Journal: March-April, 2023

  • March 8 – Punta Cana, David Lindley, tree removal, Spring is coming
  • March 15 – World Baseball Classic, things not getting done
  • March 22 – Appreciation for David Lindley, wood bowl, anticipation for Easton and Laurie
  • March 28 – Happy Birthday to me, Laurie arrives
  • March 31 – Laurie visit, Mount Vernon
  • April 4 – Rest of Laurie visit
  • April 24 – Spring bitching

March 8

We spent a happy week with Allie in Punta Cana at the Excellence El Carmen resort. We got a bonus day with Allie at the tail end because her flight to Boston on Friday night was canceled so she stayed over until Sunday morning. That gave us a chance to eat a little more: Allie and I had dim sum at Asian Court, followed by dinner at Eataliano. We brought home dishes for Barb because she didn’t want to leave the house after she did aerobics in the morning. I will wait a few more days to start my efforts to lose the pounds I gained in Punta Cana.

Allie and I rose early on Sunday to get to her 7:40am flight. She made it home safely and reunited with Perri. She will take one more week off before starting her new job at Cirkul. They’re already planning a trip for her to Tampa the following week. We wish the best of luck to her in her new adventures. We’ll see how much she likes actually commuting to work and dealing with frequent trips to Tampa.

Later on Sunday, I spent a few hours at Costco getting new tires for Barb’s car. I also did some grocery shopping to get food for the week. I have a whole series of relatively healthy meals planned around a Costco roast chicken, including a soup by mid-week. It will take Barb several days to work through the soy sauce noodles we got her on Sunday. 

I learned through a Facebook post from one of the artists I follow, Jerry Douglas, that another one of my guitar heroes, David Lindley, died on Friday. It speaks to the broken nature of our news landscape that I only learned about it two days later via a second-hand social media post. It would be another three days before a proper obituary showed up in the New York Times and crossed my eyeballs via one of their newsletters. In any case, Lindley was one of my favorites for many years, especially through the 1970s-2000s. I started working on iTunes and YouTube playlists covering the many winding genres, collaborations and instruments he explored through his lifetime. I will also work on an Appreciation post to commemorate his career and influence on me. I well remember the terrific two-man show he and Wally Ingram put on at the Rams Head in 2001 or 2002. I stayed for both sets and got autographed CDs, the only time I’ve actually sought a musician’s autograph.

Also, in the online world, I’ve now collected the full set of 25 profiles Rhiannon Giddens posted for Black History Month. She finished the series apologizing for not getting more done. No apology needed. They are interesting stories worth being more widely known. I also enjoyed finding the speech she recently gave at Julliard discussing her artistic journey. Rhiannon is speaking this Saturday at the Smithsonian in DC with Natalie Merchant titled Revisiting the American Musical Past. I found out about this a couple of weeks ago and Larry was interested but he was unable to get tickets the one day they became available (while I was in Punta Cana). I hope maybe the session will be available online somewhere soon.

On Tuesday, our landscaping crew arrived to remove the dead weeping cherry from our front lawn. We are sad this tree inexplicably gave up the ghost last summer. We will plant another but it will take years to regain the grandeur that we want…and is still unlikely to equal the weeping cherry that we had at Paddington Court, the original site of Allie’s annual spring photos for Gramma. Our neighbor Ron has volunteered to use the wood to make one or more bowls for us to help remember the tree. He took two of the four stumps I offered. We will put the other two under the deck for the time being. I can’t see taking them to the dump.

In addition to the weeping cherry, we removed a cryptomeria and holly by the road so we can give more room to the magnolia that seems to be thriving. We will plant something new to help shield from the road, perhaps some native shrubs depending on what advice I can garner from Janice, Donna Eden, our landscapers and the folks Sun Nurseries.

In general, we are turning the corner toward Spring. I’m also shifting gears to focus on preparations for our May trip to England. Time to start scoping out specific restaurants, shows and other activities. 

The rest of the world seems to be sputtering along in its usual fashion. The Ukraine war, Republican idiocy, budget and economic squabbles, general fears about China, climate change and a hundred other things occupy the news headlines but don’t really make a dent on day-to-day living at the moment. That’s about as good as can be expected, I suppose.

