How I spent my summer vacation

I guess a few summary comments are in order before moving on.

I spent the last two weeks on the left coast. We started out in Palo Alto with a wedding, which I can’t really speak to on an intimate level as these were in-laws with all their preexisting relationship patterns which we visitors simply pass by while keeping our heads down. I pretty much like all of them, but I have no context for their lifetimes of being brothers and sisters and parents and children and whatnot, not to mention the skein of relationships on the other side of the wedding with in-laws of in-laws. Most of us never go there in our lives, and neither will I.

We breezed up for a quick visit to SF after that, primarily to eat and not have to talk to anybody and to catch a train. That worked well, and we traveled overnight from Oakland to Portland in a sleeper car that was no so much reminiscent of “Some Like it Hot” as perhaps being the actual train from “Some Like it Hot.” Shared meals in the dining cars with people from hither and yon with their stories to tell, like how their earlier train hit a boat in Denver and got delayed there, things like that. I took advantage of the opportunity of anonymity and offered to trade murders with a tennis player, but he turned me down.

Portland was 106 degrees when we arrived there, a heat wave like they had never experienced before, and for that matter our entire trip was not crazy hot like this but nice and summery hot throughout, which is unusual for the northwest where it’s always cold and rainy. I was not complaining. Portland is a cute little city that always gets props as being highly livable, and it’s easy to see why, because it’s low-keyed and full of parks and rather cute. It’s also populated by neo-hippies with enough tattoos to keep Queequeg up at night. What is it with the west coast and body ink? Not to mention piercings and goth drag and the like. Thank God I had brought a lot of black clothes with me. The high point of Portland was Powell’s bookstore, which we kept going into and stocking up from. That alone was worth the trip.

By the time we reached Seattle, which is like Portland on steroids, the heat had subsided. To me the (literal) high point was going up the Space Needle and reading how I was probably safe if there was an earthquake. I had not been thinking about earthquakes until I read that announcement, at which point I fell to the floor and crawled back to the elevator.

In addition to body ornament, both these cities were rife with mendicants (secular). You can’t walk five feet without somebody hitting you up for money for something to eat, or so they say. Some of them have dogs, and it is a curious human phenomenon that one feels sorry for the dogs but not for the people. I felt that both of these cities should elect Rudy Giuliani for mayor for a while. For that matter, SF’s homeless situation hasn’t changed in decades, and when we finally reached Vancouver, that whole deal finally exploded, as there were whole neighborhoods of literally crazy people haunting the streets. There’s a curious issue there, whether the mentally ill are better off on the streets. I have no answer.

Anyhow, we saw CLG in Seattle (she’s doing a stint at Redmond working for the former evil empire) which was fun, and it was a pretty good city overall, also livable I guess, but if you’re going to go for living in a city, I say live in NYC which is the paradigm of cities. Anyhow, the last leg of the journey was Vancouver, a pretty place with lots of water and wall-to-wall Canadians. Another manageable city, I guess, if you don’t mind the crazies. Definitely of a piece with Portland and Seattle, except I couldn’t find a Bank of America cash machine. What’s wrong with these Canadians? Aren’t they in America? Jeesh.

Mostly this was a trip of walking around and looking at the sights, many of them natural, plus studying local history, most of which is remarkably recent, aside from the Indian populations. After a while you really want a totem pole in your backyard; I settled for a refrigerator magnet, which is not quite the same thing, but it is easier to get on the plane.

Through it all, I had occasional email access on the Touch, thanks to wireless in all the coffee shops (and this is coffee shop nirvana), so I kept up with O’C who has apparently decided not to run the Big Bronx tournament this year after all because it’s too much of a hassle. Instead he’s going to take my advice and visit Seattle’s SF museum. Of course, it he does, he’ll never leave. I almost didn’t leave. You know you’re doing something right when they have a copy of the book that you’re literally in the middle of reading on display behind solid glass (Perdido Street Station, if you’re curious). The other half of that same museum is dedicated to rock musicians from Seattle (quite a few, actually, aside from 90s literal Nirvana types, chief among them being Jimi Hendrix).

And now I’m back. Lots to catch up on, lots to do. MHLW, States discussions, planning ModNov curriculum, Bump, Pups, etc. A new topic will hit the streets shortly. I’m ready for all of it. I think.