“Life is what happens to us when we are making other plans.” John Lennon

Yes, life marches on and derails our plans to write at least one blog a week, but we are here now.

Our time in the U.S. is drawing to a close and we have been very lackadaisical about writing a blog. For those of you whose lives revolve around our blog, sorry it has been a while, but also, maybe you need to get a life. Mostly we have spent the time here visiting with our family, especially our most wonderful granddaughter who is now four years old.

Earlier this month we took a trip to Texas; me for work in Austin, Sue to visit her brother, sister-in-law and nephew in Houston. The trip started with a four-hour delay for our flight, but luckily the delay was posted before we left the house, so we just stayed home and waited. Sue flew with me to Austin, then rented a fancy Mercedes through Turo and drove to Houston for a three-day stay with her family. It was so great to see them. We don’t get enough time together. Sometimes it’s nice not to have big plans, but to enjoy each other’s company. She came back to Austin in time for us to meet some of my colleagues and have dinner.

The only humorous thing about our trip to Texas was the comedy of getting and returning the rental car. Austin airport is designed for people who already know it. Sue’s car was parked in the red parking lot on level three in row C, space number 26. That should be easy enough to find. We quickly found the parking lot, but the only one we saw had an arrow saying Blue Lot, with a blue sign. We wandered around looking for another lot and finally found an information booth. When we asked the nice lady looked at us like we were morons, because, of course, the parking lot with the BLUE sign was the red parking lot and that sign referenced that the blue lot was behind the red lot. Good to know.

We quickly found level three and just as quickly found row C and space 26, however, there wasn’t a car in the space. We called Turo and the car owner said he had just parked it in the space, not 10 minutes ago. Where were we he asked? We explained that we were in row C at space 26. He asked if we turned left or right when exiting the elevator. We turned right because we could see row C painted on a column. Well, that was wrong, we needed to turn left walk past a bunch of columns without any row letters and towards the end of those rows, there was another row C and in space 26 the car was parked. Because of course, you always want to have duplicate row/space numbers in a parking lot the size of a football field.

Apparently, the place we were originally standing was area the rental car companies park their cars, not the regular short-term parking.

When we went to return the car, we repeated our comedy of errors. We forgot to map ourselves to a gas station before getting into the airport, so we had to enter the airport, go around, exit and then find a gas station, the first of which didn’t have the right grade of gasoline, the second required a left turn across a six lane road, without a traffic light. Then the dreaded parking lot reared its ugly head – again. We needed to drop the car where we picked it up, but apparently everyone in Austin knows that level three is not accessible from level two, it has a separate entrance, so we pulled into level two, drove around then had to exit and make another lap around the airport and finally find the correct entrance.

Other than that – and a really long, but fast security line, the trip was uneventful.

New York!

The following week we headed to New York, once again, me for work, Sue to visit friends. We decided to head there on Saturday as Sue was planning to visit with one of her friends on Sunday. Unfortunately, her plans fell through, (although I got a tour of the New York Times and dinner with Sue on Monday instead. News rooms are way too quiet these days) but instead we spent a wonderful day walking from Third Avenue and 48th street, through the park and up to the Museum of Natural History. We wandered through the dinosaurs and a few other exhibits and headed back. (We may have bought a present for our granddaughter, too.) Along the way we stopped at a great little deli where I had a corned beef sandwich and Sue had an omelet.

That evening we had wonderful dinner with my uncle and aunt.

The highlight of the trip for both of us was Tuesday night. Sue and my uncle went to the opera at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center. They saw Il Trovatore. I know nothing about opera but thoroughly enjoy both the show and the company. Unky said it was good, but not great. I trust his judgment. Sue tried a number of times to explain the story but I lost my way when in the opening act a woman kidnaps a child planning to kill it in an act of revenge, but accidentally tosses her own child on the pyre, killing him. Yup, sounds about right for the opening of an opera.

I, on the other hand, got cross something off my bucket list and to go to a World Series game (for those of you who do not know baseball, the World Series – despite its name – is the championship for the U.S. professional baseball league). My favorite team, the New York Yankees (booooo!), were playing the Los Angeles Dodgers (also boo, but not as many o’s) (The Dodgers were originally another New York team, but they moved to LA in 1958.) The World Series is a best of seven game series and I went to the fourth game.

The Dodgers had won the first three, so it was a desperate game for the Yankees. Luckily for me, they won the game, and it was a rollicking good time. Unfortunately, the next night they lost the series and the Dodgers are the champions this year. Oh well.

We are hosting Thanksgiving this year at our place. We planned to have a small family gathering; us, my son’s family and my mother. A total of six people. Somewhere along the way, things got out of control (and I am totally to blame for that). We are up to, 19 people (give or take a few) with a whole host of dietary restrictions and other personal insanities. 

Once again, for those of you who are not familiar with Thanksgiving, it is always held on the last Thursday in November, we eat massive amounts of food, traditionally that includes a turkey, watch American football, and in my family argue about everything and anything. We are not quiet people. The festivities will last through the weekend and with a little luck no one gets hurt (physically or emotionally), we don’t destroy anything in the rental house and all the food and drinks are gone before everyone leaves. It should be great fun – I promise to write more about that after the insanity comes to a close.

Hopefully everyone will be gone by Monday, Dec. 2, because on Tuesday we leave Maryland and drive to Florida (about a 16 hour drive) and a couple of days later, we depart for Buenos Aires where we will spending the next few months. We will write more about our winter trip in the next couple of weeks

ColOOmbia, not ColUHmbia

No, we’re not in South America — yet,; we’re in Columbia, MD, a town consistently listed among the top ten places to live in the United States. Now, I’m not a huge fan of these lists (especially ones that have places I would never consider living), but I have to say that while Columbia is not high on my list of places to settle down because it’s too suburban for me, I have to give credit where it’s due.

The population is just over 100,000 and there’s pretty much every suburban retail outlet and chain restaurant you can imaging. Not my thing, but definitely convenient.

I like that there are tons of trees and walking paths (95 miles of them) that lead to parks, lakes and shopping (if you want to schlep your groceries for a few miles and on some main drags). We have also joined a gym. It’s part of the Columbia Association, a nonprofit community services corporation that runs a bunch of activity centers including pools, an art center, golf courses and three gyms.

According to whoever ranks these things, the schools are excellent. Of course, that goes along with the median household income of $124,537. Housing is mostly single-family and townhouses or condos/low-rise apartments.