I found a local concert later in March in Easton, Maryland on the Eastern Shore featuring guitarists Sonny Landreth and Cindy Cashdollar. I’ve admired Sonny for a long time but don’t know Cindy yet. I will stay overnight and make a little Eastern Shore outing of it. There are several good-looking restaurants to try. I asked Barb if she wanted to join me for the getaway but she prefers to stay home and start working on cleaning out her office. So be it. I also plan to get a ticket to a Sister Rosetta Tharpe musical, Shout Sister Shout, at Ford’s Theater in DC later this month or in April. That will be another nice little outing. Things to look forward to.

March 15

I have a feeling I’ve been here before and, checking on my journal from last December I more or less have. I’ve let myself get sucked into obsessively watching the World Baseball Classic, a sort of World Cup for baseball, just as I did for the actual World Cup last November-December. That, combined with a small bout of a head cold (not Covid, I tested…but just once), let me fill my days and nights with games from around the world: from Taiwan or Tokyo in the early mornings, from Miami or Phoenix in the afternoons and evenings, with abundant replays for any games I missed. It’s a fun format with some genuinely talent-packed teams from countries like the U.S., Dominican Republic, Japan and Venezuela and surprisingly competitive upstarts from the likes of Australia, Israel, Italy and Canada. It’s great to see the stadiums sometimes filled with excited, celebratory fans. It’s still officially pre-season for the pro ballplayers, but some of the games have the tension, energy and excitement of post-season games, amped up with national pride and camaraderie among the players. It gives me something to do, and keeps me from getting other things done.

Things I’m not doing: I got waylaid in working on my David Lindley appreciation (which itself was a distraction), I’m trying to read Telex from Cuba, a novel that Laurie suggested for family book club discussions with Sue (we had the first of those yesterday and it sparked many wanders down memory lanes), I’m not getting much further on my 2008 photos, and I’m sure there’s more around the house that I ought to be doing.

My list of Howard County restaurants has become something of a useful obsession. I keep adding new places and dishes I want to try. Now I feel like I’m wasting time if I’m not eating out, trying something new. I’m trying to be judicious in limiting my intake of calories and outflow of money, but it’s a contradictory mix of impulses.

The best news lately is that Laurie is coming for a visit in a few weeks. She needed an escape valve when she learned that David was coming to Spain and I’m happy to have her here for a few weeks. That will be another happy distraction from whatever needs to actually get done. And a great excuse to try more restaurants. 

I saw our neighbor Mark walking his dog, Bailey, a couple of days ago and was able to give him the thank you wine I bought him for taking care of Manny and our papers while we were in Punta Cana. I suggested we aim for a lunch of Indian food. I followed up yesterday and asked if he wanted to invite our other neighbor guys, Ron and Marv. We had tried to have an Indian lunch together a couple of months ago but couldn’t get it together. This time, our query sparked a chain of 25 texts back and forth to try to decide on a day, time, restaurant, and who would drive. We were able to decide three of the four. We will get together this Friday at noon, Ron will drive, and we’ll decide where we’re going once we’re all in the car. So, after 15 years, maybe I will have lunch with some of my neighbors. Maybe this is why old men don’t have friends – we can’t organize ourselves out of a paper bag.

We finally connected with Donna for dinner at Xenia after a misfire back in February. We ended up getting a blow-by-blow, photo-by-photo recap of her trip to Egypt last November. A little of it went a long way, which is I’m sure the equivalent of my own travel recaps…though at least mine are written down and can be skipped through more quickly. Still, it was interesting to get her impressions of a trip we’ve thought about but never quite pulled the trigger. I rather doubt we ever will, but still, maybe once the big new archeology museum opens in Cairo, whenever that may be. Donna did point out that Alexandria was fascinating, with its own spectacular museum and lots to see. After spending the whole evening in Egypt, we departed; Donna followed up and suggested another dinner next month to actually catch up on other family and life events. 

There is, of course, other stuff going on but I think I’ll stop for the sake of getting some laundry done…then I think I’ll go try a new restaurant for lunch. I’m afraid a new patty melt caught my eye. So much for eating better.

