Farewell Tour, Part 2

Wednesday was the last time I´ll get to participate in the local Unitarian church´s Vespers service. I have been part of the group leading the repetitive phrase singing that is the bulk of the Taizé-style service. The style and non-Christian focus were a perfect fit for me. I´m not sure I´ll be able to find anything like it again, and I´ll miss it.

The next day, I had a goodbye coffee with one of my graduate school advisors, who is now retired. We talked about all of his new interests and my future plans and then I said goodbye, perhaps for the last time. After all, I don´t have any more reason to connect with my previous professional community, and if I visit DC in the future, I´ll probably spend my limited time with my closest friends only. 

Yesterday I went for the first time, and the last, to the Maryland Renaissance Faire. I am a minor groupie for my friend´s madrigal singing group, but I had never seen them in what was clearly their natural habitat. It was delightful to listen to hours of Renaissance music and see so many people happily immersed in their chosen community. I thought a bit about how long it will take me to learn Spanish well enough to enjoy days like this in the future. 

This week the house goes on the market. I moved up my previous timeline, because I suddenly have the impetus to make things happen. The photographers and the realtor did amazing things with staging (aka ¨cute¨ things carefully strewn about) and filters, so I hope it will sell pretty easily. You can see all the magic they did here.

It is starting to feel quite real, and it is definitely bittersweet. I am giving up not just my house, but almost all of my possessions and putting a large distance between me and most of my friends. I expect it will pay off in the long run, but right now I just keep saying goodbye.

Destination Homerville

Many of my friends are also friends with my parents. This works out well for me because when we all get together, they can entertain each other and my introverted self can go read a book :)

This year, I planned a road trip with two friends to meet my parents and hang out in rural Ohio, and soon after my best friend and her family planned a different road trip that included my parents and invited me to meet them there. So I saw a lot of Homerville, Ohio (population 2,023) in August.

The draw for my friends, besides my parents´ excellent company, is the chance to hang out in the country, far from the noise of traffic or people. We ate grilled, lazed around on the porches, and played with my father´s many toys.

J takes my mother´s four-wheeler for a spin through the woods.

My best friend M is one of two adults I know who is actually shorter than me. It makes it easier for us to hug each other.

Trip 2: L, CA, and I. One of the goals of this trip was to help L experience some proper country living in rural America. She moved to DC from England not long before the pandemic began and hasn´t had a lot of opportunities to experience Amish vegetable auctions, sweet corn picked that morning, or the aroma of freshly spread manure. CA is a well-traveled American, so she showed us some of her favorite spots along our route.

My father took L and CA on rides in his vintage Triumph car. Alas, top hats are only picture props, since they don´t work well in convertibles. After the visit, L is talking a lot more about buying her own vintage American car and taking it back to the UK with her. 

The other Washington

Somehow I have completely fallen off the blog bandwagon, and have taken three or four trips they never made it in to the blog. 

In July I recovered from COVID just in time to visit my favorite grumpy pet, Wesley the cat. He had recently moved from the San Francisco area to the state of Washington, just outside Portland.

Wesley spent a year with me while his family traveled the world. He remembered me and occasionally deigned to let me pet him during my stay. Wesley is now very old, but has managed to maintain his misanthropic personality.

Conveniently, my brother and his family share a house with Wesley, so I was able to spend time with them as well. One of the highlights was a trip to a nickel arcade. I have no experience with arcade games because they were expensive when I was a kid. But my brother treated each of us to 50 nickels worth, and it was a blast. My nibling trounced me at  Guitar Hero, and my nephew left me in the dust during at motorcycle and car racing. (For the record, my IRL skills include riding a motorcycle and playing acoustic guitar.)

The penny arcade was part of our Portland tour sponsored by the letter "P": Powell's books, the "pentapenny" arcade, and Pip's Donuts.

These donuts were expensive and we had to wait in line for them a half hour. Definitely worth it.

My brother and I had a disagreement about the best brand of mint chocolate chip ice cream. We settled this as everyone does, with scientific blind taste tests. We procured seven brands, and each person tested them twice over two nights. Conclusion? Standards to evaluate mint chocolate chip ice cream vary by person. We largely agreed on the worst ones, but couldn't agree on the absolute top choice. The best value, though, is expensive local brands that sell in half gallons, rather than expensive pints or cheap half gallons.

Up next on the blog: not one, but two trips to Homerville, Ohio!