In 1987 we moved from Vero Beach, Florida to St. Cloud, Florida, about 75 miles away, to start our new life together in a new locality. We were completely anonymous and happy to be that way. Carmen had a job lined up at a title company in downtown St. Cloud. I had nothing, but soon got a job lined up at a plant nursery in Narcoossee, about seven miles from home. I started out riding a bicycle, but soon bought a small motorcycle. This opened the door to a bigger and better job in Orlando, 25 miles from home.
What this rambling is getting at is that when I worked in Narcoossee, seven miles from St. Cloud and fifteen miles from Orlando, the Narcoosians used to talk about going into town for one reason or another, and I came to realize after a while that in Narcoossee, "The Big City" was St. Cloud, gateway to Kissimmee!
We hadn't lived in Meadville for long when we realized that "The Big City" where everyone goes for shopping and entertainment, is Erie. It's 35 miles up the road, either Interstate 79 if you want to get there fast, or Main Street or Park Avenue out of Meadville, each a pretty country drive which meanders some and changes names a couple of times, but soon enough becomes Peach Street, where the big furniture stores and the Target and the Sam's, a bunch of chain restaurants and pretty much everything Meadville lacks is located. There's even an international airport in Erie where you can fly to Cleveland, Pittsburgh , Detroit or London, Ontario.
We actually flew in and out of there back in April for our candidating week (see "Joy In Meadville" a few postings back) but we were only there for the airport and car rental services. It was mid-July when we found ourselves in need of an air conditioner and the local stores were all sold out! We called around and found one in Waterford, up US 19, almost to Erie, and decided to go ahead up there. We've been back twice to The Big City!
Of course, the folks who live in Saegertown, Conneaut Lake, Woodcock, Geneva and Cochranton think of Meadville as "The Big City!"
And all of us, Erie included, occasionally go to Pittsburgh or Cleveland, each about 90 miles from here, when we want to go to a REAL big city. I guess it's all relative.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Small Town Travel
One of the pleasures of living in a small town is that I can walk to the grocery store, the bank, Carmen's church, the haircut place, the post office - pretty much anywhere I want to go - in less than a half hour. Just this morning I walked to the downtown supermarket at 6:00 because we were out of coffee ! ! ! Then later I walked to the bank at 9:00 and opened my own checking account.
Walking downtown is, more often than not (and not at 6:00am) a social occasion. I see people I know nearly every trip, and people I don't know are likely to smile and say hello. A far cry from Boston.
I generally walk Chestnut Street, the main drag running east and west from downtown to our house. It goes past a couple of funeral homes, an assisted living place, several churches, the Y, Diamond Park, the Historical Society of Crawford County, the local office supply store, the Academy (live)Theatre, a bunch of restaurants, an ice cream shop and - The Stereoscopic Museum! Someday I have to go in there. It's only open a couple of afternoons a week.
Chestnut Street dead-ends into the Downtown Mall, anchored by a Big Lots. The mall contains a liquor store, a couple of flea market styled miscellaneous crap stores, a haircut place, a snack and sandwich shop, a Dollar General and a few more stores I can't recall. The Greyhound bus stops out front, and tickets can be bought at one of the miscellaneous crap stores. The public transit buses also stop at the big bus shelter out front.
Way out yonder on the other side of the tracks is where the interlopers reside: Home Depot, Walmart, Staples and the Giant Eagle grocery store. It's too far to walk and I wouldn't want to anyway!
It reminds me of Vero Beach, Florida. I lived there for about sixteen of my first thirty-four years. I walked everywhere. When I worked at a grapefruit packing house, I started work at 5:30am about once a week, and I could pretty much expect to be pulled over by a cop in the downtown area each time. I thought about that today as I walked downtown at 5:45. The other difference was: I was wearing a hoodie in August! That NEVER happened in Vero Beach.
Walking downtown is, more often than not (and not at 6:00am) a social occasion. I see people I know nearly every trip, and people I don't know are likely to smile and say hello. A far cry from Boston.
I generally walk Chestnut Street, the main drag running east and west from downtown to our house. It goes past a couple of funeral homes, an assisted living place, several churches, the Y, Diamond Park, the Historical Society of Crawford County, the local office supply store, the Academy (live)Theatre, a bunch of restaurants, an ice cream shop and - The Stereoscopic Museum! Someday I have to go in there. It's only open a couple of afternoons a week.
Chestnut Street dead-ends into the Downtown Mall, anchored by a Big Lots. The mall contains a liquor store, a couple of flea market styled miscellaneous crap stores, a haircut place, a snack and sandwich shop, a Dollar General and a few more stores I can't recall. The Greyhound bus stops out front, and tickets can be bought at one of the miscellaneous crap stores. The public transit buses also stop at the big bus shelter out front.
Way out yonder on the other side of the tracks is where the interlopers reside: Home Depot, Walmart, Staples and the Giant Eagle grocery store. It's too far to walk and I wouldn't want to anyway!