March 22

I’m pleased to have finished my Appreciation for David Lindley and posted it to both Billzpage and a very slightly edited version on Billzdaze. I’m enjoying playing the nearly 6.5 hour iTunes playlist on random and marveling at the range of different music Lindley contributed in his long life. I’ve also worked through most but not all of the nearly 20 hours of my YouTube playlist of David’s performances. I hope the effort opens the door for others to enjoy his talents and contributions.

I also finally (finally!) finished my catalog of 2008 photos and activities. It has taken me way too long to get through that busy year. Now I can turn my sights on 2009 and hopefully get that done in something less than another year, though it likely means also tackling my work experience with FIRST which also started that year.

The World Baseball Classic concluded last night in fine form. Both of the final two games were excellent, dramatic games that came down to the last pitch. Last night’s final showdown between Japan’s captain Shohei Otani striking out USA’s captain Mike Trout could not have been better scripted in Hollywood (where the two are teammates on the Los Angeles Angels). The quadrennial WBC has progressed from a gimmick in its first few iterations to a very enjoyable exercise in globalization. Last night’s game was evidently the most watched baseball game in history, by virtue of most of the nation of Japan tuning in live. Team Japan did their country proud, and Otani continues to produce miracles. It’s a remarkable thing to watch in real time as an athlete rises above all his or her highly skilled peers. 

On the home front, our neighbor Ron sent photos of the bowl he has started turning from our cherry tree stump. The half-finished bowl now sits in a sawdust bath for several months to dry out. If it doesn’t crack, Ron will turn it further into a finished bowl. In the meantime, Barb will work up the gumption to ask for a couple of smaller bowls that she wants – this one is bigger than what she had in mind.

I’m looking forward to Laurie’s visit starting next week. We’ve mapped out a couple of outings, one to Mount Vernon in search of Harry Washington stories, another to DC to see Shout, Sister, Shout and get a good meal, hopefully at China Chilcano. We may also take a drive to North Beach one day to have lunch at Vaughn’s Cheese. I’m also collecting ideas of other places to eat and things to watch. It will be fun to have a playmate, whether or not Laurie wants to eat or see as much as I’d like.

I’m also looking forward to this weekend in which I get a field trip to Easton to see Sonny Landreth and Cindy Cashdollar, both first-rate slide guitarists very much in the mold and footsteps of David Lindley. I’ve known and admired Sonny’s work for a number of years, but Cindy is a new find for me, though she’s been active for more than 30 years, I find – I’m checking out some of her performances on YouTube and have no doubt they’ll be great together. Should be a fun evening. I’ll stay overnight and snag a couple of good meals, I hope. I plan to drive around St. Michaels, Oxford and maybe down to Tilghman Island…ground I’ve covered before but not in quite a few years. I invited Barb to join me for the getaway but she prefers to stay home and work on cleaning out her office. So be it. See post of Easton trip.

In the wider world, the wait continues for Trump to be indicted for something, anything. The threat at the moment is from NY and the Stormy Daniels payoff. Our mainstream media outlets (CNN, MSNBC, NY Times, WaPo, Atlantic) are beside themselves in anticipation. Trump, meanwhile, is raising millions and reveling in the attention. It all needs to stop, but is not likely to.

As an antidote, let us contemplate springtime.

March 28

Happy Birthday to me! This is my 65th birthday, a milestone I’ve been looking forward to for quite a long time. Although I’ve been retired for 5 years since robots and 20 years since my telecom days, I feel like now I am officially and properly retired. My small pension from the Hekimian/Axel Johnson days kicks in on April 1 (I hope) and I have been accepted for Medicare – though I haven’t got my card yet, so I cannot post photos of it like Don Kosin did. My pre-retirement investment account is pretty much but not quite depleted, having fueled me for 20 years. I feel like it (and I) accomplished its mission, getting me across this intermediary finish line. Now I can start tapping into my 401K and IRA accounts with a minimum of guilt. The time has come. To top it off, Barb is firmly aiming for retirement in three months at the end of June and things are looking reasonably on course for that event.

