- May 2 – Oven install, getting ready for London, why travel
- May 7 – Happy Anniversary!
- June 6 – England trip, Betsy visit, Barb Retirement party prep, new lawnmower
- June 9 – Barb Retirement party, Bill spill, French Open, landscaping, pickleball
- June 14 – The Star Spangled Banner, closed captioned
May 2
The saga of the oven installation is finally complete. The installers never came last Monday, and after many, many phone calls with Best Buy’s customer service we determined that I needed an electrician to first install a new breaker. Once that was done last Thursday, we were able to reschedule our installation for today. The new oven is a bit taller than the old one, which required some cutting of the wood cabinet, but it seems to look good and work alright. The test will be when Barb sees it tonight and then whenever she actually cooks something in it. I hope the touch screen control panel doesn’t throw her for too much of a loop. In any event, Merry Christmas.
Barb submitted the final draft of her retirement papers yesterday. We think we have all the ducks in their proper rows. Her advisor Norma will tell us if there’s any more to do. As far as we know it’s all systems go for June 30.
Barb’s retirement party committee finally asked me to come up with pictures for some sort of display at her party on June 5. I was able to use Google Photos to create an album filled with any and all pictures of Barb. I culled out hundreds and still had an album with more than 100 photos covering her youth and then many photos of her with work colleagues from various events. Barb culled dozens more from that until we ended up with a final album with 51 greatest hits photos. We’ll see what the committee wants to do with them. I think my work is done for the time being.
We are getting ready for our England trip. We learned there will be a rail strike for at least one of the days we’re there. That’s what caused the change in our train plans for getting to Oxford, though our trip was two days after the strike. Maybe they know something we don’t. I booked Megabus tickets as a backup. We should still be able to get to Oxford by midday, with time to still get to Blenheim in the afternoon. Hopefully the train strike won’t disrupt the regular Underground service otherwise it will be expensive to get to Wimbledon for our tour on May 13. Otherwise I think we’ll be OK. We also learned we will be in London for the Eurovision Semifinals and Finals. That should be entertaining to see on two of the evenings.
Our neighbor Mark is lined up to watch after Manny, our mail, papers and plants while we’re gone. I need to write up instructions for him and give him an orientation walkthrough because there are a few things he doesn’t usually do, including mowing the yard. We had looked for a cat-sitter but Mark seemed very willing to do all this. I hope it’s not asking too much.
I had lunch with Mark and Ron yesterday at Tandoor Spice. The food was good (though it occurred to me afterward we should have ordered something from the tandoor oven beyond the naan which was fresh and delicious) and the conversation was friendly. At one point, Ron asked about what Caribbean island I’d recommend and I went on a long (for me) discussion of Aruba vs. Punta Cana, basically discounting the rest of the Caribbean. I placed strong caveats that my choices were based on our own preferences, but I don’t think I did justice to spelling out our preferences and why other places may be better for other people. Our priorities are finding a relaxing place for Barb and Allie to get some sun, with comfortable, American-friendly surroundings and good options for food. We have little time or interest in local cultures, art, sights, or even history – though I might like to change that in some future visits. For the most part, we are renting sunshine, getting a quick break from the Maryland winter so the girls can get a tan. That may not be what everyone wants. It’s not even what I want, most of the time, though I do enjoy a few days of idle indulgence.
The question nagged at me because it strikes at the heart of why we travel and how we will spend these upcoming retirement years. I like to visit the UK, Spain, Portugal and other places because I admire the lifestyle, culture, history and food of the area. I enjoy immersing myself in those cultures to at least some extent. I think the same is true for Barb for a much narrower range of places: the UK, Ireland and maybe Italy. Otherwise, I suspect Barb prefers an Americanized level of comfort and familiarity…in which case, why travel? I can’t get her to go to slightly exotic restaurants around home, much less spend the money to actually travel to more “exotic” locations.
On a different note, our actual 40th wedding anniversary is this Sunday. The date kind of snuck up on me. I proposed going to Grille 620 to get a nice dinner; Barb surprised me by suggesting Alexandra’s at Turf Valley instead. I haven’t been there in 20 years, but I guess we can get a decent steak there. I’ve made a reservation; we’ll see how it goes. The England vacation is her real anniversary present, but I’m also willing to see if she wants some jewelry or anything. Do you think she will get anything for me? It would be great if she would pay for some of this trip and let me go to Spain this summer…which she already begrudgingly said could be my birthday present. Time will tell.
May 7
Happy 40th Anniversary to us! I had anticipated this one being a bigger deal than it is turning out to be. Barb is retiring, we both turn 65 this year, our mutual retirements and rest of our lives loom. But the actual day is kind of running under the radar. We’ve got our dinner reservation tonight at Alexandra’s; it turns out that Barb’s friend Sheila goes there for special occasions, notwithstanding that Sheila has very pedestrian choices for her lunches with Barb. Maybe it will surprise me.
