Friday, September 30, 2016

Toronto: Dancing at the Harbourfront: Salsa


Dancing at the Harbourfront, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. June 2016.



My God, I love the photo above.

Yeah, I know, the dance instructor's feet are lopped off at the bottom.

But look at the movement in this photo, the color, the facial expressions.

The showmanship of the instructor - magnificent!

After I finish looking him up and down and sideways, my eyes go to the woman in the blue dress, which hugs her just right, whose body slants diagonally, as does her purse strap, as does the placement of her feet - and her side-eye over to the instructor - all marvelous.

Then I admire the sunset-painted toes of the woman on the right, with her luxuriously thick hair, with those latte stripes, so pretty.

Life is good on this fine evening along Lake Ontario.


Thursday, September 29, 2016

Toronto: Body of Art

Tattoo exhibit, Royal Ontario Museum, photo of Fang-od Oggay. June 2016. Photo by Jake Verzosa.


Fang-od Oggay, the subject of the photo above, is a beautiful woman. The above photo was on a super-sized poster outside the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum), enticing passersby to visit the exhibit called Tattoos: Ritual. Identity. Obsession. Art.

The woman as photographic subject pulled me in, as did the dappling of light on the picture.

Below are a couple of other photos of Fang-od Oggay:

Fang-Od Oggay with a man she just tattooed. Credit: Mawg64

Fang-Od Oggay. Credit: Mawg64


I should look so good when I'm 100 years old. Not to mention being so physically and occupationally active.

A number of tattoo connoisseurs make pilgrimages to Fang-Od Oggay in order to get a tattoo from her. Here and here and here are three such stories.

But this post is about art, specifically about who "owns" the art. Well, ownership is part of it, but it's more than that. It's about this question: Who is the artist?

For example, I am featuring Fang-od Oggay in this article. Am I the artist? No. I think it's clear I am not presenting myself as an artist in this article. I am clearly presenting someone else's art.

But whose?

I am featuring a photograph, taken by a professional photographer, whose work was used in an international art exhibit, of Fang-od Oggay, who is wearing the art created by another tattoo artist.

Is the photographer (in this case, Jake Verzosa) the artist? After all, he created the photograph, selecting the subject, the pose, the decision to wear/not wear clothing items, the light, the focus, the crop, the frame, etc. He presumably sold the photo - or the rights to the photo usage - to the exhibitor, as a product of his creativity and skill.

Or is Fang-od Oggay the artist, as the wearer/owner of the art and as a tattoo practitioner in her own right?

Or is the person who placed the tattoos onto Fang-od Oggay the artist?

It's not my intent to single out Mr. Verzosa in any way - it's a universal question I have when we photograph another person's art and then present our photo as a creative product in itself.




Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Toronto: Luminato 2016


Toronto skyline from Luminato 2016 venue, Hearn Generating Station. June 2016.


I dig the title of this Toronto art festival: Luminato. Luminaria. Illumination. Lumens. Luminous. Lou Reed.

The Luminato Arts Festival - a multi-arts-media event - is a creative apology and amends for Toronto's architectural blandfield.

Luminato 2016, Hearn Generating Station. June 2016.


I'm also a fan of derelict, decaying structures, and that's where Luminato takes place.


Luminato 2016, Hearn Generating Station. June 2016.

Luminato 2016, Hearn Generating Station. June 2016.

That's Sandy walking up ahead of me.

This exhibit mesmerized me:




Still does. And listen to the sounds within the exhibit and in the vast air space of the relic structure. 



I'll finish with a gigantic disco ball.


Luminato.

Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Toronto: What Torontonians Stand in Line For


The Uncle Tetsu's Not Taken, Toronto, Canada. Summer 2016.

What to Torontonioans stand in line for? 

Sweet Jesus and cheesecake, that's what.

Hmmm, writing this brings back a cringe-worthy memory of me standing in line years ago for a recreational food item. It was at the Olean Testical Festival. And the food item was fried turkey testicles. The vendor's supply couldn't keep up with the demand, hence the long line. I stood in line for my measly serving of crispy turkey testicles for an hour. Hopefully, not something I would do today. 


Sweet Jesus

Sweet Jesus is an ice cream, pretty much. It's a soft serve with stuff on it. The lines for this ice cream are insanely long.

