Listening: Spirit of the Century, Blind Boys of Alabama, Dead can Dance 1981-1998 Disc 1 & 2

So I took off for Pennsylvania earlier in the week.

It wasn't the most relaxing vacation ever, but besides beating the piss out of coming to work, I got to see snow and old friends which is thoroughly worth travelling thousands of miles and spending a few hundred dollars.


All in all it would have been more relaxing maybe if both the snow and the friends were closer but... *shrug* I'll take what I can get.

Friday night Molasses took me to LAX and it wasn't till after the luggage was checked and he had left that I realized I had a few key items either in the luggage or at his apartment. Well I guess they weren't that key but they would have added to my comfort for the first stretch of the trip. AT anyrate I napped most of the way from LA to Atlanta. I was tired but I'm not good at relaxing when surrounded with strangers and I inherited a certain amount of flight anxiety from my dad who is afraid of heights.

My instincts tell me that if I can keep awake and aware nothing bad will happen. So it takes a while to bitch slap them into letting me sleep.

Exchanged planes in Atlanta and idly wondered if this counted as having visited the state. I kinda doubt it as I never breathed the free Georgia or stepped on Georgia soil, and that stuff seems like it should count.

anyway the filght into Pittsburgh was pretty quick. It was in a puddly jumper and we actually walked out onto the tarmac to get on and off from the plane's own stairs.

Sergei met me at baggage claim and we headed out for brunch at Kazansky's. Yummm... matzoh ball soup. mmmhhh. }:>

I swear to god, if the intense and burning desire ever grips me and doesn't let go to open a restaurant of my own I'm going open a place called "Mostly Soup" and that is exactly what we will serve. There will be all kinds of great soup - beef vegetable, miso, matzoh ball, lentils, albondiga, wanton, etc - and lots of Saltines. mmmhh soup. }:D

So then we headed to Squirrel Hill and I unpacked some of the stuff and got suited up. Previously I had been wearing heavy jeans, a long sleeve t-shirt and my wool peacoat. It was good enough for heading to and from the car, and honestly a little much for even a cold night in LA, but I wanted to get a chance to walk around in the snow. So I added some long johns, a sweatshirt and traded the coat for a ski jacket. I stuffed my gloves in the pockets and off we went.

We headed up to Mt Washington, and the city looks very different in January from May. Can't decide if I honestly like one better or worse than another.

Sergei showed me around the inside of PIT, which no one had told me was as EFFING COOL as it turned out to be. The lobby is vaulted. Vaulted!!! The side classrooms are damned awesome as they are (on the first floor, surrounding the lobby) modelled on classrooms from insitutions of higher learning from respective countries from the age at which the given country (theoretically) excelled. Being Saturday we couldn't get into most of the classrooms, but still got to see the French, Russian and Turkish rooms. The first floor alone has all kinds of cubby holes and nooks in crannies a person can tuck themselves away into....It's pretty neat.

We then headed up to the 30-somethingth floor which was the top of the cathedral. The honors program calls that floor home, but they also have a totally sweet view of the city.


Then we headed off to the Phipps Conservatory which is a deceptively large system of hothouses which house a fairly exotic arboretum. They had a couple of permenant exhibits (I think), but were still clearly in the throws of Christmas, as evidenced by the abundance of poinsettias. (Uh... when an entire state is blanketed in snow the place seems...Christmaslike. More later) But they also had an orchid exhibit going full throttle and I got off some good shots of them. I swear the things don't just bloom, they pose.

Out back they had a Japanese...thingie. It wasn't an exhibit since ...um...it wasn't um... welcoming, exactly. I mean I don't know how they expect people to feel welcome when they have two doors to get past that are latched.... And in anycase the Japanese garden only had a few hardy plants out and several pedestals that were empty.

But it had a cute little bridge (that had caution tape around it, again that bit of unwelcomeness), a fountain that flowed down some rocks and into a tiny pond that had some ice solomnly floating on the surface. It was just...unreal.

So we soon made our way out and headed up to Frick which is normally a good sized park and set up for people to run on trails and stretch out properly along the way. Being that it was under a couple inches of snow there were kids sledding down the hillsides and there were tracks in the snow of people who had busted out their cross country skis.