I offered to get Barb some jewelry to mark the anniversary and she brightened to the prospect. We don’t really have a favorite jewelry store anymore and I had no idea what she might want, so I suggested she shop on the Costco site for some ideas. She found some things she liked and we went to Costco last night to see some items in person. She found a pair of dangly diamond earrings she liked; we bought them and then Barb remembered there was an online deal that saved $150…but we had to buy it online. So we returned the earrings in the store, went home and bought them online. Now we’re waiting to see if the earrings arrive before we head to England on Wednesday. It’s not exactly the most romantic of transactions, but that seems to be where we are.
Meanwhile, on our anniversary Sunday, Barb got up early and went off to work to clean her office. I spent an extra long time this morning reading the paper and fixing an egg for myself. I’m now catching the end of the Orioles playing the Braves. The O’s are off to a great start this season and have been fun to watch. Today’s game is the rubber game in the first of a long month of series against very good teams that will be the true test of the O’s season. They’re in 2nd place in the AL East with the 2nd best record in baseball; if they can get through this month in anything close to the same position, it will be a pleasant miracle. Late note – the O’s lost today’s game and the series to the Braves in 12 innings; they had their chances but couldn’t quite bust through, despite leading in the 8th last night and in the 10th today. The world is reverting to the mean after all.
We are about as ready as we can be for our trip to England on Wednesday. Barb and I are both excited for it, and to be fair, it is the first of two big anniversary/retirement trips (this and our New Zealand-Australia cruise next year). So it’s not really fair to say we’re not celebrating our anniversary – we are with the trips.
To help get us in the UK mood, we watched the coronation of Charles III yesterday. We’re glad he scheduled his ceremony the weekend before we arrive in London (note that we had our vacation set long before his coronation was announced). The ceremony itself was mostly a snooze, but you have to give the Brits some credit for putting on a show, especially the parades up and down the Mall. I hold out no great expectations for Charles as a king. It seems like he is mostly a placeholder until William can assume the crown, but even then it’s hard to see what change that will really have on Britain. A much bigger and more effective change would be to renounce Brexit and rejoin the EU. Maybe in a decade or two.
I’m a little worried about falling terminally behind in my website efforts over the next few months. The England trip is going to take me a while to document and post. I haven’t gotten anywhere on starting 2009 photos, I have to tackle my robot career at some point, and my office is still a mess of papers that I want to go through and place into the right spots along the timeline. There’s still a lot to do. But for the moment, I’m going on a walk and then we’ll have our anniversary dinner.
June 6
It’s been a long time since my last post but I’ve had good excuses. We took our vacation to England in May and I’ve been working on the writeups to that since. We’ve also had Betsy and Allie here for the past weekend. Betsy came through on her retirement tour and Allie is here to take part in Barb’s retirement party which begins in a couple of hours today. So there’s excitement all around.
The England trip went very well and is recounted in other posts. Betsy’s visit was good. She just retired last week and took this trip to Maryland and Virginia as a bit of well-deserved me-time to see friends she hasn’t visited in a long while. She arrived very late on Thursday night and slept in on Friday for the first time since retiring. She and I went to Old Ellicott City to do some window shopping and have lunch, as us ladies do. She wanted to get a retirement card for Barb so our first stop was the EC Pops store. We found the card in five minutes then she spent another hour checking out every single item in the store, buying a bunch of gifts for friends. She was very happy to get so much of her anticipated shopping done in one swoop. She had never been in Old Ellicott City and enjoyed walking down and back up Main Street. We ended up having a nice little lunch at the Georgia Grace Cafe, a place I will need to bring Barb eventually.
Allie arrived at BWI that evening around 7:45; Betsy and I met her and we rendezvoused with Barb at Hot Pot Hero for dinner. It was Betsy’s first hot pot in a long while and we had a good time together, capped off with a visit to Soft Stuff for the first time this year. On Saturday, the ladies all went to the pool and I enjoyed a little quiet time and a chance to run errands. For dinner, we went to the new Collective Offshore restaurant in Columbia where we shared a variety of seafood: oysters, clams, mussels, scallops and crab cake. We were all well stuffed. Betsy thought to take some photos of us all.
But the eating weekend was not done. On Sunday, we went to Mikey & Mel’s Deli for breakfast. I had the 3-egg corned beef hash and ate every bite, unnecessarily. I then drove Betsy to Tom and Julie Blythe’s house in Purcellville, Virginia for the next stop on her tour. Allie and Barb headed back to the pool for another sunny day. The three of us later drove to Bethesda for a celebratory visit to Medium Rare for steak frites, courtesy of Betsy’s gift card to Barb. Many thanks!