It reminds me of Vero Beach, Florida. I lived there for about sixteen of my first thirty-four years. I walked everywhere. When I worked at a grapefruit packing house, I started work at 5:30am about once a week, and I could pretty much expect to be pulled over by a cop in the downtown area each time. I thought about that today as I walked downtown at 5:45. The other difference was: I was wearing a hoodie in August! That NEVER happened in Vero Beach.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Four Fifty, Four, Three Fifty, Three
Fortunately for two weary humans and two herbally drugged cats, the trip from Albuquerque to Meadville, PA was pretty uneventful. We had a few arguments with Hermione, our GPS. We had a long walk for short gain the first night, a gut-buster pork steak the second and a teen-ager convention the third. The most distressing thing that went wrong was that the batteries in our little CD player were missing and somehow we just couldn't seem to get them replaced. Still!
Shyanne Moving And Storage came for our stuff on the morning of Monday the 5th of July. We spent Monday night cleaning and working out how to pack the car. Tuesday morning we put out trash in our can and that of the absent next door mean lady, loaded the car and Carmen rubbed "Rescue Remedy" on the ears of the kids. The garbage truck came, I returned our can and the neighbor's to their desired locations, and off we went! It was a little after ten by the time we gassed up and headed for the interstate.
I could hear the glee in Hermione's voice when she said "Drive four hundred thirty miles and exit right." We were on the "one-Interstate-a-day" plan. I-40 took us to Oklahoma City. We passed "The Largest Cross In The Northern Hemisphere" in Texas - the highlight of the trip. It was wet from recent rain when we got to OKC, and darkness was approaching by the time we got the car unloaded and the kitties settled in. We walked outside to look for a place to eat. There were the usual McD and BK and Taco Bell, but we were in the mood for something a little less fast. There was a billboard almost directly overhead touting "Cracker Barrel - Turn left here, one block" so we walked a block to the turn, turned down a street with no sidewalks, walking in wet grass or out in the street, cut across a grassy field and landed wet-footed in the restaurant. The food was good old Cracker Barrel food. Afterward we looked out across the grassy field and saw the lighted sign of our motel. We struck out toward it and were almost there when we realized we were fenced-in fy a "fun center" with putt putt golf and an arcade. We followed the fences to another road, the on-ramp to the interstate, walked on the grass or in the street to the highway and cut across a gas station to our motel room. If we had it to do over again, we would settle for something fast.
Day two was I-44 to St. Louis. The most fun that day was driving through Tulsa, where Carmen had lived and worked for a couple of years in a previous life, and seeing what had changed and what had not - in the midst of pretty much solid construction from one end to the other.
Columbia, Illinois is the suburb of St. Louis where our cat-friendly hotel was. Hermione had never heard of the address, so I had to call for an alternate. We arrived with plenty of daylight left, and were advised to go to the shopping center for dinner at Bully's Bar-B-Q. For some reason I can't now fathom, the 23 ounce barbecued pork steak sounded good to me. My guts wrestled with that pig for two days after I ate - the whole thing! The next day I was further nauseated when we passed a series of signs for a steak house featuring the "50 Ounce Belly Buster - FREE!" if you can eat it all in some specified amount of time. If I had it to do over again, I'd go with the barbecued chicken.
In keeping with the tradition - this was my third time in St. Louis, and the third time I failed to even catch a glimpse of the famous arch. I did see the river, however, which I failed to do the first two dead-of-night incursions.
Day three was Interstate 70, which I ran quite a bit back in my truck driving days and my bus-riding days. It runs all the way to Baltimore, my point of origin. Today, however, we only ran it as far as Columbus, OH. The memorable part of the trip was in Indiana when we broke out the CD player. While I went into a grocery store, Carmen tried to get the player up and running. She discovered that there were no batteries in it, which made it dysfunctional. She called my cellular phone, which I was turning on on my way back to the car in the rain. She heard her message at the same time I did.
The hotel in Columbus was right beside some major athletic field where high school kids from all over Ohio were gathered to compete in various sports. There was no peace at any place at any time in that hotel. Friday morning was our earliest departure of the trip.
We had an ongoing argument with Hermione from the time we exited the parking lot of the hotel until we were settled into the mainstream of Interstate 71 many miles north of Columbus. I never really figured out how she wanted us to go, but evidently once we got going on 71 she was okay with it. I think she still wanted to go back to Massachusetts, and 71 was an acceptable compromise route. It was raining as we drove through northeastern Ohio, and rained all the way to Meadville, where we stopped at the Real Estate office for our keys before driving the final few blocks home.
Home. Wow, that sounds good!
Shyanne Moving And Storage came for our stuff on the morning of Monday the 5th of July. We spent Monday night cleaning and working out how to pack the car. Tuesday morning we put out trash in our can and that of the absent next door mean lady, loaded the car and Carmen rubbed "Rescue Remedy" on the ears of the kids. The garbage truck came, I returned our can and the neighbor's to their desired locations, and off we went! It was a little after ten by the time we gassed up and headed for the interstate.
I could hear the glee in Hermione's voice when she said "Drive four hundred thirty miles and exit right." We were on the "one-Interstate-a-day" plan. I-40 took us to Oklahoma City. We passed "The Largest Cross In The Northern Hemisphere" in Texas - the highlight of the trip. It was wet from recent rain when we got to OKC, and darkness was approaching by the time we got the car unloaded and the kitties settled in. We walked outside to look for a place to eat. There were the usual McD and BK and Taco Bell, but we were in the mood for something a little less fast. There was a billboard almost directly overhead touting "Cracker Barrel - Turn left here, one block" so we walked a block to the turn, turned down a street with no sidewalks, walking in wet grass or out in the street, cut across a grassy field and landed wet-footed in the restaurant. The food was good old Cracker Barrel food. Afterward we looked out across the grassy field and saw the lighted sign of our motel. We struck out toward it and were almost there when we realized we were fenced-in fy a "fun center" with putt putt golf and an arcade. We followed the fences to another road, the on-ramp to the interstate, walked on the grass or in the street to the highway and cut across a gas station to our motel room. If we had it to do over again, we would settle for something fast.