Now, the sensations that follow are just a chronicle to myself so that I remember what it felt like. I actually had a good time walking around in the snow. I love how it makes things quiet and peaceful without fighting for attention. I love the way it looks and the way it crunches underfoot. But it was still kind of.... I dunno, kinda freaky to note that my face was um... freezing. I mean like if I rubbed the skin I couldn't tell from the sensation alone - my hands were knit gloves. And if I made a face - grimmaced or even grinned - I could feel the skin fold on itself and tighten up. When I relaxed my face I could still tell where the lines were. It was like an afterimage with exclusive regard to physical sensation.

By the time we headed back to the car my right ear was so numb I couldn't even get a kind of "diagnostic" that said "nope, nothing." It's like it wasn't there. I took off my glove and covered the ear with my bare hand. The side of my head could feel the heat from my hand but I got nothing from my ear for a solid minute. It felt cold to my hand but not *very* cold.

I know folks who are from these sorts of places are laughing at me, but I have to say, I'm glad that I got to experience this with the benefit of language at my disposal. And in anycase, I'm quite happy to be able to control when, how and where it is that I experience this.

When we got back to the car it was with some glee that Sergei told me that was why they have heated car seats. I remember quiping, possibly through chattering teeth, "I thought this was why you guys moved to California."

Went back to the house to thaw out and wait for dinner. We chatted about a zillion things: theatre, politics, education, politics, art, political forums, families, politics, a little more about art media and were maybe on the verge of political art but Guru and Piscis joined us. By this time we were at the Penn Brewery, a local German food place with thick beer and other hearty things.

Since I'd never met them, but am occasionally permitted to read their minds, it was a little weird, but altogether cool. And I got to resume running with my pet chaos theory that things will never work out as planned (read on) and people will never look like how they're supposed to. And dinner was very nice. At least until the fake Sinatras got there.

We headed off to a place they kept calling the Cavorting Goat or some such, but is actually called something else. There I indulged my sweet tooth and ignored all the weak-ass internal pleading to follow some kind of diet thing. Damn, that was good cheesecake.

Finally we headed off and chatted some more at the house. The plan I had divised was that Sergei would drive me to Harrisburgh after breakfast on Sunday and at some point Faith would show up and all would be merry and light. But the best plans of mice and Nobodies... I tell you. Faith wanted to stop by Pittsburgh to get some of her stuff and then head to Harrisburgh for some serious hanging out. She had intended to show up on Saturday, but instead had to settle for vvveeeeeeeerrry early Sunday morning. What with the three hour nap I'd gotten the night before between LA and Atlanta I was hanging onto everything Sergei said with the tenuous fingernail-grip of the sleep deprived. I didn't want to give up the good conversation, and I could have forced the issue - Sergei makes a mean cup of coffee - but I decided to give it up and crash out instead.

After a shower I headed down to see what was what and said good morning to Faith and shook Jayde's (not his real name) hand. There was coffee and a whirlwind of minute activity which I could not assist with. So I sat down and chatted with people as they came and went and sooner than I wanted it was noon. Much later than I had planned, and sooner than I wanted we headed out to get brunch at a local place that all the locals love. The flapjacks were...interesting. Big and very, very flat. and darned tasty.

chatted about stuff - religion, communism and getting our hair done - and eventually headed back. As I was getting into gear for heading out it was pointed out to me that Sergei's tire was flat and in a way that would require a mechanic. Everyone was very serious about it (except maybe Jayde?) but I was kind of amused, though rather bummed for Sergei and his ninja-pimp-mobile. Now it was just a ninja pimp. He tossed out several ideas for getting to Harrisburgh but I wasn't worried, thinking it was a couple days before I had to catch a plane and was otherwise on vacation.

I suppose I should/could have been more adamant that once I agreed to go with Faith and Jayde to hurry and get some travelling done before the evening's storm hit. In retrospect, that might not have been a bad idea.


I had never been in a blizzard before, so I guess there's a first time for everything. And again I'm glad I could have the benefit of being an adult whilst observing it for the first time.

