Coming up: Homecoming is upon us! Travels and travails commence with a sneeze and a bag full of food. Will our couple nod a wink or two or will this be an experiment in sleeplessness? Reunions with old friends. Will connections remain as strong ten years down the road? Will Andrew's superior handsomeness and wit sufficiently wow all who knew Adella when? Will Andrew, upon sighting of these deep dark histories in Adella's brick-lined past, run screaming to California?? Waltzes will be danced and choruses shall throng in this special Saint John's College Homecoming Edition of the Adventures!
And the journey began on Friday night.
An odd sensation, since Friday was otherwise a regular day. Sure, at the end of the day we hopped in the car and headed south instead of home. Sure I found myself at Andrew's work, and then dining in Mukilteo, but these things are just minor blips on aregular Friday trajectory. We didn't enter true no-man's land until just around my admittedly early bedtime. Our flight was at 10:30 p.m. We got through security quite handily some time before this, and spent some delightfully diverting times thoroughly investigating the spaces between atoms in the air ahead. I made several round trip excursions through the airport gate to keep from going airport-stir-crazy. Happily, I resisted all temptations to buy a book on how to influence people and/or succeed at business with Sleepless in Seattle themed shirts and ten dollar bags of granola. Just barely.
Fortunately, I was tired enough to fall asleep once the plane allowed us on. There are benefits to a head cold, and sleeping on red eye flights is definitely high up there. Andrew was less fortunate, suffering from a hale immune system, and thus restlessly uncomfortable all night long. Amusing that the man who generally falls asleep within seconds of sitting (at the opera, at the Tesla coil demonstration, at funerals in which he is in the front row two feet from the person giving the eulogy), could not sleep a whit on our overnight flight. I believe this serves as true testament to the discomfort inherent in air travel.
Saturday was not an independent day of its own, but rather a surreal extenuation of Friday. We arrived at roughly 9 a.m. and were promptly retrieved by my dear friend and partner in several crimes for which the statute of limitations has yet to run, Stephanie. I cannot believe we have not seen each other since 2008. People always speak of friends that you can go years without seeing and yet pick right up again without a second's ado. This felt about accurate. Despite the fact that we have both grown considerably, and the neuroses over which we once bonded are pointedly in the past (pliantly stepping aside for all new and far prettier neuroses), the affinity and conversational concinnity remains. And though age has etched its impression on our physique and carriage (much for the better), there's still an intrinsic familiarity in every smile, glance and gesture. Okay, there is a bit home in this homecoming.
In many ways I'd say the same about Annapolis. It was different, of course. Currently, it seems to be infested with terrifyingly quirky little bird creatures, for one. I believe they are the new overlords of the Republic Annapolitania, and these wee avians wee monitors in the bird army, ensuring appropriate compliance..
I am staying in the hotel that was being built right next to my old apartment. This old apartment was at the borderline between postcard-perfect and Annapolis slum, replete with tranny whores with hearts (or at least heels) of gold, beggars and very helpful drug dealers. This strip of street has been thoroughly and relentlessly gentrified. Aside from Dunkin' Donuts, it is no longer possible to find a restaurant that isn't some form of locally sourced fusion winebar offering Irish-theme asian brunch over artisanal gluten free crab pasta. The streetwalkers have been overtaken by walking and/or segway tours. And the helpful people on the street are generally more affiliated with their attendant bars and hotels than their home growing drug industry.
The rest of town is more or less the same, although the shops are interchangeable as always. If possible, main street has become even more yuppiefied. The moderately quirky shops have been replaced by children's designer clothing stores, for instance. The Banana Republic on the corner is now a high end jewelry store. It is fascinating to be in a basation of thoroughly unironic wealthy. Bellingham and most of the west coast has quite its share of wealthy. Our wealthy are REI, Title Nine, mountain bikers and hikers, with a fair share of self-conscious irony and not a whole lot of designer anything that can't be covered in mud and easily wrinkle free. Annapolis is unrepentantly wealthy with no sense of shame or self-consciousness about it.
SJC itself remains stolid in its staples, though some satellite dorms have been added. The anemic children that call themselves "students" look more or less the same. As do the alums. There are so many distinct "types" that it was quite hard to figure out if I recognized a person on campus or merely the character type they filled for their respective class year. "I know you! You were your year's Mr. Bloviating Trustfund Kid! You were friends with your year's Ms. Smirky Self-Satisfied Hipster, but didn't talk to Ms. Renfest even though she and Mr. Offbeat Brilliant Introvert lived down the dorm from you."