Day two was I-44 to St. Louis. The most fun that day was driving through Tulsa, where Carmen had lived and worked for a couple of years in a previous life, and seeing what had changed and what had not - in the midst of pretty much solid construction from one end to the other.
Columbia, Illinois is the suburb of St. Louis where our cat-friendly hotel was. Hermione had never heard of the address, so I had to call for an alternate. We arrived with plenty of daylight left, and were advised to go to the shopping center for dinner at Bully's Bar-B-Q. For some reason I can't now fathom, the 23 ounce barbecued pork steak sounded good to me. My guts wrestled with that pig for two days after I ate - the whole thing! The next day I was further nauseated when we passed a series of signs for a steak house featuring the "50 Ounce Belly Buster - FREE!" if you can eat it all in some specified amount of time. If I had it to do over again, I'd go with the barbecued chicken.
In keeping with the tradition - this was my third time in St. Louis, and the third time I failed to even catch a glimpse of the famous arch. I did see the river, however, which I failed to do the first two dead-of-night incursions.
Day three was Interstate 70, which I ran quite a bit back in my truck driving days and my bus-riding days. It runs all the way to Baltimore, my point of origin. Today, however, we only ran it as far as Columbus, OH. The memorable part of the trip was in Indiana when we broke out the CD player. While I went into a grocery store, Carmen tried to get the player up and running. She discovered that there were no batteries in it, which made it dysfunctional. She called my cellular phone, which I was turning on on my way back to the car in the rain. She heard her message at the same time I did.
The hotel in Columbus was right beside some major athletic field where high school kids from all over Ohio were gathered to compete in various sports. There was no peace at any place at any time in that hotel. Friday morning was our earliest departure of the trip.
We had an ongoing argument with Hermione from the time we exited the parking lot of the hotel until we were settled into the mainstream of Interstate 71 many miles north of Columbus. I never really figured out how she wanted us to go, but evidently once we got going on 71 she was okay with it. I think she still wanted to go back to Massachusetts, and 71 was an acceptable compromise route. It was raining as we drove through northeastern Ohio, and rained all the way to Meadville, where we stopped at the Real Estate office for our keys before driving the final few blocks home.
Home. Wow, that sounds good!
Friday, May 7, 2010
VERY LARGE ! ! !
Sunday, May 2nd, 2010 - a date which will live in infunny: intern and acting associate minister for the First Unitarian Church of Albuquerque, Carmen, was given the task of driving to Socorro, NM to make a personal appearance at the branch congregation there. Of course, she took me, her navigator / photographer / purse watcher along to navigate, photograph and watch. The senior minister told her to be sure to see "THE VERY LARGE ARRAY" at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory while in the neighborhood.
We were both kind of excited at the prospect. We'd seen the movie Contact, with the radio telescopes looking like satellite dishes spread across the New Mexico desert. Carmen told her friend Karen, "There are hundreds and hundreds of these huge dishes spread across acres and acres of desert!" We left Albuquerque early enough to drive 70 miles, find the church, eat breakfast and go see the Array, with plenty of time to return to Socorro for the 4:00pm service (they rent space at an Episcopal Church, and those folks are out of the way by 3:30.)
The trip down was unremarkable with the exception that it was very windy. We gassed up before we set out for an hour and a quarter of driving in light traffic. Our directions took us right to the church, we ate breakfast at a nearby Denny's and got ready to head west to THE ARRAY. The camera was ready. I pulled out the GPS to input our destination. I typed in Very Large Array - she never heard of it. I typed in National Radio Astronomy Observatory - she never heard of it. I tried VLA (as it was called on a few signs) and NRAO (on a few more) with no luck. It appeared we were stuck with my Rand McNally Road Atlas for navigation - how twentieth century!!!
As a tribute to my theory that computers are making us stupid, we made a wrong turn and ended up going fifteen miles out of our way before we found the right road out of Socorro (the big city!) The first sign we saw said "VLA - 44 Miles" It didn't say that it was uphill all the way. I don't know how much elevation we gained on that drive, but I do know that we used nearly a half tank of gas going up there. The surrounding mountains were gorgeous, even when they were partially obscured by clouds of dust stirred up by the spring winds. There was a tiny little sign with an arrow pointing south off of Route 60 to VLA. It was a tiny little road, hardly adequate to handle the millions of visitors they would get if it were locatable by GPS.
Far off in the distance we could see about ten dishes sitting out in the middle of nothing. "That isn't the Very Large Array," Carmen said questioningly. "Oh no," I replied. "It must be just a few to whet your appetite for the immense spectacle that awaits beyond." We drove and drove, made a right turn onto the property of the observatory and headed for the Visitor's Center. Carmen stayed in the car while I went inside to find out what we had to do, where we had to go to see the Array. There was a little display with post cards and maps of the walking tour for 25 cents each and a slot to drop your quarters into. I did a little reading: "The VLA consists of 27 dish-shaped antennas that are connected together to form a single large radio telescope..."