As icing on the cake, Laurie arrived yesterday and will help keep me busy for the next couple of weeks. I drove down to Dulles to get her, going the back way through Leesburg so I could have lunch at a Nepali restaurant, Roadhouse Momo & Grill. I was the only patron at the time so I got the full attention of the very friendly server. He pointed me toward their Bara, a sort of lentil pancake with buffalo meat and a nice, slightly spicy pickle relish on the side. I asked for it with an egg on top but we’d both forgotten that part by the time it came out; the egg would have been nice but the dish was plenty tasty on its own with the relish. The restaurant was located in Ashburn, a development I remember as mostly townhomes in open fields from 30 years ago, not far from Betsy and Joe’s old townhouse. Now it is a densely developed suburb with lots of giant data centers and other tech offices, along with the large training compound for the Washington Commanders. It was kind of overwhelming.

Laurie’s plane landed before 3pm but she didn’t emerge from Customs until nearly 4pm. It was just as well, because my plan for the evening was to stop at Lao Sze Chuan in Rockville for dinner (which didn’t open until 5pm), partly to pick up a shrimp dish for Barb. Laurie and I shared Never Forget Chicken and the Salt and Pepper Three Treasures (fried shrimp, scallop and calamari). The chicken was good but not as spicy as I remembered (and Laurie wasn’t a fan of the dark meat, which was most of the dish). The scallops in the Three Treasures were good, but the shrimp and especially the calamari were overcooked. Not really the best representation of the skills of this restaurant, but plenty for our meal.

We got home and watched several episodes of Ted Lasso, season two to get Laurie caught up. She’d seen season one and liked it; Ted should keep us busy for a number of more nights, so that’s good.

Our plans for this birthday Tuesday are low key. We’ll do some shopping errands and get lunch somewhere, then we’re meeting Barb for dinner tonight at Grille 620 where I have my eye and stomach tuned to the grilled fish. Tomorrow, Laurie and I will likely go to Silver Spring to see The Quiet Girl before it disappears from the AFI, then probably grill some salmon and veggies for dinner. On Thursday, we go to Mount Vernon for the day, and on Friday we stay home to wait for delivery of our new couches. On Friday evening I will attend the tennis social at the Club to see what’s going on with this spring’s season and Barb will be at book club, so Laurie gets at least some of the evening on her own. The weekend is undetermined at this point, but I’ll sort that out in the coming day or two.

March 31

Tuesday, March 28

Lunch on Tuesday ended up being banh mi from Anh-Mazing Banh Mi in the Common Kitchen. Laurie didn’t know the Vietnamese sandwich so she opted for a lemongrass chicken version while I had the BBQ pork. The sandwiches now come with a pair of spring rolls or fries. We both got spring rolls but in retrospect one of us should have got fries. The spring rolls were little frozen ones, I think, and the sandwiches were only so-so, not as good as they used to be from this stand. They were fine but we both brought half home and they would sit in the fridge a few days before I got around to polishing them off for the sake of clearing out the fridge.

From there, we shopped for groceries and various Laurie things for several hours, taking up much of the day before getting home for a walk in the neighborhood. For my birthday, I signed up for Wondrium, the rebranded The Great Courses platform so we could see the new Rhiannon Giddens series on the history of the banjo. We watched the first few episodes. They cover ground already plowed by Giddens in other venues, but we look forward to watching the rest of the series. I’m excited to explore the rest of Wondrium’s catalog in the coming months.

Dinner at Grille 620 was decent but not exceptional. I got the grilled branzino I’d been looking forward to which was served filleted this time, rather than the whole fish. We shared the fried shrimp appetizer which was nothing special. Barb and Laurie were happy with their rib eye sandwich and scallop dishes, respectively. Laurie treated me to the birthday dinner which was unexpected to me, but Barb seemed all for it. We finished the evening with a call from Allie and then another episode or two of Ted Lasso.