Sweet Jesus has legions of disciples, but there are always Thomases and Judases in the mix. Here's one such disgruntled from the Globe and Mail, written by Chris Nuttall-Smith. It is a masterpiece of disdain. An excerpt:
The El Chapo cone at Sweet Jesus, a shark-jumping, lineup-clogged soft-serve ice cream phenomenon just north of King Street West, on John Street, presents like a medical exhibit from the lost causes cabinet of a journeyman Victorian-era surgeon. Bulbous and misshapen, the cone is dipped in what tastes like Dollarama clearance bin chocolate, be-drizzled with spasms of sauce and rolled in deep-fried pork skin. Its most prominent colour is a looming, viruliferous brown.


The experience of eating that cone, which Sweet Jesus promoted around Cinco de Mayo earlier this month, is a lot how I imagine it’d feel to slurp on a stick of freezer-burned margarine dipped in Nestle Quik and week-old bacon drippings. As for the wisdom of celebrating one of Mexico’s most beloved national holidays with a paean to the country’s most murderous drug lord, I’m slightly less certain, though I do look forward to the launch of Sweet Jesus’s Maurice (Mom) Boucher cone this Canada Day.

I don't know if Sweet Jesus is any good, according to my tastes. Didn't try it. But it sure knows how to market itself.


Uncle Tetsu's Japanese cheesecake, Toronto, Canada. June 2016.



Uncle Tetsu's Japanese cheesecake

Sandy, friend Heloise, and I spent an afternoon together, poking around Toronto neighborhoods. Sandy had an envie to try out the madly-popular Uncle Tetsu's cheesecake. We arrived at one of the Uncle Tetsu locations, where I was intrigued to see there were two Uncle Tetsu storefronts side by side. One pink and one green. One had a very long line out onto the sidewalk; the other didn't.

I had no interest in the long line for cheesecake in front of the pink storefront, so I walked into the green one, thinking maybe this was an alternative highway to the cheesecake heaven for my friends. But no, the green store offered different goods. Something related to "matcha," about which I knew nothing. After understanding there was no cheesecake here, I opted for a bright green matcha ice cream cone.

Unremarkable flavor but pretty color.

Sandy and Heloise succeeded in buying the cheesecake. Later, over lunch, in one of Toronto's underground warrens, they tried same and pronounced it ... good but not particularly noteworthy.

Below is an entertaining video from Taiwan about the popularity and the making of Uncle Tetsu's Japanese cheesecake:



The remark from one customer offers much insight: "I saw a lot of people lining up, so I lined up too."

Holy heck. I think if I were a new business, I might pay people to line up for my goods for this very human reaction.

And before I go to some sort of dismissive thought about any herding instinct of us humans, I remind myself of when my daughter and I took a road trip from Missouri to Alaska. Always on the lookout for big animals such as bears, moose, or elk, if we saw a vehicle pulled over on the side of the road, we'd at times also pull over just in case its inhabitants had seen something.

But I must know. What did the Globe and Mail's Chris Nuttall-Smith have to say about Uncle Tetsu's cheesecake? He didn't disappoint, building suspense almost to the very end before he pronounces his verdict. I won't spoil it for you, other than to note that Mr. Nuttall-Smith had observed the same phenomenon as quoted in the video: "Hype breeds hype: A lot of the people in the line both times I’ve been were in the lineup because of the lineup. They wanted to know what all the fuss was about."



We're all willing to queue for an hour or longer for something, I suppose. What am I willing to stand in line for?

Parades. I arrive early for parades. 



Monday, September 26, 2016

Toronto: Architecture: Shadows and Light


Toronto, Ontario, Canada. June 2016.


I find Toronto's tall, generic, blue, modern buildings dull, dull, dull. But interplays of shadows and light somehow make things better.


Old City Hall, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. June 2016.

Toronto, Ontario, Canada. June 2016.


Old City Hall, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. June 2016.

Heheheh, I like the incongruity of the Dairy King truck in front of the staid Old City Hall



Sunday, September 25, 2016

Toronto: Jazz Festival 2016: Jamison Ross

Jamison Ross. Credit: Riverside Fine Arts.


My Toronto hostess, Sandy, lives smack downtown, within easy walking distance to the primary Toronto Jazz Festival venue at Phillips Square.

One of the acts we saw on a windy day was Jamison Ross, a Florida native.


 A soulful jazz piece here:





A tiny taste of a gospel-y jazz piece here:




Mmmm. A smooth mind massage on a sunny, breezy day.




Saturday, September 24, 2016

Toronto: Art on Art on Art


My hostess, Sandy, and I walked over to Toronto's Chinatown several times, either looking for groceries or passing through to somewhere else.

This little flyer art - what else does one call it? I don't know - was affixed to a shop window with outsized fresh apples, oranges, and grapes - surely juicy and sweet, all of them - alongside someone's graffitti.

I Love You Still. Chinatown, Toronto, Ontario. June 2016.


"I love you still."