"See that Array over there?" I said, pointing to the ten. "That's as Very Large as it gets. Yes, they're spread out over many square miles, but there are only twenty seven of them. I guess we saw pictures of large clusters of dishes, heard about hundreds of square miles, and assumed the rest." "Well, the church is paying mileage for me to drive my sorry butt all the way up here for this!" she said. We realized as we left that the terms "Very Large Array" and "Very Large" anything would thenceforth mean a great expectation followed by a puny reality.
The good news: gas consumption was much less on the way back down to Socorro.
We were both kind of excited at the prospect. We'd seen the movie Contact, with the radio telescopes looking like satellite dishes spread across the New Mexico desert. Carmen told her friend Karen, "There are hundreds and hundreds of these huge dishes spread across acres and acres of desert!" We left Albuquerque early enough to drive 70 miles, find the church, eat breakfast and go see the Array, with plenty of time to return to Socorro for the 4:00pm service (they rent space at an Episcopal Church, and those folks are out of the way by 3:30.)
The trip down was unremarkable with the exception that it was very windy. We gassed up before we set out for an hour and a quarter of driving in light traffic. Our directions took us right to the church, we ate breakfast at a nearby Denny's and got ready to head west to THE ARRAY. The camera was ready. I pulled out the GPS to input our destination. I typed in Very Large Array - she never heard of it. I typed in National Radio Astronomy Observatory - she never heard of it. I tried VLA (as it was called on a few signs) and NRAO (on a few more) with no luck. It appeared we were stuck with my Rand McNally Road Atlas for navigation - how twentieth century!!!
As a tribute to my theory that computers are making us stupid, we made a wrong turn and ended up going fifteen miles out of our way before we found the right road out of Socorro (the big city!) The first sign we saw said "VLA - 44 Miles" It didn't say that it was uphill all the way. I don't know how much elevation we gained on that drive, but I do know that we used nearly a half tank of gas going up there. The surrounding mountains were gorgeous, even when they were partially obscured by clouds of dust stirred up by the spring winds. There was a tiny little sign with an arrow pointing south off of Route 60 to VLA. It was a tiny little road, hardly adequate to handle the millions of visitors they would get if it were locatable by GPS.
Far off in the distance we could see about ten dishes sitting out in the middle of nothing. "That isn't the Very Large Array," Carmen said questioningly. "Oh no," I replied. "It must be just a few to whet your appetite for the immense spectacle that awaits beyond." We drove and drove, made a right turn onto the property of the observatory and headed for the Visitor's Center. Carmen stayed in the car while I went inside to find out what we had to do, where we had to go to see the Array. There was a little display with post cards and maps of the walking tour for 25 cents each and a slot to drop your quarters into. I did a little reading: "The VLA consists of 27 dish-shaped antennas that are connected together to form a single large radio telescope..."
"See that Array over there?" I said, pointing to the ten. "That's as Very Large as it gets. Yes, they're spread out over many square miles, but there are only twenty seven of them. I guess we saw pictures of large clusters of dishes, heard about hundreds of square miles, and assumed the rest." "Well, the church is paying mileage for me to drive my sorry butt all the way up here for this!" she said. We realized as we left that the terms "Very Large Array" and "Very Large" anything would thenceforth mean a great expectation followed by a puny reality.
The good news: gas consumption was much less on the way back down to Socorro.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Joy In Meadville
Friday, April 9th, 2010 - at 4:00am we pulled the old Rav4 out of the garage. Not much traffic in Abq at that time of the morning, so we arrived at the airport in record time for our 6:00 flight. We wanted "Long Term Parking," which we thought was just a matter of which automatic ticket lane you chose going into the garage. Upon closer inspection, after getting our automatic ticket, we noticed the concrete barrier that funnels "Long Termers" out to the outside parking lot beside the garage. Oh well, it saves about three bucks a day over "Short Term," and we were committed anyway.
It was a much longer haul than usual for our five bags - including the biggest suitcase I've ever seen, just purchased the night before. Carmen had over twenty events on her Meadville candidating itinerary, and looking good for each was/is important (she's still there with four days to go as I write this) and I was included in six events on Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday and Tuesday. House shopping was also built into the week. Suffice it to say that we needed a lot of nice clothes and some more casual clothes to navigate our time in Meadville. Rolling our stuff across the whole width of the parking garage ground floor was an unexpected pain in our butts.
The next pain was the ticketing check-in. Our paperwork said to check in at USAir. The computer kiosk wouldn't work for us, and when the humans tried to access our info, they never heard of us. Finally it was determined that our first carrier was really United and THEY had our info. This turned out to be true. Of course, checking bags is now a luxury item, especially when the biggest suitcase in the universe weighs 56 pounds. So we shuffled some shoes and jackets to the three other cases until Giganto was down to 50.0 pounds.
Security was surprisingly easy. My hearing aids didn't make any trouble. The carry-on with the camera, GPS, chargers, surge protector and miscellaneous other electronics went through unchallenged. The "geezer bag" with my hearing aid case, spare trifocals, vitamins, anti-coagulants and compression stockings made it through with no problem.