Wednesday, March 29

On Wednesday, Laurie and I ventured down to the AFI in Silver Spring to see The Quiet Girl, an Irish movie we’d both heard was good but neither of us knew much about. The movie was a gem, a lovely portrayal of a young girl making her way through a summer spent with her relatives. The film walks a tightrope observing this sweet girl navigate her days, trying to understand what’s going on around her. I kept waiting for something tragic to happen as the film foreshadows and slowly reveals its secrets. It’s a well done production and a credit to Colm Bairead who directed and wrote the screenplay. It’s his first film and was produced with his wife; I hope they enjoy long, fruitful careers.

After considering several restaurants, and getting a brusque greeting at Miss Toya’s Creole House, we decided to have lunch at LebTav, the new fast-food setting of the Lebanese Taverna. The special was a platter of Kibbeh Bleb…something. I kind of laughed at the name but decided to try it and it was quite good, with salad, rice, tzatziki and pita to play with. Laurie had falafel and a nice za’atar flatbread that we shared. It was a pleasant lunch.

I dropped Laurie off at the mall, went home, took my walk, showered and went back to get Laurie before settling in at home for more banjo and Ted Lasso episodes. We had a simple dinner of grilled salmon, asparagus and scallions that was just right.

Thursday, March 30

Thursday’s project was an outing to Mount Vernon. I was interested to see how the curators of the site now incorporate more of the stories of the enslaved workers and Washington’s treatment of them. In particular, I wanted to see what was known about Harry Washington, who escaped Mount Vernon to join the British as a Black Loyalist and later gained his freedom. 

We survived the 90-minute drive to Mount Vernon, disrupted first by a stop at McDonald’s to introduce Laurie to their breakfast burrito, and then later a Google-induced detour through what passes for the town of Mount Vernon rather than going directly to the historic site. But we made it and were on the grounds by 11am.

We were not able to get into the specialized tour of Enslaved People of Mount Vernon because it was sold out for weeks in advance but we got the brochure which evidently covers much of the material in the tour. Instead, we had audio guides and I reserved our tour of the mansion at noon. We got started with some requisite tourist shots and made our way through the out-buildings for the hour or so until our house tour.

The tour inside the house took a brisk 20 minutes. I was pleased to see Lafayette’s gift of the key to the Bastille on prominent display. The back porch overlooking the Potomac was being renovated so the rocking chairs were placed on the lawn…not really the same.

We were able to catch a re-enactor’s protrayal of Oney Judge, one of the more famous escapees from Mount Vernon. She didn’t know the story of Harry Washington but pointed us toward the library and museum to learn more. Laurie and I spent another hour or so working our way through the stops on the audio guide before we headed to the museum area. The museum provides a detailed look at Washington’s life from boyhood through death, including his exploits as surveyor, British soldier, land owner, revolutionary general, President, and near demigod. One display credited Washington with starting the French and Indian War and subsequent Seven Year’s War, which was the first time I’d seen it stated so bluntly but evidently his expedition into Pennsylvania resulted in the first shots of what became the deeply consequential worldwide conflagration.

I was pleased to find a panel display about Harry Washington, alongside panels about James Lafayette and William Lee, Washington’s personal valet and the only person to be freed upon Washington’s death. The museum implied the three men, along with the exploits of black soldiers such as the First Rhode Island Regiment spurred an evolution in George Washington’s attitudes toward slavery as an institution. I think that’s a generous interpretation — I doubt George Washington had any positive thoughts about Harry Washington’s escape or subsequent life other than wanting to get him and other escapees back from the British at the war’s end. I was surprised to see the date of 1781 listed for Harry’s escape; most other sources say he escaped in 1776, long before the HMS Savage arrived at Mount Vernon (footnote 1 notes there is some dispute over the date of Harry’s escape).

In the Mount Vernon gift shop, I found a number of interesting books on the general topic of Washington’s enslaved population but nothing explicitly about Harry Washington. I snapped photos and hoped that some of these titles would be available from my local library, but no luck.

I subsequently found that Mount Vernon’s Washington Library has at least two volumes with some direct reference to Harry: Death or Liberty by Douglas Egerton and Revolutionary Founders. I suppose I could someday go back and spend time reviewing them at the library, were I so inclined.