Needless to say our first agenda item (after finally managing some semblance - and I do emphasize semblance, here - of coffee and comestibles) was to update our mental maps and share several "this is where..." and "that used to be..." type statements to a half-conscious Andrew. We had experimented with east coast coffee at the painfully yuppie cafe book store (not the kind of books that Johnnies see, but more like puppie calendars and Chick'n Soups for the Crabbing Soul on a Yacht far). Finally, we alit upon a bit more of an old comfy hant: 49 West. This remains a coffee shop/jazz joint that's always been half hep-cat, half hipster and a whole lotta hummus. The food was food, and there was a band practicing in the back room by the bathrooms, so I'd call it about the same.
Only several hours after arrival did we dropped my comatose cuddle-bear off for a nap. Stephanie and I resumed our wandering by car and foot. We eventually ending up at Freshman Chorus Revisited. This was possibly one of the only official alumni events that really interested me, so I was elated to see that no security teams were about to screen out the unregistered riff raff alums.
And it was what it sounds like: Freshman Chorus was a mandatory aspect of our curriculum (as was every component of the curriculum). Part of the greater Great Books program was the expectation that we would study all facets of the liberal arts, including music. In Sophomore Year, we studied musical theory extensively, but Freshman Year was considered preparation for such studies. We sang chants, chansons, arias, chorales and much in between, and were conscripted for at least two performances a year.
I'll admit that one of the cool things about the insular nature of the program (and mandatory on-campus living for the first year) mixed with the non-negotiable curriculum is that *every one* knew these songs and The Chorus of the Furies or Ode to Joy hastily became universal drinking songs. There would be moments straight out of a (very odd) musical in which one person would start humming Palestrina's Sicut Cervus and gradually an entire room would be wrapped up in song. I was very involved in the choral scene at SJC, even playing my part in auxiliary choruses and being a soloist for some performances. Singing was one of my retreats from any of the tough times encountered; it was a bastion of infinity in a world of unraveling logic, solemnity amongst the pomposity, and joy transcending self-conscious irony. Being back in that stillness of a moment, bridging timelessnesses in a harmony of voices was amazingly powerful and fun. So glad I got to do that.
As evening approached, I retrieved my husband and we met up with my friend Isaac and his wife, Yarrow. Isaac was not somebody I knew particularly well when I was at SJC. We know each other a bit after I dropped out and far more through the persistence of the internet. He was quite adorable, in a solemn suit and a superman tie.
The five of us braved an official alumni cocktail party, which was fairly terrifying. I was gratified to obviously be surrounded by introverts who were as distracted by the LOUD as I was. After some awkward class greetings of people I'd honestly forgotten until names were repeated (and who clearly felt the same about me), we escaped and wandered downtown. Dinner was discussed, but by the time we got there, this plan had been replaced with Stephanie's ambition to buy a fancy bottle of scotch and sip at it on the docks. If this is illegal there, I couldn't say anyone seemed too concerned about enforcement.Considering how many people sit on their little yachts boozing about, I'm not surprised that the throng of tourists were equally unphased.
Since Yarrow is pregnant, Stephanie is a lightweight, Isaac is marginally concerned about propriety, and Andrew and I don't really drink, this activity was not particularly profligate. It consisted far more of every one sniffing it to confirm that it smelled quite a lot like bourbon barrels and whatever other fine qualities were referenced on the bottle. Stephanie took a drink, as did Isaac. Andrew and I took minimal sips. Stephanie recorked the bottle and we continued sitting on the edge of the dock sniffing the lovely aroma of ocean (and dirty diaper with dead duck, floating delightfully nearby). We may have remained sessile all evening if not for a local street performance group not began utterly butchering some Decembrists song.
Isaac and Yarrow took off around 7 and Stephanie followed their departures soon after. Andrew and I did attend the Waltz Party. I was disappointed to see that no johnnie swing was on display. Mostly various people doing watered down east coast and the occasionally terrifying Viennese Waltz. We managed to get in our share of dances quickly before the drunken alum-hoarde alit (only one was gallavanting about trying to kill his follow and anyone else on the dance floor while we were there), and headed back to the hotel to crash. No toenails were harmed in the making of this non-Saturday-day. Not too badly anyways.