Ahn, my finger-poker at the UNM Hospital Coumadin Clinuc, told me to drink lots of water and walk around the cabin frequently during the trip. So I brought my own water with me and asked for water during the beverage service between Abq and Denver. There never was a time when the aisle was clear for walking unless the seatbelt sign was on. From Denver to Cleveland we actually got sandwiches with our water, and I managed one quick romp from one end of Economy Class to the other! The "puddle jumper" from Cleveland to Erie wasn't in the air long enough to even get a drink of water, and getting to the plane was a dead run from one end of the Cleveland airport to the other, down the escalator, up the escalator, out the door, down the steps, across the tarmac in the snowy weather, up the airplane steps and crammed into a sardine can, so I had my "walk" beforehand. Other than that it was a very pleasant experience.
Erie International Airport services puddle jumpers to Cleveland, Detroit, Toronto and Pittsburgh. The up side to this tiny airport is that the car rental agencies have their cars right there, fifty feet from the terminal. I waited outside in the snowing weather with our brood of luggage while Carmen dashed out to the lot and fired up the Nissan Versa. The trunk was big enough to hold everything! We pulled Hermione, our GPS, out of the electronics bag, and were on our way to Meadville, about 35 miles south.
We stayed (Carmen is still there) at the house of an absent friend of a church person. It's an old brick duplex apartment with a drive-in basement, a living room and kitchen on the ground floor, two bedrooms and a bath on the second floor and another bedroom in the attic. The first thing we learned about it was that the front door hinge screws were pulling out of the frame. The second was that it is full of antique treasures and fragile knick knacks. As Carmen says, it's the kind of place where you need to put a coaster under your coaster. Cat toys and scratching posts everywhere. There is one chair in the living room that is dainty and frail looking and surrounded by fragile fru-frus - that is where I always wanted to sit and wave my arms around willy nilly. The water pressure could barely qualify as pressure, the shower head is about five feet high, and the water heater has trouble keeping up. Boy am I glad to be home.
About a half hour after our arrival at the duplex, we were picked up for our first event, dinner with the search committee - the people responsible for choosing the candidate for the next settled minister - and their spouses. It was a lovely evening.
Saturday morning Leslie, our real estate connection, picked us up for a day of power house shopping. We looked at eight or nine possibilities, most of which did not ring our chimes. Most required quite a bit of work to make them our happy home. One was really excellent until we got to the back yard, where the retaining wall was crumbling and falling down. The last one we looked at before lunch was our second choice in our online previews. It became our first choice. The location - five blocks from the church on Chestnut Street - and the excellent condition sold us. After lunch Carmen went back to the duplex to polish her sermon and I continued on with Leslie to look at two more unacceptable houses before returning to her office to start up paperwork for a contract making an offer on the Chestnut Street house. That finished, I brought the contract home for Carmen to sign, and the game was afoot.
That done, we showered and changed for our dinner at Mary's house. A few more church people were there, and Janellen, a chaplain at Meadville's own Allegheny College. It was a lovely evening.
Sunday morning was Carmen's first encounter with the congregation at large. A big crowd came to meet the candidate (and her husband) and to hear her first sermon in Meadville. She had a meeting with the youth group while I was being courted for the choir, building maintenance, set construction for the community theatre and my justly famous corn casserole (thank you, Karen!) In the afternoon we attended a four-hour open house at the beautiful home of the church matriarch, Mirriam. It was a lovely evening. After that we took our first opportunity to buy groceries, went home and collapsed. Leslie called with the counter-offer from the sellers, and we countered that before we went to bed.
Monday was office hours at the church for Carmen, and walking around town for me. I found everything I was looking for: the Walgreen's, the downtown grocery store, the hearing aid place, the bus station and the downtown bus shelter with the transit map. Yes, Meadville has a small transit system! Back at the duplex, Carmen called to say that we got the house and I should get together with Leslie while Rev. Emerson did her nursing home visits. So I walked back downtown to the real estate office and we made the appropriate changes to the contract. "What home inspector do you want to use?" she asked. "I don't know. Somebody local who can do it tomorrow." We picked out two local companies. Leslie went to the reception desk to ask the receptionist to call them - but one of them was standing right there. "Can you do an inspection for me tomorrow?" she asked the tall black man at the counter. "No, I'm booked up tomorrow. But I can do it tonight." So I took the amended contract home for Carmen to initial the changed pages and sign before her Worship Committee meeting, and at 5:30 met the inspector at the house to measure rooms and walls while Paul inspected. I handed the contract pages over to the sellers - who still live there - and was home by 7:30. Wow.
Tuesday was my "geezer lunch" with some guys who could get to Montana Chops and Ribs (or is it Ribs and Chops?) at lunchtime. Mike came all the way from Tionesta to pick me up and haul me there. I met Cassandra, the GPS built into his Lexus. There were six of us, and I think one was younger than I. Rick is about a year older. The rest were WAY older. But we had a nice lunch. It's good to feel like a youngun sometimes, especially after years of being the old guy at work and nine months of age discrimination during my job search.
After lunch I walked to the real estate office for a copy of the inspection report. It didn't include the leaking tub faucet. Carmen called Paul and got an amendment going, then called Leslie and got an amended contract going. The new plan was for me to stop by the office on my way out of town on Wednesday to sign these new documents before I left.