The drawing and message, so simple, but troubling. Or sweet. Or sweetly troubling. Or troublingly sweet. I've looked at the drawing and its message many times. It continues to tantalize. Is it a message of love or a message of worrisome subjugation?

The juxtaposition of the provocative drawing and the straightforward fruit reminds me of a window in a cafe in Rodeo, New Mexico. Salvation? Or pie?

Salvation or pie?


Friday, September 23, 2016

Toronto: Brains


Brains in Toronto. June 2016.


Over the course of my series on Toronto, I think you may come to the same conclusion I did: Notwithstanding its tame veneer, there is something just a little whack about Toronto.

I present Exhibit A, to wit:

I've seen many cities and towns that sponsor art events that focus on a particular animal or object. A few examples:

But in Toronto, it's brains. Brains.

Brains in Toronto. June 2016.


Thursday, September 22, 2016

A Visit to Toronto: Preview


Toronto skyline from Toronto Islands. June 2016.


After my fine visit with friend Suzanne, in Washington, D.C., I flew directly to Toronto to visit my friend and former TLG colleague, Sandy, for two weeks.

Toronto was about:
  • Brains, hearts, uteri, and other organs
  • What Torontonians stand in line for
  • Universe-bending subway cars
  • Jaw-dropping architecture, with "jaw-dropping" useful in both the negative and positive senses
  • Islands
  • Music and dance
  • Being intercultural
  • Living spaces 
  • Getting to the airport
  • The inexplicable untidiness of going through US customs from Toronto
  • Tattoos 
  • A Georgian reunion
 

Toronto lighted sign. June 2016.


Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Washington, D.C.: Glasses Replacement




Well, this sounds like a boring post, doesn't it?

When you've got glasses in hand when you need them, then it is boring. When your last pair of glasses break in two while you're on the road, then it's exciting.

Since fourth grade, vision - or lack thereof - has been an important part in my life. 

Until 2010, without corrective lenses, I was "legally blind" (in the lazy, layman use of the term). There were years of Coke-bottle glasses; a painful, stressful, tearful adolescent episode with hard contact lenses ("if your daughter's motivated enough, she'll adapt to the contacts"); more years of thick glasses; and then years of daily, soft-contact lens rituals. The soft contact lenses were pretty good, but my prescriptions were difficult because I had an astigmatism on top of the severe near-sightedness, and soft lenses do not provide as sharp an acuity as hard lenses do.

And then the onset of presbyopia ("old-age" farsightedness).

And then crept in an unexpected inability to see well while driving at night, with the lights of oncoming traffic blinding me to the road in front of me. Over time, this troubling development shrank my world. It affected my road trips, obviously, because it curtailed the number of hours I could drive in a day. It affected my ability to drive to another community to take in evening cultural activities such as movies, live music, or theatrical performances.

I also had noticed that when I walked down stairs or on uneven pavement, my depth perception was slightly out of whack.


I had considered laser surgery over the years, but the benefits of same, weighed against the cost of the procedure and potential short-term and long-term risks, did not offer a clear ROI over maintaining my usage of contacts (plus, now, reading glasses). Furthermore, even the best laser results would be no better than using soft contact lenses.

But new life events flipped the board, changing all of my calculations.

The crash of 2008 led to my job elimination two years later, and I found myself competing for jobs with attorneys and PhDs who'd also been cashiered - and what employer wouldn't snatch up an alphabet fish who could be had for pennies on the dollar?

Oh, and my marriage eventually crashed, as well.

The above two events would result in an end to my health insurance coverage. No, wait. They would result in an end to affordable health insurance.

(Sidebar: I had a good health care plan with my job, and when I lost that, I was able to go on to my husband's employer-related health care plan. A political system that compromises an individual's access to affordable health care due to a job loss or a marital dissolution is a system that compromises an individual's right to self-determination. A single-payer, national health care plan along the lines of Medicaid or Medicare would give Americans more freedom of choice in their life decisions.)


About a year before my health insurance sunset, I'd re-considered laser surgery (I had also looked at an alternative surgical procedure, PRK).  

I began the screening process for the surgery, and I made it past the first couple of routine benchmarks, including the preliminary screening for sufficient corneal thickness.  But when it came time for the final vetting step, during which the doctor had a personal look-see into my eyes, I failed. My near-sightedness was so severe, I needed more corneal thickness than most people, and mine didn't meet that higher standard.

After getting this bad news from the doctor, I remarked almost off-handedly that I seemed to have this little blind spot in one of my eyes, noticeable only when I applied eyeliner on one of my lids. Whereupon we discussed how I hadn't had my eyes dilated in some time, which he promptly rectified. And that's when something entirely unexpected revealed itself.