Or just before dunkin' to be more precise. Due to the miracles of changing time zones, I am currently on a normal person schedule (refusing to shift to east coast time for this minor paucity of days). That means that I arose at 8:00 a.m. this morning after going to bed after 11:30 last night (party animal that I am!). Because the training calendar stands against all obstacles, including picture perfect Southish East Coast tourist traps and their avian armies, Andrew and I struggled with strava and mapmyrun.com for a while before saying "screw it, let's just go to the Naval Academy and figure it out!" Ok, that was my conclusion. I spent many hundreds of hours meandering about the academy back in the day. It was a wonderful escape from the claustrophobia of a teeny tiny campus and teenier town. And quite beautiful. Some of the most gorgeous architecture in our little postcard of a town was edified on navy land.
Since I didn't start running until well after I'd moved away from Annapolis, I had no sense of how it would work for a run. But we figured we'd give it a try. I have had a mild cold since Friday, and I was somewhat skeptical about the advisability of going out running after yesterday's red-eye and all day wander. I even warned Andrew I might not really be up to going at any reasonable pace (so, I guess the warning was I might not run away from you and get us both totally lost in a foreign place that I somewhat remember and that you have never been to all the while without either of us having phones... I'm sure that scared him horribly).
Anyways, whatever impact it has on me in the long term, it appears to have been an excellent opportunity for me to give Andrew the final *tour* of our Annapolis stay, as footfall upon footfall stirred dormant memories of places to see and tales to be told in a moderate sweaty pant. Also, Andrew wisely turned off his pace-nag of a watch and just followed my pace. This turned out to be a good thing, since his watch wants him to run 10 - 9.5 minute miles, and we were doing a bit under 9 apparently. Sounds like a tiny amount of time, but given the incredible amount of swerving and serpentine routing to hit all the various things to see, it might have been a disaster as previously parenthetically proposed.
Being Annapolis in the transitional season, it was quite humid, so we were both moderately drenched (Andrew had his own rivulets going on, in fact) by the time we stopped by the Dunkin' Donuts (a ubiquitous East Coast experience). Honestly, I've had the coffee back here from independent chains, and all I can
say is "thank god for chain stores like Starbucks and Dunkin', because the EC does not brew coffee well, even if it claims the coffee is fancy.
gained top spot in the heated competition for my limited edition mailings) and Andrew (hey, we're on vacation!) bought a massive slab of fudge.
But just one slab. That's like restraint, right?
We were to meet James and his family on campus at 1:30 for lunch. Being an aunt, I knew better. I think I would do the world a great boon to write What to Expect When Your Friends Are Expecting, because I have a lot of experience with loved ones and the magical changes that happen upon successful self-replication. And trust me, things change. It's good to be prepared.
Aside from your friend/family suddenly being unable to go five minutes without lapsing into baby talk and/or discourses on bodily functions only dreamt of by Rabelais, perhaps the biggest lesson to learn is that kid-time is not like human time. And it's not rude when friend-parents stand you up for fifteen minutes to several hours; no, it's generally survival. The exigencies of kid time are broad and protean. To support a friend with children, it is requisite that one be prepared fifteen minutes ahead of schedule, but set up to wait for at least two hours after schedule. Kid time, basically, is a worm hole that distorts our general expectation of time far more than several hits of anything Tim Leary ever touted.
Despite claims of being just on their way to parking at 1:20, we didn't see much of the James menagerie until about 2:20. With non-parent-friends, I might fret at this time difference. I may have fretted a spell, but in this case only because I also needed to use the bathroom. Upon finally meeting James and his admittedly adorable entourage, we moved through the usual conversations between old friends and their families with
facile aplomb. Interrupted only every several seconds by one of us making baby-faces (that would be the non-parent friends, of course... another thing to expect when your friends are expecting is that you will be unable to have a conversation with your friend because you will be drawn into child tractor beam upon a second's sight). And interrupted only several seconds more by one of the parent-friends either discussing how difficult one or the other child had been or attempting to negotiate directly with the child in a whimsically reasonable voice.
By about three, we managed to make the decision to go eat. I drew upon my experience and wisdom with childed friend and deferred to the parents to decide what might be a kid friendly eating location. We had a rather slow trudge (children are small and walk slowly, sure, but you try getting a stroller the size of my first Geo Metro down those authentically colonial Annapolis Streets). Since James used to give walking tours of Annapolis (generally dressed up as James Madison - I believe he was compensated for this and not merely a townie nutjob), he padded our trod with historical facts about the buildings we passed. Take that tourists! Free walking tour! Eventually, several days or two seconds later in kid-time, we reached Mangia's, another oft-frequented haunt of my college days.