Tuesday evening was dinner with the Board. Our neighbor next door to the Chestnut Street house was there. She's on the church Board and the Meadville City Council. She loves cats, and her husband is allergic. She wants to be our cat sitter when we go away. Assuming we a) are called by the congregation on Sunday the 18th and b) close the house deal successfully. Anyway, the food was good, the president's cat was beautiful, and it was a lovely evening.
Wednesday, April 14th was a crazy day. The easy part was going to the church for Carmen's office hours. I helped her carry her stuff in, then we said our bye byes. I walked the four blocks to the real estate office and signed the contract amendment page, then walked back to the Versa and fired it up. I remembered how to get to Interstate 79, and drove north toward Erie, expecting to arrive at about 10:00 for my 1:30 flight to Cleveland. The car was due back at 11:00, freshly filled with gas. Well, there was some nasty construction at the end of 79 and I ended up going the wrong way on 12th Street. I looked for a gas station as I looked for a place to turn around. Turning around, gasless, I was in the wrong lane and ended up going south on 79. I exited and came back around for another lap. Was this Boston?
This time I exited correctly, found a gas station and parked in the rental car return zone. The agent was very happy that I was a half hour early. Not much going on at Erie International Airport. That taken care of, I wended my way to the Continental desk to check my two bags. I would have to check the smaller one on the puddle jumper anyway, so I decided to check it all the way. My ticket agent was very nice. The flight to Cleveland was oversold, so she was able to put me on a Delta schedule through Detroit and Minneapolis upgraded to First Class so that my upgrade and two checked bags were free! I like that.
The Detroit plane loaded on time, but was delayed for take off for thirty minutes so that I had to haul butt from Terminal C to Terminal A to make the flight to Minneapolis. I was glad not to have a carry-on bag to haul along with my butt. First Class was very cool. The flight attendant hung my jacket in the closet, and kept the water and ice flowing. Ahn would have been proud. I also had a banana and a package of biscotti. I know from personal experience that the sardines packed in back in Economy were envious.
In Minneapolis I had to haul my jacket from A to G, but I had time to purchase and pound down a Double Whopper on the way. Little did I know that a real meal was being served in First Class on the three hour flight to Albuquerque. My southwest chicken salad was very good, with bread sticks, fruit and a brownie for dessert. My flight attendant poured me at least seven glasses of water. I had to use the facilities twice on the plane and once in ABQ Sunport.
We landed at about 7:30 Mountain Time, about twelve hours after I drove out of Meadville. My luggage came through just fine, I found the Rav4 just fine, drove it home just fine, and it was a lovely evening with Remus J. Lupin and my little blind girl.
It was a much longer haul than usual for our five bags - including the biggest suitcase I've ever seen, just purchased the night before. Carmen had over twenty events on her Meadville candidating itinerary, and looking good for each was/is important (she's still there with four days to go as I write this) and I was included in six events on Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday and Tuesday. House shopping was also built into the week. Suffice it to say that we needed a lot of nice clothes and some more casual clothes to navigate our time in Meadville. Rolling our stuff across the whole width of the parking garage ground floor was an unexpected pain in our butts.
The next pain was the ticketing check-in. Our paperwork said to check in at USAir. The computer kiosk wouldn't work for us, and when the humans tried to access our info, they never heard of us. Finally it was determined that our first carrier was really United and THEY had our info. This turned out to be true. Of course, checking bags is now a luxury item, especially when the biggest suitcase in the universe weighs 56 pounds. So we shuffled some shoes and jackets to the three other cases until Giganto was down to 50.0 pounds.
Security was surprisingly easy. My hearing aids didn't make any trouble. The carry-on with the camera, GPS, chargers, surge protector and miscellaneous other electronics went through unchallenged. The "geezer bag" with my hearing aid case, spare trifocals, vitamins, anti-coagulants and compression stockings made it through with no problem.
Ahn, my finger-poker at the UNM Hospital Coumadin Clinuc, told me to drink lots of water and walk around the cabin frequently during the trip. So I brought my own water with me and asked for water during the beverage service between Abq and Denver. There never was a time when the aisle was clear for walking unless the seatbelt sign was on. From Denver to Cleveland we actually got sandwiches with our water, and I managed one quick romp from one end of Economy Class to the other! The "puddle jumper" from Cleveland to Erie wasn't in the air long enough to even get a drink of water, and getting to the plane was a dead run from one end of the Cleveland airport to the other, down the escalator, up the escalator, out the door, down the steps, across the tarmac in the snowy weather, up the airplane steps and crammed into a sardine can, so I had my "walk" beforehand. Other than that it was a very pleasant experience.
Erie International Airport services puddle jumpers to Cleveland, Detroit, Toronto and Pittsburgh. The up side to this tiny airport is that the car rental agencies have their cars right there, fifty feet from the terminal. I waited outside in the snowing weather with our brood of luggage while Carmen dashed out to the lot and fired up the Nissan Versa. The trunk was big enough to hold everything! We pulled Hermione, our GPS, out of the electronics bag, and were on our way to Meadville, about 35 miles south.
We stayed (Carmen is still there) at the house of an absent friend of a church person. It's an old brick duplex apartment with a drive-in basement, a living room and kitchen on the ground floor, two bedrooms and a bath on the second floor and another bedroom in the attic. The first thing we learned about it was that the front door hinge screws were pulling out of the frame. The second was that it is full of antique treasures and fragile knick knacks. As Carmen says, it's the kind of place where you need to put a coaster under your coaster. Cat toys and scratching posts everywhere. There is one chair in the living room that is dainty and frail looking and surrounded by fragile fru-frus - that is where I always wanted to sit and wave my arms around willy nilly. The water pressure could barely qualify as pressure, the shower head is about five feet high, and the water heater has trouble keeping up. Boy am I glad to be home.
