Report

July 26, 2009

I started a theme last week on The Dahvee Repore, Things in Rochester that Make Me Say Hmm. Today I can continue that conversation.

For instance, what else can you possibly say when you read a sign on a building that says "Say no to drugs. . .Say yes to bowling."?

We visited the Eastman House in Rochester, where I saw the first player pipe organ of my life (pipes distributed handsomely practically everywhere). George Eastman also displayed the head of the rogue elephant that he "bagged" in the same room where he housed the organ. Apparently, this room was originally built with the wrong proportions. When he built the house, it cost $350,000. Sawing the conservatory off the house and rolling it ten feet over to make it just large enough, cost another $700,000. Hmm.

I also had nothing more than Hmm and Hmm again when we got stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic at mile marker 209 in upstate New York. This grinding halt lasted well over forty-five minutes. This is the last situation where you don't appreciate that someone spent time marking not only the mile markers, but also the tenth-of-a-mile markers, too. Anyway, getting stuck in traffic didn't prompt a Hmm, but the fact that NO ONE hopped lanes or got agitated and tried to pass on the shoulder, the entire time. It was a little like meeting a bunch of folks from Stepford.

That politeness and calm in a traffic jam gave me some comfort when our rent car lost power and started decelerating as we crossed a lengthy bridge a short time after that. We made it across before we rolled to a stop on the shoulder. Rebooting the car returned power to the drive train, but the check engine let remained on. We limped along another twenty minutes to Ballston Spa, NY to our friends' eighteenth century farm house. About two hours later, Jake, the tow truck guy, trucked a replacement rent car directly to our door and traded out the one we had that still had its "check engine" light glowing.

For those of you who suggested reading options back when I added WeRead to my sidebar, I can now consider your suggestions. That's right, we can all celebrate that I finally polished off Middlemarch, a true triumph of willpower. Not to say that I didn't get into the intertwined doings of the citizens of Middlemarch, but I always have difficulty with books that make me want to put my hands over my eyes and scream "No, don't do that" when the characters make ill-considered decisions and say things that lead to miscommunication and misunderstanding.

We have made it to the outskirts of Boston and are having a really relaxed and fun time. For those of you planning your week, we'll make it back home on Wednesday and the lanyard workshop will resume this Friday (31st) at 3:00.