Mangia's turned out to be kid-friendlyish. On the one hand, the food service is all up some stairs and there was quite a lot of maneuvering to deconstruct the stroller and stash it in their downstairs closet. On the other hand, they let James change both children's diapers on the floor without batting an eye. It is a sports bar, so I imagine they've seen a lot worse after a particularly riveting game.
James may be a parent now, but he is most decidedly still James. Case in point, The Calzone Incident. Now I should preface this by saying our waiter - though very sweet - did not seem particularly comfortable as a waiter. He had already forgotten to put in my order and had to be reminded after every one else got their food that I too was expecting my order. So there was reason to be suspicious of the service. James may well have already been so when he finally cut into his pepperoni calzone to find - uttered in disgust - SPINACH! A spinach calzone?? Why he had not ordered this. The waiter was fetched and given a thorough dressing down for this outrage. While Jamesdid not want to wait unendurably for a new calzone, he thought the waiter should be appraised of the epic failure that occurred between order and plating. The waiter sheepishly withdrew, while James continued on about how it was fortunate that he did not mind spinach, but this was still an unacceptable error.
Now, Andrew had suggested that he seemed to recall that the calzones all came with spinach. James found such a concept outlandish. I seemed to notice that there were little meaty looking flecks in James' "spinach" calzone. Upon inquiry I was informed these were, in fact, pepperoni. James then muttered that he would be quite cross if he were to find he'd been charged for both spinach AND pepperoni. He declared his intention to scour the bill thoroughly. Then, curioser and curiouser, he discovered SAUSAGE. We were not in Kansas anymore (incidentally a place he lived in when he was much younger, and which he purports to be quite flat). Never in his life had he had a purportedly pepperoni calzone with such excess of dross clogging up his cheese and pepperoni pant-leg.
The bill was, naturally, thoroughly combed at the end of the meal (it was mixed up in how it was meant to be split, which James did not notice, but there were no upcharges for spinach, so the world heaved a sigh of relief. On our way out, Andrew glanced at the menu to confirm that the pepperoni calzone that James
had ordered did indeed list both spinach and sausage as components. We did not mention this, but I did add a dollar to my tip to atone for the errant stiffing I suspect occurred on the other side of the table.
I tell this story with love. James is a wonderful and warm person, but I've always gotten a kick out of riling him up and arguing whatever the con side of any position he takes is. He's a smidge... er... intractible and this is catnip to an eternally equivocal sasser such as myself.
But, yes, children. he had those too! The elder is three and quite the flirt. He doesn't speak yet, but I guess he speaks the international language of cute. Like all three year olds, he was very excited about every aspect of the food except the eating of it. Perhaps his favorite part of the meal was shoving calamari in his father's
mouth whenever he tried to speak. He rather liked stabbing the pizza as well though (the three year old, not James). The younger child is ten months old and delightfully docile. She seemed unphased to be held by me,
an utter stranger. Unphased by most everything, really. She also had glasses. Apparently they can tell if ten month old children are near and/or far sighted now. Who knew? The glasses look like little cartoon glasses and are banded onto her head. I still suspect that they are actually just enhanced cuteness devices.
After yet another slower trudge back to campus, another set of diapers were changed and negotiations were opened on the red vines. It was just shy of six at the time and my introvert battery was turning orange. I had originally determined to walk them to the car. After we settled into the SJC coffee shop, I reconsidered. By kid-time, we were about seven hours from the car down the block. It was really good to see them, though. And unsurprisingly, James and his wife Molly produced some adorable little kids.
Some recovery accomplished, I took Andrew to Chick and Ruth's Delly, one of the few remaining old haunts left standing after our tsunami of storms down memory lane. Chick and Ruth's is a campy institution best known in my day for carrying celery soda (sadly no longer on the menu) and for having obscenely creative and delicious (when you're a drunk stressed college kid) milkshakes. It has been occasionally featured on some food network challenges involving eating large quantities of food in single sittings. I think you can win t-shirts as a regular customer for selected gorges.
I know it best as "that place to go when I've been up all night either with the movie club, Mabel the Swimming Wonder Monkey (MST3K Johnnie-style), or working on a paper, and I'm suddenly starving. It was a nice cap to put on our last evening in Annapolis, even if we weren't up all that late. And, weirded out or no, they did help my ailing dietary resolve by supplying me with a brobdignagian baked potato (with nothing on it - I haven't changed that much even if I am making efforts to eat more calorically dense foods)
Homecoming from Homecoming.