I had cataracts. In both eyes! Wha!? How could that be possible - I was far too young for such a thing!

This was dismal news. The common wisdom is that one must wait years for cataracts to "ripen" before insurance will cover cataract surgery, and in the meantime, one's sight continues to deteriorate and affect one's daily quality of life.

At some point in the year that followed that doctor visit, it became clear that I had a time certain for when my health insurance coverage would end. So I was in an unlikely situation of hoping that my cataracts would deteriorate as fast as possible so I could have the surgery with the assistance of health insurance.

As the deadline loomed closer, I called the insurance company to find out for sure what the requirements were for the company to cover cataract surgery. That's when I learned a critical piece of information: There was no arbitrary "ripeness" number that dictated yes or no for the surgery to be covered. The coverage decision relied on the doctor's assessment that the surgery was necessary.

Long story only slightly shortened: Two or three months before my insurance deadline, I made an appointment with the doctor to check the status of the cataracts. By that time, my research had shown there was a connection between cataracts and night blindness and depth perception. When I visited the doctor, I emphasized how these issues affected my daily life, both professional and personal. After the doctor's staff verified, through testing, the night blindness, I got a green light for the surgery.

I paid extra for toric lenses to offset my astigmatism. After considerable research, I opted not to go with a multi-focus option for my lenses, which would have (in theory) corrected both the near-sightedness and the presbyopia. Too expensive. Also, for me, the risk of less-than-stellar outcomes put me off.

The cataract surgery. A procedure so fucking easy to undergo, with immediate, astounding, life-changing results. My God. For the first time since childhood, I could wake up and live my life without glasses to correct my near-sightedness. Without contacts. I could go anywhere in the world and not worry about access to clean water or contact solution or replacement contacts or broken, lost, or stolen glasses to correct my near-sightedness, without which, remember, I was "legally blind."

I could again drive at night.

Sure, I still had to wear reading glasses when necessary, but these are easy to come by and there are work-arounds for their absence.  

My cataract surgery opened up the world to me in ways not possible - or much more difficult - than were available to me beforehand.

Whew, long story, eh? But maybe someone's reading it who will realize s/he has the same symptoms I did, to be dumbfounded at the prospect of having cataracts.

So ........ with that long detour story complete ... let's get to the glasses in Washington, D.C. 

One of my cheap pair of glasses broke in D.C. I did have my primary reading glasses with me, but that was my only pair left. From past experience, I needed to go get another fall-back pair of glasses. (Guatemala had claimed a pair in April.)

Normally, Dollar Tree is my go-to place for reading glasses. Each pair costs one buck. I've bought 10 at a time and distributed them around my home and my gear. I wasn't staying in a Dollar Tree kinda neighborhood, so I walked a few blocks to a CVS and bought a pair of readers for about 15 bucks. Ooh, that hurt a bit. But I try to put these outlays in terms of the cost of a meal at a medium-priced restaurant. A meal will only provide an hour or so of satisfaction utils, but a reusable good such as a pair of glasses will last, if not years, then at least months.

For what it's worth, I don't carry my prescription reading glasses with me in my purse. This is because I handle the glasses so much when I'm out, pulling them out of a pocket and putting them back in, opening and closing them, that it puts too much wear on the hinges, contributing to their early demise. (I can attest to this after having replaced two pairs of prescription glasses because their frames fell apart. Maybe three.) I leave the prescription glasses at home and take the cheap, non-prescription readers with me when I'm out and about.







Tuesday, September 20, 2016

The 1500th Post

Canning jars on red-and-white checked tablecloth.



Did you ever hear the story about The Penny Jar? The one where a bride and groom are to put a penny in the jar every time they have sex during the first year of marriage, then remove two pennies every time they have sex thereafter. Typically, it takes a lifetime to empty the jar of pennies.

So it goes sometimes with blog posts.

I started this blog on September 28, 2010.

Eighteen months later, I published my 500th post in March 2012.

Seventeen months after that, I published my 1000th post in October 2013.


Now, three YEARS later, I'm writing my 1500th post.


I could argue that my life got so big between October 2013 and the present, that it's been difficult to keep up with writing about it. There's truth there.

Between October 2013 and September 2016, I lived in or traveled to:
  • Lafayette, Louisiana (one year)
  • Opelousas, Louisiana (one year)
  • Antigua and Lake Atitlan, Guatemala (one month)
  • Longmont, Colorado (three weeks)
  • Washington, D.C. (one week)
  • Toronto, Ontario, Canada (two weeks)(stories yet to come)
  • Back to Louisiana for a month (stories yet to come)
  • Move to my 2016-2017 home for a year (stories yet to come)

I did some scary things. 