It was already dark by the time we pulled out and the first thing the main east-bound highway has you do is go through some windy mountain roads. The roads weren't lighted and with the steady snowfall our visibility alternated between walls of white and a sharp black nothing.

I've driven alone from Fresno into LA after dark. There's typically a stunning amount of fog that comes in after sunset. One gets the feeling it lurks in shadows just past the hills along the road or sinks into the earth during the day. But once night hits, it appears suddenly like endless blouds of billowing thugs. It presses against the car maliciously and blots out the view of anything that isn't fog. The only way I found I could hold down the panic was to tailgate a succession of semis along the grapevine. Without their trailer lights I could feel the nerves to my lower spine go dull as I lost sensation/track of everything below my waist. I actually, literally felt pressed back into my seat as if I was rocketing into space. Given that space was not my goal it was just a smidge on the terrifying side that I couldn't feel what I knew to be real.

This was somewhat similar, and somewhat worse. The advantages were that I was not driving and I could offer my company to the person who was.

In this case the clouds were roiling and alive. They weren't trying to intimidate, they were being intimidating on the way to something else entirely. The lose bits of snow would get on the windshield and freeze making visibility all the worse, and frequently salt got in there to harden the mixture. There were several white knuckle moments involving speeding traffic, large trucks, woefully messy roads, disappearing lane markers and snow drifts appearing to all the world to be trying to attack the car.

Contact was maintained with Sergei for weather/traffic updates and road advice. The windshield was scraped a few times and we maintained awareness up and panic down by asking each other silly "interview" questions. It was supposed to take roughly three hours and took nearly twice as long.

At Carlisle we met Rabbit for a very late dinner. Most of the places were closed so we settled for an all night diner. For a day wherein I hadn't done much of anything, I was pooped.

We headed to the hotel after that. I had originally offered Faith the other bed when I first booked it and she seemed interested. But the weekend had dragged on so and Jayde had classes the next morning so they had been seriously thinking of not doing it. I didn't want to insist overmuch, but the rest of their trip would have taken another three hours in good weather. Besides the fact that this was most assuredly not good weather (I'm from California, if there's one thing I know, it's good weather }:P), they were fairly exhausted too. So I was glad to hear they would be staying the night.

Monday morning Jayde got the wake up call, hung up and rolled over. I got up an hour later and stumbled into the shower. We were slow in getting going, but we finally got everything coordinated with Rabbit and headed into town for lunch.

Harrisburgh doesn't look like much from the outside (as we quickly saw one could easily drive by it on the highway and not notice), but it has a decidedly lovely heart. Sadly I didn't get any pictures, but Rabbit gave us directions that took us on Front street with the Susquehannah on one side and beautiful row of stone houses that referrence the Revolution. The Susquehannah had big blocks of green ice on it and presented a very dangerous stillness. (I don't kid, I've seen the steel bridge this thing knocked down.) Lunch was at a cajun-esque place a couple of blocks from the state capitol. She pointed at the place on the opposite corner where the governor has been known to get his hoagies.

After lunch Faith and Jayde parted ways with us out on the cold grey street with invitations all around to visit alongside vague murmers of "I'll see...."

It was well into the afternoon when we returned to Rabbit's father's house. After hemming and hawwing I noted I would like to see things and/or people Amish. Rabbit said she'd see what she could do but after scouring several sites on the Web we noted that the few places that had been open were closed by that time.

Still no Amish for me.

We played a little Flux, entertained La Rorita and watched Charmed while Rabbit juggled business calls. In general we caught up several of our life's details and headed out to dinner at a place that was rather a lot like Applebee's only called something different.

Due to the dicey weather and La Rorita's increasing antsiness the night ended early for us and I was soon back in the room flipping between HBO channels. I happened to catch a program that I can't recall the name of that is clearly Politically Incorrect Jr. It's moderated by Bill Maher and had a panel of three guests on to discuss several details. I dearly miss Politcally Incorrect - I had to stop long, long before 9/11 due to having work that prohibited watching late night TV. while I was fine with lounging around watching it, especially since one of the panelists was David Frumm. Mr Frumm has been the regular right-winger on KCRW's Left,Right and Center for as long as I've listened and I'm just...astounded by how he regularly supports Bush JR and the Republican party. I like listening to him because often enough he's all of their hipocrisy and contradictory thinking personified in one arrogant, aloof body. He used to be Bush's speechwriter, and if you're not sure why you're supposed to hate him, he coined the phrase "Axis of Evil."

