, my sister Lisa, and my nephew Ben at lunch one day in Holetown, Barbados.
Serious money seems to have made it to Barbados judging from the size of some of the yachts moored off Speightstown. The last picture in this group is of a church that is rather typical of some of the older structures on Barbados. They used to build extensively with coral stone quarried locally. Now there is a huge concrete plant at the north end of the island and most newer buildings are concrete block with stucco finish. 

Winter still persists in being sunny and bright here much of the time. The solar industry is promoting itself heavily here right now with a statistic about how Asheville has more than 300 days of sunshine per year. I believe it.


 

Here's Risa with himself. As usual, he took advantage of a new person in the house and worked her for all the attention he could get.

Regie, Spencer, and Abner have a brief rest stop while I have a more private one.
The estate deer seem to have moved this winter. Last year they were mostly visible in the rolling area immediately below Biltmore House. This year we haven't seen any there but there are dozens loping around the woods about 3 miles away in the area behind the Inn. This one was particularly curious about what Abner and I were up to. 

I guess we are sort of having winter. This was the heaviest snow fall I have experienced in Asheville in two years. I am still hoping for something really impressive one of these days.


Abner loves it. One thing about snow is that he doesn't look as white when he is in it. Most people still think he is a polar bear.