Maybe not scary, per se. More like fearfully exhilarating things, like riding a roller coast. Like, ooh, that was scary, now let's do it again! Like: 
  • Learn to dance, practice it in the wild, put myself out there to be chosen and rejected, look stupid while learning, and experience transcendent dance joy when all the energy forces align. 
  • Engage in a brief romantic dalliance. (Maybe "brief" and "dalliance" are redundant?)
  • Actually get up in front of an audience and read aloud some of my work. On more than one occasion. Jeesh! 

There were professional adventures. 

While in Lafayette, Louisiana, just at the moment when I maxed out on the number of English-learner students I could handle, the company offered me stable hours to do teacher recruiting and on-boarding. I worked with a phenomenal team of women who lived in the Netherlands, Ireland, Romania, and Serbia.

I had the pleasure of collaborating with my lovely team mates for a full year, when I struck out again on my own.

As a freelancer, I've got more flexibility over my income and schedule. As usual with this line of work, one of my job benefits is meeting tremendously interesting people.


And personal challenges. 

No one paddles her canoe from Port A to Port Z in life without being hit by tempests that threaten to swamp the boat. Several storms rocked my little canoe in the past three years, and I didn't like it one bit. But I clung on and kept on rowing.

Still am.

And I am still one lucky woman.






Monday, September 19, 2016

Washington, D.C.: Busboys and Poets


The Last Poets album cover for This is Madness. Source: CD and LP.


While in South Louisiana, I became entranced by spoken word artists, introduced to me by Festival of Words and then expanded upon by Alex Johnson's (aka Poetic Soul) Lyrically Inclined. I told my hostess, Suzanne, that tapping into the spoken word scene in D.C. would be nice. So one evening we checked out a poet at one of the Busboys and Poets - at 5th and K. 


Sidebar: Unbeknownst to me at the time, the South Louisiana artists who introduced me to today's spoken work spoiled me. Their power and artistry grabbed me by the viscera and made me drop my jaw in admiration. My subsequent encounters with spoken word in Boulder, Colorado, and in D.C. were pale, pale.

The featured poet at Busboys and Poets. Good stuff, for the most part. Not memorable. Not like South Louisiana's girl, Shacondria iCon Sibley, who is blow-you-away good, as you can see below:



There was also a singer who performed at Busboys and Poets. Kameron Corvet. One of the two videos I took below:



The video also gives you a sense of the venue's ambiance.

Smooth.


Sunday, September 18, 2016

Washington, D.C.: Connectivity


Internet cafe, Vakhtangisi, Georgia (Caucasus). March 2012.


Upon arrival at the home of my D.C. hostess, Suzanne, I didn't expect to have a connectivity issue, but I did. For surprising reasons.

But first, some backstory

In Antigua, Guatemala, in April, I had some internet connectivity issues at the beginning of my stay, but they got ironed out after the first week.  My airbnb hostess had two internet hubs, one inside the main house and the other "out" on the guest-bedroom wing. The connection next to me was both weak and frustratingly intermittent. When I attempted to log in to the in-house wifi, I just couldn't get in.

My experience in troubleshooting technological problems is that, most of the time, the cause is something stupid. It's not that the user is stupid; it's that the cause of the problem is simple. 

The challenge in troubleshooting is that there are so many possible causes of a problem, and it can take patience, perseverance, creative thinking, and dumb luck to identify and fix the issue.

An example, also from Antigua: One day, my remote mouse stopped working. The mouse operated with two AA batteries in its body and a usb plugged in to my laptop. I did due diligence on likely causes. I changed the batteries, although the usual sign of impending battery death hadn't occurred, and it was sooner than usual for the batteries to need replenishment. Nope. I unplugged and replugged the usb into the same port. Unplugged and replugged the usb into different ports. Nope. Checked the installation of my mouse driver; uninstalled the driver and re-installed it. Checked the settings for the mouse and keypad. Researched possible causes on the internet. Tried solutions that had worked for others. Still no go. Dammit. And then I thought for a bit. Were there any changes to my laptop that occurred prior to my mouse's demise? Well, yes, but it made no sense there'd be a connection. But I'd tried everything else. The night before my mouse went into a coma, Cortana, the "helpful" Windows 10 "assistant," had got on my last nerve with her busybody self and I'd shut her down.

I turned Cortana back on and my mouse suddenly resurrected. Well, fuck me. Is that stupid or what?