But in addition to the PI-style panel Maher also interviewed Sen. Edwards, whose megawatt smile and perfectly prepped answers nearly made me want to vote for him, and Ralph Nader. Ah Nader. Nader, Nader, Nader. I had all but forgotten why I voted for him. In roughly two minutes he reminded me. *swoon*

So anyway. Not tired, and not feeling like reading I watched Formula 51. It was a silly movie. But there is something to be said for Sam Jackson laying about himself with a golf club. };>

Tuesday morning I dragged myself out of bed, surprised at how tired I was. Oh yeah. There was a reason I quit watching late night TV, wasn't there?

The weather had been getting steadily worse and both Sunday and Monday the hotel clerks had told me to keep an eye on the weather to make sure my flight wasn't cancelled. I spent about an hour flipping channels to try to glean some insight on travel conditions. The weather was supposed to be crappy with occasional bouts of utter shite, getting worse into the evening. Since I was only concerned with stuff until my flight was supposed to leave at 4pm ESt, it was frustrating to only hear how it was going to be bad once night fell. I mean, I'm sure I'd want to know that if I lived there...but since I didn't....

So anyway, Rabbit eventually showed up and kept me from freaking out and we headed to brunch at a cute little diner. It occasionally gives me a little bit of mental whiplash when I walk into a restaurant in another state and get asked "Smoking or non?" The ban came into effect in LA when I was already an adult, but I wasn't really going to restaurants much - and most family places had already gone totally non.

La Rorita seems to be a hit everywhere she went. I remember it from other little girls I've babysat and my own sister. It's easy to be charmed by someone you don't have to clean up after and aren't on the hook to try and discipline. But she's a darned cute kid.

After that we dropped off the kid with Rabbit's mother and headed off to Baltimore. A freezing rain fell and we noted the bad traffic headed the other way.

At the terminal I heaved a sigh and squeezed Rabbit tight to say God b'w'ye. The curbside guy assured me the flight was still on and took my bag.

More admonishments to visit and then I had to head in.

There was a steady flow from the curb to the gate and then we were soon on board. And then we sat there. And sat there. FInally they told us they had to de-ice the plane and an hour after that we were ready to go. I don't exactly have a finite amount of patience for flights in me. But it's most certainly not infinite, either. I pull into mind the amount of time expected and set internal patience clocks by it. If the time runs over it could be a late one hour flight or ten hour flight, I'm the same amount of cranky.

While I was thinking they should have anticipated this the pilot nipped the whole thing in the bud: He explained there are only three of the very expensive machines at the airport, and that we immediately left after getting sprayed down precisely because there was a narrow window of time when the liquid (which looked suspiciously like coolant/antifreeze) would be useful. and frankly I watched the wings while we were landing in ATlanta and I was glad to get there in one piece. All of the flaps but one opened the air brakes on landing. The one that didn't just flapped around determinedly like someone was trying to shake it loose.

I never want to see that again.

Of course, not only was the plane late, I missed my connection by two minutes. Instead of flying into John Wayne in time for dinner I had to wait to fly into LAX several hours later.

The final irony was that while the pilot's weather report assured us that it was much warmer in LA than Atlanta, he neglected to mention that it was raining when we touched down. It's not exactly surprising, given the time of year, but by that point I just wanted crisp sunlit warmth and was mildly disappointed that I would have to wait several hours and even then it wouldn't be a sure thing.

Being tired, and generally still powered down from the vacation I wasn't ready for work and called in on Wednesday. I relaxed at Molasses' side and started recounting to myself how this tale would go.

It's funny how things can seem more pleasant in memory. Maybe because I know how it all worked out. Who knows?

Anyway, I'm back where I belong now. thank the good lord.