That brings us to today, Retirement Party Monday. So far, the weather is perfect: a cloudless blue sky with temperatures in the 70s. The party is a picnic at Centennial Park starting at noon. Barb will head over around 11am while Allie continues working from home to get in a half day because she can’t spare any vacation time. Barb has been looking forward to this party for more than a year and it’s looking to be quite a celebration. More than 100 office mates and guests are due to attend. A committee of 18 people have been working on the details – I know very little and I expect there will be some happy surprises, along with a hefty lunch spread from Mission BBQ. Barb has worked up a little speech and it will no doubt be an emotional afternoon. I am due to take lots of photos but I hope others will as well.
In the evening, I’ll run Allie to the airport so she can catch her 10:30pm flight. It’s too bad she can’t stay longer but she’s already in a bind with her new company over personal/vacation time and the strict remote-work policies. She’s quite worried about having time together over the holidays. I told her we’d sort something out. It seems likely Barb and I will head up to Boston for Christmas though that’s a conversation we’ve yet to have with Barb.
There’s one more retirement event on Wednesday evening, a smaller dinner organized by Tony with Larry and Ashley, Tom and Donna Coons, Marcus (and Shelley?) Christ at the Tilted Row in Baltimore. Barb is more than a little annoyed at having the spouses there, but so be it.
After all that, Barb is due to take the month of June to clean out her office and effectively be a ghost at work. We’ll see how that goes. She’s also getting her paperwork in order…so far so good, we think.
Other than all the retirement festivities, I have a little tale to tell about my lawnmower. The last couple of times I mowed before heading to England, I was making a hash of the lawn. I could tell the mower deck was uneven and driving the mower was sluggish. I was growing frustrated and couldn’t figure out the problem. Fortunately, our neighbor Mark was willing to mow the lawn a couple of times while we were gone so it looked nice upon our return. But now that we were back it was my job again and I didn’t look forward to making an ugly mess again. Out of frustration and desperation, I decided to order an expensive new electric riding mower directly from Greenworks, sight unseen from their website.
Nearly a week went by and I had no update on shipment from Greenworks, so I asked if Janice could mow our lawn sometime in the next few days. Within a couple of hours, while I was taking my walk, she whipped through and left the lawn looking immaculate. While I was walking, I got a phone call that claimed to be FedEx wanting to schedule a delivery for the next day. It turned out to be a 700+ pound item that could only be the lawnmower, even though there was still no update on the Greenworks website. I scheduled the delivery for the afternoon. Sure enough, around 4pm a FedEx truck appeared with what seemed to be a sarcophagus wrapped in black plastic. I set about unwrapping and tackling the assembly required and got it mostly done in 90 minutes. I was feeling pretty good about it but couldn’t get the last few bolts undone to get the mower off the metal packing skid so I called Ron. He arrived a bit later and we got the beast loose. I scooted around a little and tried the mower blades for a few seconds before parking it in the garage. There it has sat for the last few days while Betsy’s been here. Both Betsy and Allie commented how nice the lawn looks. Thanks, Janice!
In other news, I connected with Jim Rech and Bill Barnett to share access to Billzpage. I’ve had a nice email exchange with Bill since and he’s invited me to a Brewers/Nationals game in DC on August 2. That’s smack dab in the middle of when I was thinking of seeing Laurie, but I haven’t made any progress on that trip yet and am now thinking of pushing it back into August. More negotiations needed with Barb and Laurie on that front.
June 9
It’s been a busy week. In quick summary:
- Monday: Barb’s retirement party at Centennial Park. Got Allie to the airport that night.
- Tuesday: Tennis match and a spill for me.
- Wednesday: Doctor visit and recovery, Canadian smoke makes hazardous air quality, retirement dinner for Barb
- Thursday: Landscaping work started, French Open womens’ semifinals, Trump indicted for classified documents
- Friday: Alcaraz-Djokovic semifinal
- Saturday: Pickleball
Barb’s retirement party went about as well as it possibly could have. The weather was perfect with clear skies and temperatures in the 70s. About 100 old and new colleagues gathered in the Centennial Park pavilion which provided enough shade and seating to accommodate us reasonably comfortably. The old guard included Leila, Donna, Tom Coons, Marcus and others. The planning committee, especially Betsy Pelovitz and Caroline did a great job making sure everything was perfect, from the cute personalized decorations to staying on-schedule (as Barb would demand, they pointed out). The Mission BBQ food was tasty and attentively served by a staff of four (and I was able to bring home some leftovers). The AV setup was good enough and the speeches by a string of Barb’s colleagues were short, sweet, complimentary and heartfelt. Barb’s own speech was touching and genuine. Lots of people commented on how beautiful and lovely Allie was. Most importantly, Barb had a good time and felt well loved. It was the great send-off she longed for. I’m hoping to get pictures from other photographers soon, including some of us, and I suppose a separate post is called for.
together the Three Bears
We had enough time at home with Allie to decompress, make note of Barb’s various gifts, and get some takeout sushi from Katana. Allie and I left for the airport at 9pm for her 10:30 flight. She got home after midnight but it was great to have her while she was here.