So getting back to connectivity issues in my Antigua airbnb. I'd done all of the troubleshooting on my end that I could think of or find in my research, wanting to rule out my own laptop as the offender. All to no avail. My airbnb hostess kindly contacted her service provider and, lo and behold, the provider's technician discovered that the speed was lower than what she was paying for, and he ramped up the speed and maybe changed out the router. This was great, and solved some of the problem for me.

But it still wasn't quite fast enough or reliable enough to do my online work, so I tackled again my inability to access the wifi in my hostess' living room. I made sure I had written down the password correctly, as dictated to me by my hostess. Yes. After more troubleshooting that availed nothing, I asked if I could take a look at my hostess' router, which had on it the pass code she used. I wanted to confirm that the password I had was the same. Voilá! My hostess had inadvertently mistaken two digits of the pass code. Problem solved and I was able to conduct my online work in my hostess' living room.

Internet club, Kostava Street, Rustavi, Georgia (Caucasus). September 2011.


Back to D.C.

So. I arrived at Suzanne's place, assuming no issue with her internet connectivity. I'm in a big metropolis. In the US of A. In the nation's capital, for goodness sake!


Hohohoho!

Chapter 1: No wifi?

That's when I learned that Suzanne has no wifi at all. Well, maybe she did, but she had no idea how to tap into it with her modem. She did not have a stand-alone router, that's for sure.

And really, it made sense. For Suzanne. She's got a small space. She lives alone. She works long hours most days of the week, so she isn't even in her place for much time in the evenings. She doesn't use her laptop that often (more on this later), so she's just always wired her laptop directly into her modem.

When I understood the situation, I thought: "I can roll with this - no problem!"

Chapter 2: One port?

Got out my direct-wire cable to plug it into the second wired port on Suzanne's modem. Oh, hmmm. There's only the one port.

No problem! Suzanne rarely used her laptop, so I'll just use the sole port, right? Oh, hmmm. I need the password to Suzanne's connection to connect my laptop into her service.


Electronics bag.



Chapter 3: Password? What password?

No problem! Suzanne can give me her password. Oh, hmmm. Suzanne tried her damnedest to find that password, but to no avail.

Chapter 4: Granny Laptop

No problem! Suzanne graciously offered to let me use her laptop to do my online work (which requires the speed and application space for VOIP).  Oh, hmmmm. Suzanne's laptop is geriatric in its slowness, burdened with goodness-knows-what CPU-sucking bloatware, and using, if I'm remembering correctly, Windows Vista.

Chapter 5: Last resort: Customer service

Oof. Now it looked like I was going to have to take the dreaded step of calling the computer "help" desk of Suzanne's provider. Goal: Get Suzanne's password or get her wifi enabled so I could go back to those earlier plans. Well, damn. The experience wasn't as horrific as I had feared, based on past traumas, and in fact, eventually I discovered that Suzanne's modem was so old as to be considered stegosaurial. It was not wifi-enabled, for one. And it only had that one port, for another. And, if I remember correctly, it didn't support the current internet speeds available to Suzanne.

No problem! Suzanne could switch out her ancient modem for a spankin' new one at no cost to her! Wifi possible! More than one hard-wire port! Faster internet! Woohoo! Oh, hmm. We've got to go pick it up.



Chapter 6: The urban hinterland

No problem! Suzanne has a car and we'll just whip on over to the provider's nearest bricks-and-mortar store. We're in a bustling metropolis! There'll be one really close! Maybe I can just walk over there! Hahahahahaha!

No, no, no. The closest store is a pretty fur piece away, and it's Saturday morning, with everyone running their errands, and there is road construction. But eventually, mission accomplished and we've got the new modem/router. In a very fashionable bag with handles, no less.


Chapter 7: The cable

Problem solved! Errrr, wait. Suzanne's laptop. Didn't work with the new cable provided by the provider. We needed to go out into that congested snarl of Saturday shoppers to a Best Buy and find .... giggle, giggle to my pre-teen sense of so-called sexual humor .... a "backwards compliant" cable.

[Wait while I laugh some more at this new-to-me term. I even asked the sales guy: "What is it you're calling this again? Backwards what? And it means what again?" To myself, I'm thinking, no, it  has nothing to do with 50 Shades of Gray.]

And who knew that not all cables out on the market at the same time have the same capacity to funnel data through at the same speeds!

There was one more cable-related situation, subsequently fixed, but really, I have a life to lead.

Chapter 8: Happy ending

Suzanne now had wifi, which even if she doesn't give a whit, her future guests might. And she can connect her phone to same if she wants, as can her future guests. Suzanne has faster speeds - a little - that can push through the morass of her heavily-laden, elderly laptop's bloatware and old-fashioned operating system.