Our day of return travel was abruptly kickstarted by an automated voice message informing me that our shuttle was waiting downstairs... an hour before it was scheduled to be there. Panicked rushing accomplished, we made it down to the shuttle and off to the airport. I guess our driver had been nervous about getting lost or something? Not entirely sure why he was so early, but I figured it was a promising sign that there would be no glitches at security. These only happen when time is in limited supply and we had an overabundance of such time.
I should have also figured it was a promising sign that our first flight would most certainly be delayed to balance out the universal timeliness balance. Also, our layover between flights was a non-existent ten minutes between landing and boarding time. It only stood to reason. Had I bet my money on such an inevitability, I would have made it back. Given the odds, I doubt I would have made too grand a winning, but nonetheless... Our flight was scheduled to board at 1:27 and leave at 1:52. There was no plane at our gate at 1:27. The plane was barely at the gate by 1:57. It was a small operation and no announcements were made, although I overheard some conversations between nervous passengers with tight layovers, and none of the staff seemed too concerned about this.
As roughly 1:50, they posted a new departure of 2:02. This seemed somewhat implausible at that juncture, since the plane was only just beginning to excrete its previous passenger load and crew. After much bustling and interminable delays (with speeches about how the flight cabin doors would soon be closed and we should buckle our seatbelts), the captain informed us that we should be fine, but we would likely be penalized in flight priority and probably wouldn't make it off the tarmac any time soon. Between delays in boarding and delays on the tarmac, we did not actually take off until 2:40. Now, had I known that the actual flight was only 30 minutes, and the scheduling seemed to account for these apparently routine delays, I might have been a tad less annoyed by all of this. Our first flight was quite laissez-faire all in all, and seemed to be operated by a local carrier affiliated with United, not United itself. The cabin was tiny. The stewardesses seemed to slur through their spiels without much concern. And there didn't seem to be much of a set schedule for anything. My favorite line of the trip was "at this time, we will have beverages available as well as coffee and tea, except the coffee and tea machine is broken so we don't actually have those..."
I'm glad to say that we did manage to debark from the first plane and immediately board the next. Not exactly the transition I prefer - breaks with walking and a trip to a non-airplane bathroom are rather pleasant - but certainly one of the better scenarios at that point. Although we were in Newark and I'd love to see my sister and her brood again, Andrew really was supposed to be back at work today, so I imagine we would have spent that time waiting in the terminal for the next available red eye. And I like red eyes and all, but I don't know that I could have repeated my prior ailment's fortunes and slept through it this time.
As it was, I was pointedly aware of the fact that I was in a rare scenario of extended sitting. As you may have groked from prior reference, I don't really sit still much. Even when I'm at home, I'm up and wandering every twenty minutes. My body felt quite betrayed and I feel far sorer from the experience than I have after almost any intense run or workout. I admit to making several superfluous trips to the bathroom, just to have an excuse to stand up a little bit more. I also admit to several spelunks through my overhead bags on a similar pretense. I wish there were some way to have standing sections of airplanes. I would happily have a little stand up stool to strap myself into during turbulence and take off, if I were allowed to be on my feet for the rest of the time. I'd even pay extra for it.
Sometimes I handle discomfort with grace. Yesterday was not an instance of such behavior. I grunted and groaned and twitched for roughly six hours straight. I was not super thrilled about leaping from the plane to the car, but then again the car was infinitely more comfortable and allowed for a lot more fidgeting than that sardine can of a torture chair. And my mom, once again displayed her insanity by picking us up with bananas and water on standby, and stopping off at Wendy's on the way back (they do a mean baked potato!).
Today I'm about to be buried in follow up appointments, chores and oh-god-I-hope grocery shopping. We are plumb out of most everything. I got quite creative this morning with breakfast. No avocado, no hummus, so for my sandwich I added tahini! Which I actually recommend. It was definitely heavier, but really good with the spices I use in my eggs. Andrew was out of everything except for two pieces of bread. So he got oatmeal this morning. For lunch, one sandwich (instead of two), a heap of granola and an almond and coconut kind bar that hadn't made it into in my Annapolis provisions.
It was good to be "Home" (for the coming), and it's also great to be home. I am so grateful that Andrew was willing and able to rearrange his work schedule and come along for the trip. I know it's not a honeymoon the way many think of it, but we crammed some serious vacation into our weekend. And I feel like maybe he got just a little deeper glimpse into some dusty crevices of my soul to boot. Plus, well, what's the point of having arm-candy for a spouse if you can't trophy him about in front of all your oldest friends?
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