I made reservations at the Mount Vernon Inn Restaurant for a 3:30pm supper. I had peanut soup and the turkey pot pie, while Laurie opted for a chicken salad and corn bread. My soup was gloppy but a bit better when I watered it down a little. The pot pie was huge but I was hungry and banged my way through. All in all, the restaurant was convenient, the service was nice and it was somewhat interesting to eavesdrop on the other tables of tourists and their misinformation about Washington, American history, and life in general.

Fully stuffed, we drove home and watched a few more episodes of banjos and Ted.

Friday, March 31

Laurie and I stayed home to await the delivery of our new sofas. They arrived early in the morning and were quickly installed. Too quickly, it turned out since the headrest on Laurie’s side was not connected and required a service visit a few weeks later. But we now had new homes for our butts.

With that delivery out of the way, we had time for Laurie to get a haircut, do some more shopping at Giant and the mall. We had an early dinner at Ananda: gobinda (Laurie’s cauliflower favorite), palak chaat (the fried spinach appetizer), a fish curry that was only so so, and some especially good rosemary and sea salt naan.

That evening, I attended the season kickoff tennis reception at Club where we learned about the Spring season for men’s doubles, singles, and new pickleball courts. It looks like I may be playing more than I want to from April – June. I finally had a sighting of Terri Curran at Cattail; we chatted a bit, mostly pleased that Allie and Jeff now saw each other regularly in Boston.

I returned home where we watched Grammy tributes to Paul Simon and Joni Mitchell. Paul Simon won.

April 4

Rather than continue with a blow by blow of what we did, ate and watched with Laurie, suffice to say that we had a quiet weekend with her, highlighted by taking her to Peter Chang’s new Columbia restaurant. On Monday, I took her to the Greyhound bus station where she caught a ride to Philadelphia to stay with her friend Susan for a couple of days. The College Hunks Hauling Junk took away our old couches, 5 ancient TVs, and Louise’s old rocking chair that our cats completely destroyed over the years. I mowed our lawn for the first time this year. Laurie came back on Wednesday and we resumed our eating and viewing adventures, though at a somewhat reduced pace since we were getting oversaturated on all fronts.

We had a last hurrah planned for Laurie’s final weekend with us. On Friday, I took her down to Silver Spring so she could spend a day and night with Donnalee. On Saturday, Barb and I drove down to DC, had Gordon Ramsay’s Fish & Chips for lunch once again before dropping Barb off at her office to do some clean up work. I headed to Ford’s Theater to meet Laurie for a matinee performance of Shout, Sister, Shout, the musical story of Sister Rosetta Tharpe. The show was good, not great. The two leads, Sister Rosetta and her mother, were excellent singers and the best thing about the show.

After the show, because the Ford’s Theater basement museum was closed, Laurie and I went across the street to the Petersen House where Lincoln died, saw the small exhibits in the house, then were surprised to take an elevator to a new extended museum that covers the aftermath of the assassination. We spent about a half hour there until it was time to meet Barb for dinner. We had to skip the floor on Reconstruction. Ironic.

Dinner at China Chilcano turned out better for Barb than I’d feared. She was happy with her traditional siu mai (until I finished the last few of them) and a noodle dish. Laurie seemed happy with her choice of chicken and rice with kung pao seasoning and the traditional ceviche I selected. The cilantro dumplings were not great. Overall, the meal was fine but not worth the fuss or anticipation I’d built up. I would have like to try about a half dozen other items but this was not the time.

That evening at home, we searched for something to watch with Laurie and we settled on renting Aftersun because of good reviews, despite my reservations. I knew there was a reason I didn’t go see it in theaters. The movie’s performances were terrific, but the plot, such as it was, sailed over our heads. I had to read the Wikipedia summary afterward to get an idea of what happened. There were several inferential leaps that Laurie and I failed to grasp. I think that’s more of a failure for the filmmakers than for the viewers.

On Easter Sunday, we massively overate at the Cattail Creek buffet brunch. We had a good time together and with all the food, pacing ourselves somewhat for this one massive meal of the day.

Later in the evening, Laurie and I stumbled into an episode of a Marie Antoinette series on PBS. We both enjoyed it and chased down other episodes of the series on Passport over the next couple of days.