On Tuesday, I started watching the French Open tennis and also tried to digest the breaking news of the PGA-LIV-Saudi golf merger, the most blatantly cynical, dispiriting sports development in recent memory.
That evening, I went to play a doubles match at Cattail. My partner Brian and I won the first set and it was close in the second when I chased after a short ball. My body got ahead of my feet and I remember thinking “Uh oh, I’m going down.” My feet must have slipped and I did a face plant on the Har-tru court. The next thing I remember I was sitting on the bench with an iced towel on my bloody nose, my partner and two opponents tending to me. I’m not sure how long I was out but I sat for quite a while getting my bearings. One of our opponents, Dave, drove me and my car home, followed by his partner so they could double back to the club for Dave’s car – a very nice and helpful action. I got an ice pack for my face and settled in for the evening, trying not to fall asleep while waiting for Barb to get home. She did, eventually, and I was able to sleep comfortably and wake up the next morning, which was some relief.
I took it easy Wednesday morning with an ice pack and the French Open. I had an existing midday appointment with my cardiologist and I felt good enough to drive there. We discussed what happened as he did a basic check for concussion symptoms; he declared I seemed OK and lucky. I wanted some pasta for lunch and ended up at Clove and Cardamom to try their vegetable alfredo masala; it was only so-so but I had plenty to bring home and make more interesting.
On Wednesday evening I picked up Barb at work and we drove into Baltimore for a retirement dinner organized by Tony and Larry at The Tilted Row restaurant. Attending were Larry, Ashley, Tony, Tom and Donna Coons, and Marcus and Shelley Christ. Barb was not thrilled that the spouses were included but we ended up having a very nice time, bolstered by good food, half-price wine and a very attentive and professional server.
On Thursday, our landscapers finally got started on our spring projects, including the plantings for the front flower bed near the road. They got that done by the end of the day, but still no headway on replacing the cherry tree which was the main impetus for all the work. Still, it was nice to get the front done. Now to keep it watered and relatively weed free.
While the landscapers did their work, I mostly watched the French Open women’s semifinals which were both quite good. Later in the afternoon, word broke that Trump was indicted for the documents handling case. That gave me something else to read about and switch to various news channels. One only hopes the case will stick, though again it seems that it won’t prevent Trump from continuing his 2024 presidential campaign.
On Friday, I was primed to watch the French Open men’s semifinal between Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz, a classic meeting of generations. The first two sets were terrific but Alcaraz cramped and the rest of the match was a foregone conclusion. Credit to the old guy who has a legitimate claim to being the greatest (male) tennis player of all time. I’m a little ashamed that I’m not more excited for him; I respect his talents and competitive drive but I am not happy to see him on top.
On Saturday, Barb and I ventured to Cattail for the official opening of their six pickleball courts. Barb took part in a clinic and got the basics of rules and how to play. She enjoyed rotating around with others, a good start to her prospective pickleball career. I was a little hesitant to play because of my head/eye but felt a little emboldened once Arathi’s husband and ER doctor, Eric, took a look and pronounced my OK. I played a few times but not with Barb. We’ll see where things go in Barb’s pickleball future, and whether an actual friendly community develops at the club. I’m not holding my breath and plan to get back into the community center games when I can.
So that’s my summary of this busy week. The weather has been dry and the grass has not grown so I haven’t tried out my new mower yet…but I hear Janice mowing her lawn and now I’m starting to feel guilty. Also, it seems I need to go get a new sprinkler to water our front flower bed. And this afternoon we will meet Leslie for a congratulatory Indian meal to celebrate her quickly getting an offer on her house. I hope to learn more about her plans for moving west and whether Barb (or I?) will accompany her on the journey. More to come!
June 14
I settled down to watch the Orioles play the Toronto Blue Jays and happened to turn the TV on in time to catch the national anthems. A young girl handled both O Canada and The Star Spangled Banner a capella which is a tall order in any situation. I won’t make fun of her but I want to transcribe the closed captioning of The Star Spangled Banner, in full (I checked several times to make sure I got it accurately):
Oh sick, Kenny. You see?
Father. Hurley Leyer.
I won’t so proud. Great. Okay.
Last week whose broad stripes out Bernstock.
Through the pain. Or the Not doing.
Whoa!
Worse. The stream me Again.
Fasting and there.
Do that. Man. Radatz.
Oranges. Hand of the free.
I think this is why we need to worry about artificial intelligence.
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