About a half hour after our arrival at the duplex, we were picked up for our first event, dinner with the search committee - the people responsible for choosing the candidate for the next settled minister - and their spouses. It was a lovely evening.
Saturday morning Leslie, our real estate connection, picked us up for a day of power house shopping. We looked at eight or nine possibilities, most of which did not ring our chimes. Most required quite a bit of work to make them our happy home. One was really excellent until we got to the back yard, where the retaining wall was crumbling and falling down. The last one we looked at before lunch was our second choice in our online previews. It became our first choice. The location - five blocks from the church on Chestnut Street - and the excellent condition sold us. After lunch Carmen went back to the duplex to polish her sermon and I continued on with Leslie to look at two more unacceptable houses before returning to her office to start up paperwork for a contract making an offer on the Chestnut Street house. That finished, I brought the contract home for Carmen to sign, and the game was afoot.
That done, we showered and changed for our dinner at Mary's house. A few more church people were there, and Janellen, a chaplain at Meadville's own Allegheny College. It was a lovely evening.
Sunday morning was Carmen's first encounter with the congregation at large. A big crowd came to meet the candidate (and her husband) and to hear her first sermon in Meadville. She had a meeting with the youth group while I was being courted for the choir, building maintenance, set construction for the community theatre and my justly famous corn casserole (thank you, Karen!) In the afternoon we attended a four-hour open house at the beautiful home of the church matriarch, Mirriam. It was a lovely evening. After that we took our first opportunity to buy groceries, went home and collapsed. Leslie called with the counter-offer from the sellers, and we countered that before we went to bed.
Monday was office hours at the church for Carmen, and walking around town for me. I found everything I was looking for: the Walgreen's, the downtown grocery store, the hearing aid place, the bus station and the downtown bus shelter with the transit map. Yes, Meadville has a small transit system! Back at the duplex, Carmen called to say that we got the house and I should get together with Leslie while Rev. Emerson did her nursing home visits. So I walked back downtown to the real estate office and we made the appropriate changes to the contract. "What home inspector do you want to use?" she asked. "I don't know. Somebody local who can do it tomorrow." We picked out two local companies. Leslie went to the reception desk to ask the receptionist to call them - but one of them was standing right there. "Can you do an inspection for me tomorrow?" she asked the tall black man at the counter. "No, I'm booked up tomorrow. But I can do it tonight." So I took the amended contract home for Carmen to initial the changed pages and sign before her Worship Committee meeting, and at 5:30 met the inspector at the house to measure rooms and walls while Paul inspected. I handed the contract pages over to the sellers - who still live there - and was home by 7:30. Wow.
Tuesday was my "geezer lunch" with some guys who could get to Montana Chops and Ribs (or is it Ribs and Chops?) at lunchtime. Mike came all the way from Tionesta to pick me up and haul me there. I met Cassandra, the GPS built into his Lexus. There were six of us, and I think one was younger than I. Rick is about a year older. The rest were WAY older. But we had a nice lunch. It's good to feel like a youngun sometimes, especially after years of being the old guy at work and nine months of age discrimination during my job search.
After lunch I walked to the real estate office for a copy of the inspection report. It didn't include the leaking tub faucet. Carmen called Paul and got an amendment going, then called Leslie and got an amended contract going. The new plan was for me to stop by the office on my way out of town on Wednesday to sign these new documents before I left.
Tuesday evening was dinner with the Board. Our neighbor next door to the Chestnut Street house was there. She's on the church Board and the Meadville City Council. She loves cats, and her husband is allergic. She wants to be our cat sitter when we go away. Assuming we a) are called by the congregation on Sunday the 18th and b) close the house deal successfully. Anyway, the food was good, the president's cat was beautiful, and it was a lovely evening.
Wednesday, April 14th was a crazy day. The easy part was going to the church for Carmen's office hours. I helped her carry her stuff in, then we said our bye byes. I walked the four blocks to the real estate office and signed the contract amendment page, then walked back to the Versa and fired it up. I remembered how to get to Interstate 79, and drove north toward Erie, expecting to arrive at about 10:00 for my 1:30 flight to Cleveland. The car was due back at 11:00, freshly filled with gas. Well, there was some nasty construction at the end of 79 and I ended up going the wrong way on 12th Street. I looked for a gas station as I looked for a place to turn around. Turning around, gasless, I was in the wrong lane and ended up going south on 79. I exited and came back around for another lap. Was this Boston?
This time I exited correctly, found a gas station and parked in the rental car return zone. The agent was very happy that I was a half hour early. Not much going on at Erie International Airport. That taken care of, I wended my way to the Continental desk to check my two bags. I would have to check the smaller one on the puddle jumper anyway, so I decided to check it all the way. My ticket agent was very nice. The flight to Cleveland was oversold, so she was able to put me on a Delta schedule through Detroit and Minneapolis upgraded to First Class so that my upgrade and two checked bags were free! I like that.