Laurie spent a couple more rather low key days with us before I took her to Dulles for her flight back to Spain. She was routed through Heathrow and encountered flight cancellations which extended her journey by many hours at the airport and necessitated getting a hotel in Madrid before she could catch a train back to Segovia. Note to self: always try to get non-stop flights to Europe if possible. Speaking of which, I’m hoping to visit Laurie in Spain later this summer, probably in late July – early August. I think I’ve got permission. We’ll see.

April 24

I feel guilty that this has been the longest span between journal entries since I started. I kind of overwhelmed myself trying to document all that went on while Laurie was here, and since then have been working on a variety of tasks that have kept me occupied enough that I haven’t had the time or inclination to write. But I feel bad for having fallen off the horse. Here’s my attempt to get back in the saddle.

One happy surprise just before Laurie left was the arrival of an envelope with a memory stick from Jim Rech. He has compiled a memoir of his wife and my cousin, Susan Barnett Rech, including tons of photos and a combination of his and her recollections. It’s a parallel effort, in many ways, to what I’m trying to accomplish with this website. I’ve enjoyed working my way through the first several chapters. I need to get an acknowledgement to Jim and share what I’ve been working on here. I hope my email address for him still works.

As I write, I am waiting for the installation for our new oven, ordered back in November and now finally being installed by Best Buy. At least I hope it will be – I haven’t heard from the installer and have gotten some mixed auto-messages from Best Buy. Earlier today, Ron came over to install a new light switch in the dining room – he’s a much more friendly and reliable technician but I don’t think he’s up to installing an oven.

This is the first week of the official Cattail Creek tennis season and I’ve been trying to organize two matches, one for singles and one for doubles. This has spawned more than 20 emails among the five other people involved and I’m still not completely confident we will have courts reserved when we need them, but the weather should be good the next two days. If I can complete these two matches, I get to start trying to schedule more over the next two months. It already seems like an inordinate pain in the ass. I can already feel my attitude souring on competitive tennis yet again – this is part of the reason I stopped playing USTA league tennis a decade ago. Having signed up for singles and doubles matches, I am afraid to also sign up for pickleball or the casual men’s doubles night – the formats I would prefer to be playing. Basically, it was a mistake for me to sign up for singles this season but I was trying to avoid a repeat of last season when I hardly played any outdoor tennis at all. These are first world problems, I know, but they are aggravating and occupy a lot of my mental shelf space.

I’ve also spent a lot of time chasing details of our England trip. Things have mostly fallen into place and we have a detailed, reasonably well balanced itinerary. I hope I’ve not packed too many things into the various days or made many poor decisions/commitments. One monkey wrench cropped up this morning when I got an email about changes to our train journey from London to Oxford. It seems we might have to make a connection instead of a direct train – that would be a pain since we’ll have luggage. Something to look into further.

Barb is getting excited about our trip, which is nice. She has also started to submit her paperwork for retirement, still on track for June 30. We’re still not completely certain about the various forms we need to submit – she got another email from her “advisor” this morning and evidently we have some more work to do. I’ll learn more tonight, I suppose.

Yard work has started in earnest. I moved all the plants from the basement to the porch last week, have mowed the lawn a couple of times, Barb and I planted a bunch of flowers in our annual offering to the deer, I’ve had a number of go-rounds with our landscaping company to try to get a new cherry tree planted and also come up with a plan for some native plantings in the front flower bed vacated by the two trees we had removed (another phone call scheduled tonight), I’ve been weed whacking and trying to keep our other flower beds in some semblance of order, and to top it all off, I have been increasingly suffering from hay fever/allergies which never used to bother me before. 

All of a sudden there are a number of good shows to watch on television. An article somewhere clued me in that Memorial Day is more or less the end of the Emmy calendar so all the networks are putting their prestige shows on, just like the good Oscar films tend to come out in November-December. We’re watching Ted Lasso and have started Beef and Perry Mason, with Mrs. Maisel, Barry, Mrs. Davis, The Diplomat, and more in the queue. Our May trip to England will interfere with all this watching. It’s unclear what we will be able or willing to access while we’re gone. More first world problems.

There’s more going on in the world, but that’s my report for the moment. Still waiting for that oven installer…

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