And I had a connection!


Chapter 9: The moral

Sweat, perseverance, creativity, and profanities will out.

Saturday, September 17, 2016

Washington, D.C.: Twins Jazz

Music flyer,  Gonder, Ethiopia. January 2011.



Jazz was a recurring theme during my Washington, D.C. trip.

Our evening at Twins Jazz. Had it all. Sumptuous jazz. Under-beat of conversations. Candlelight, colors of dark rubies, old ivory, onyx.


The Michael Thomas Quintet below:



Oh, how I've come to love the double bass.


Friday, September 16, 2016

Washington, D.C.: Uber Virgins

A vintage Lada in Batumi, Georgia. April 2012.



Neither Suzanne nor I had tried Uber before.

My visit to DC was the perfect opportunity to try it out. Here's why:
  1. Suzanne has a car, but finding a parking spot can be a hassle. Not to mention traffic snarl headaches that diminish the pleasure of the outing.
  2. Suzanne lives a few blocks from a metro station, but D.C. was conducting major work on its metro lines, resulting in challenging connections at times. 

Using Uber was great, in fact. I think we took advantage three times. Payment is automatic via the charge card info the Uber user enters when creating an account, so when we arrived at our destinations, we just said thank you and hopped out of the car. We always knew what the charge would be before confirming our "order."

Suzanne and I could chat while the Uber driver did his thing, not having to care about the traffic around us or where the hell to find an open parking space. We could both enjoy a couple of glasses of wine, knowing we'd have someone else driving us back our doorstep at the end of the evening.

With the exception of one rather taciturn driver, all of the drivers were personable. But even the quieter guy was fine - he got us where we wanted to go safely and expeditiously.

Suzanne told me she wouldn't feel comfortable using Uber alone. Although I haven't had occasion to use it since my trip to D.C., I'd feel fine using Uber by myself.

Thursday, September 15, 2016

Washington, D.C.: DC Jazz Festival

Eddie Palmieri Jazz Band, DC Jazz Festival 2016, Washington, D.C. June 2016.


Suzanne, a superlative hostess, bought us tickets to the DC Jazz Festival before I arrived.


DC Jazz Festival, Washington, D.C. June 2016.



The DC Jazz Festival's main venue is at The Yards, which is along the Anacostia River.

 Eddie Palmieri Latin Jazz below:



We set up camp at a good spot for people-watching, some shade, and proximity to the stage. We brought a blanket, some cold drinks and snacks. An excellent bit of real estate.


DC Jazz Festival, Washington, D.C. June 2016.


But after walking around the vast venue of the park, I saw many people, far away from the stage, lounging on the cool, green grass under tree canopies, using this time to talk, eat, drink with friends and family, with the music as a backdrop instead of the focus. There's a good argument for that approach.



DC Jazz Festival, Washington, D.C. June 2016.



Nevertheless, we stayed where we were, which was just across the people-watching sidewalk from the VIP seating section. Later in the day, when the VIP seating looked too empty, the gatekeepers tasked with protecting the elite from us proles allowed us in, you know, to make things look good for the band and for news cameras. So we ended up with front-row seats to the event. Yeah!

Cécile McLorin Salvant below:



Every set we heard was from musicians who were skilled, talented, entertaining.

DC Jazz Festival, Washington, D.C. June 2016.


I even got to hear a genre new to me, which D.C. claims as its own - go-go music.

Chuck Brown Band, DC Jazz Festival, Washington, D.C. June 2016.


The current-day iteration of an iconic go-go band, Chuck Brown, performed:



And, ooh, good food vendors.

And, you know, it's just fun to spend a day hanging with people who are having a mellow, feel-good time. All the while getting a brain massage from the jazz rhythms that smooth out the neurons and gray matter that get torqued from the accumulation of life's everyday stressors.

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Washington, D.C.: National Botanical Garden


National Botanical Garden, Washington, D.C. June 2017.



National Botanical Garden, Washington, D.C. June 2017.


National Botanical Garden, Washington, D.C. June 2017.


National Botanical Garden, Washington, D.C. June 2017.


National Botanical Garden, Washington, D.C. June 2017.


National Botanical Garden, Washington, D.C. June 2017.



National Botanical Garden, Washington, D.C. June 2017.


Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Washington, D.C.: Cool as a Cucumber

Cucumbers in water urn. Washington, D.C. June 2016.



When I walked into an upscale store on a hot day in Bethesda, the Rubenesque glass urn filled with water and chunky slices of cucumber made me smile.

What simple beauty.

Monday, September 12, 2016

Washington, D.C.: Arrival


Metro escalator up into D.C. June 2016.