The Detroit plane loaded on time, but was delayed for take off for thirty minutes so that I had to haul butt from Terminal C to Terminal A to make the flight to Minneapolis. I was glad not to have a carry-on bag to haul along with my butt. First Class was very cool. The flight attendant hung my jacket in the closet, and kept the water and ice flowing. Ahn would have been proud. I also had a banana and a package of biscotti. I know from personal experience that the sardines packed in back in Economy were envious.
In Minneapolis I had to haul my jacket from A to G, but I had time to purchase and pound down a Double Whopper on the way. Little did I know that a real meal was being served in First Class on the three hour flight to Albuquerque. My southwest chicken salad was very good, with bread sticks, fruit and a brownie for dessert. My flight attendant poured me at least seven glasses of water. I had to use the facilities twice on the plane and once in ABQ Sunport.
We landed at about 7:30 Mountain Time, about twelve hours after I drove out of Meadville. My luggage came through just fine, I found the Rav4 just fine, drove it home just fine, and it was a lovely evening with Remus J. Lupin and my little blind girl.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Hermione
We named our Garmin GPS Hermione. She has a British accent and she thinks she knows everything. It was a short leap.
Last summer the first thing I did after the pink-haired texting teenager left was to take a list of museums and production companies, a pile of resumes and my newest home-printed business cards on the road, guided by Hermione. I was still very unsure of Albuquerque's layout, and under Hermione's care, didn't even need to try to learn it. So, one by one, I entered addresses and followed directions to faraway places. There were two conditions I encountered: either the place was out of business, or it handled only online applications. After I finished the list, I told Hermione to guide me home. She guided me to Interstate 40 eastbound and said, "Drive four hundred thirty five miles and exit right. I exited onto Wyoming Avenue and reprogrammed her to our new home in Albuquerque.
Yesterday, after our Easter dinner with Carmen's Intern Committee chair and her family, we switched on Hermione and told her to take us home. She was very upset when we refused to make all the right turns she suggested, which we knew would take us out of our way. Finally, I took her in hand and looked at her trip info. Once again she was trying to take us home to Massachusetts. I guess I never actually explained to her that our new address was also our new home. Or maybe she just wants to go back to Watertown. I reckon we'll never know.
Last summer the first thing I did after the pink-haired texting teenager left was to take a list of museums and production companies, a pile of resumes and my newest home-printed business cards on the road, guided by Hermione. I was still very unsure of Albuquerque's layout, and under Hermione's care, didn't even need to try to learn it. So, one by one, I entered addresses and followed directions to faraway places. There were two conditions I encountered: either the place was out of business, or it handled only online applications. After I finished the list, I told Hermione to guide me home. She guided me to Interstate 40 eastbound and said, "Drive four hundred thirty five miles and exit right. I exited onto Wyoming Avenue and reprogrammed her to our new home in Albuquerque.
Yesterday, after our Easter dinner with Carmen's Intern Committee chair and her family, we switched on Hermione and told her to take us home. She was very upset when we refused to make all the right turns she suggested, which we knew would take us out of our way. Finally, I took her in hand and looked at her trip info. Once again she was trying to take us home to Massachusetts. I guess I never actually explained to her that our new address was also our new home. Or maybe she just wants to go back to Watertown. I reckon we'll never know.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Three And A Half Weeks
Here I am, right in the middle of a long dry spell. Three and a half weeks ago I finished "Two Weeks And Two Days With Two Cats," and in three and a half weeks we fly to Meadville, Pennsylvania to meet and greet the congregation. Our interaction so far has been with search committees and a few associated ministers. I'm sure there will be a story or two involved with the three-flight travel each way to and from Erie, and the scouting of Meadville.
It bugs me every time I go to one of my blog sites and it says how long it has been since I last posted on each one. That is why I'm here today. I am not here to tell you about yesterday, when I caught the 7:20 #2 bus south on Ventura, east on Academy and south on Eubank to Central Avenue(Historic Route 66) where I caught the #66 toward the theatre, but got off at the Alvarado Transportation Center downtown and took a picture of a store called "The Gizmo Store" to email to a friend in Massachusetts who works as a professional gizmologist (my terminology) before walking from there to the theatre and finding nobody there, waiting an hour then catching an eastbound Rapid Ride to Louisiana Avenue where I took a picture of a wacky Vietnamese restaurant then caught a #66 east on 66 to Home Depot and Sam's, then a #2 home. I mean, what would be the point in telling you that other than to update this blog beyond "Three Weeks Ago?" That would just be crazy.
It bugs me every time I go to one of my blog sites and it says how long it has been since I last posted on each one. That is why I'm here today. I am not here to tell you about yesterday, when I caught the 7:20 #2 bus south on Ventura, east on Academy and south on Eubank to Central Avenue(Historic Route 66) where I caught the #66 toward the theatre, but got off at the Alvarado Transportation Center downtown and took a picture of a store called "The Gizmo Store" to email to a friend in Massachusetts who works as a professional gizmologist (my terminology) before walking from there to the theatre and finding nobody there, waiting an hour then catching an eastbound Rapid Ride to Louisiana Avenue where I took a picture of a wacky Vietnamese restaurant then caught a #66 east on 66 to Home Depot and Sam's, then a #2 home. I mean, what would be the point in telling you that other than to update this blog beyond "Three Weeks Ago?" That would just be crazy.
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