The pick-up

I arranged with Suzanne that upon arrival in D.C., I'd take the metro from the airport to the Metro Center stop, then she'd pick me up in front of the National Portrait Gallery after she got off work.

Escalator memories

Emerging from the belly of the metro, into the light of the capital, it made me smile. There was the appreciation that I'd arrived, of course.


In 2007, a metro stop, don't remember which one, had a "singing escalator." Something to do with the mechanics of this escalator's movement up or down + the acoustics in its surrounding tube created an enthralling musicality that might come from a flute or maybe a high-note string instrument.



In the early 1990s, when my daughter was about 13, I brought her to D.C. with me for a business trip. It was she who had to figure out how to get our metro tickets. Decades later, the metro now has cards, and I needed the assistance - again - of someone to get the process sorted.


Daughter in D.C. The Sulky Years. Circa 1992.

And I never think about D.C. without remembering the priceless photo of said daughter as she shot heat-seeking-missile eyes at her mother during a turbulent moment. Ah, the adolescent years.

The Chinese encounter

I had time to kill before Suzanne picked me up, and I was thirsty. I went into a McDonald's, which was hopping. I ordered my drink and found a table, where I intended to nurse the drink and establish my "customers only" qualification to use the restroom.

A small, spare woman sat next to me and I smiled at her. This opened a door, apparently, through which she bounded into my "house," as if we were best childhood friends who hadn't seen each other in years. However, she was originally from China and spoke very little English, and I, of course spoke only one word of Mandarin "ni hao" - hello.

But suddenly we were both looking at our smart phone translators to have a conversation. She took a selfie of us. At first, it was fun! Then she wanted to tap our phones together to exchange contact information. Yikes! Wait! What? Am I a mullet in D.C. and about to be sucked into some scam designed to relieve me of my money? Even if not, this relationship was getting a little too intense for me, so it was time for me to go.

I still have my version of our selfie, though.

Sunday, September 11, 2016

A Visit to Washington, D.C.: Preview

On the White House Lawn for Queen Elizabeth's visit. 2007.



The spring/summer of 2016 has been the season for hip-hoppity travel before going to my next year-long sojourn in a new home.


Dentist's office. Washington, D.C. 2007


At this point in my 2016 story, then, I've left Colorado, spent a bit of time in Missouri, and am now off to Washington, D.C.

In Antigua, I stayed at an airbnb. In Colorado, I nested with my sister, Murphy. In both these places, I had my own bedroom and own bath. Shared a kitchen and common living area.

While in DC, a very expensive place to live, I was right cozy with my friend, "Suzanne," who lived in a studio-plus apartment. I say "plus" because it has a generous balcony and a large closet/storage area. Before I forget, she may also have one of the best showers I've ever enjoyed. Not because of its design or size, but because of the perfection of its water pressure and the massage-like, needle-y rays of water from the shower head.

Off of U Street. Washington, D.C. 2007



Staying a week with Suzanne in D.C. (more technically, Bethesda, Maryland) and then two weeks with friend, "Rachel," in Toronto's city center, was an illuminating experience in living with another person in compact quarters, as a guest and not a resident.

For one, it speaks volumes that my hostesses welcomed me into their petite homes for a week and two weeks, respectively. This was generosity extraordinaire on their parts. Sharing a bathroom, kitchen, air and floor space for a sustained period when normally they've got such precious real estate all to themselves - I don't take this for granted.

For me, it was an excellent practice in the art of being a good guest (hopefully), by respecting the hostesses' preferences for where to place things, cleaning up, etc. There are also the questions of lights-out times and getting-up times.


Murky Coffee. Washington, D.C. 2007


And keys. In apartment buildings, the sharing of one's keys with a guest demonstrates a great deal of trust in the recipient's reliability. Replacement keys can be mighty expensive. And even if they're replaced, it is disconcerting to think of a little piece of your household floating about lost in the unknown.

... But getting back to D.C. in particular. I've been to the city a number of times in the past, thus have visited the usual tourist spots. My agenda for this trip was simply to flow with Suzanne's river, without any destination expectations.

The week I visited coincided with the DC Jazz Festival - cool! Suzanne and I checked that out. More on this later.

We visited the United States Botanical Garden. More later.


Fessenden blooms. Washington, D.C. 2007


Suzanne and I tried out Uber for the first time, and then a second and third time. More on this later.

And since it seemed the summer was shaping up to be a jazz-themed season, we also checked out an Ethiopian-American jazz club. More later.

The photos in this article are from prior trips to D.C.


Metro art. Washington, D.C. 2007