Baltimore

15 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by in Amtrak, Baltimore, Otakon 2016

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Way back in 2015, we had planned on attending my elder son’s wedding in Philadelphia. We had to back out because my spinal stenosis was just too painful for the trip. Amtrak gave us a voucher for the trip we paid for but did not take. However we had a year to use it. The year was coming to an end, so we booked a trip to Baltimore for this past weekend. We had planned on visiting the National Aquarium at the Inner Harbor and just relaxing.

We left Thursday. Our train was scheduled to depart Richmond at 7:00 PM (1900Hrs). However… Good Old Train #66 from Newport News was stuck behind a disabled freight train on the single track that runs from Williamsburg to Richmond.  Sooo…. CSX, who owns the track and runs the freight traffic has to send a locomotive down the line to pull the disabled freight forward in order that Good Old #66 can complete its mission. Around 9:30 (2130 Hrs) we finally leave Richmond. It’s fairly obvious now that a crimp has been put in our meticulously planned getaway. We climb aboard, choosing the quiet car. I was hoping the conductor in the quiet car wore black tights, white face and white gloves, like a classic French mime, but it wasn’t that quiet. He scans our ticket and off he goes.

We proceed, stopping at all the stops between Richmond and Washington; Ashland, Fredericksburg, Quantico, Woodbridge, Alexandria.  It seems like an eternity. And we have to pull to a siding to let a freight pass (all part of the “fun” of being delayed two and a half hours).  All of you East Coast rail connoisseurs  know that trains  switch power from diesel to electric in Washington for the trip further North, reversed the opposite way. That’s another thirty or so minutes for the switch.   Off we go. It’s now 2:00 AM (0200 Hrs). We’re tired, wondering what we did to piss the travel gremlins off.  We stop in New Carrollton,  Baltimore BWI, and finally Baltimore Penn Station. It is now 3:00 AM (0300 Hrs) and unbelievably hot still.  The easiest piece of the travel epic so far is the speed with which a taxi arrives with a very courteous driver, an African immigrant from, I suspect, somewhere in West Africa.  He promptly takes us to our hotel and we check in around 3:30 AM (0330 Hrs) Friday morning.

Our room is an homage to minimalist decor, and not at all unpleasant in its sparseness. There is no dresser, desk, or superfluous chairs.It does have a nice comfortable king-sized bed, honking big TV, and more electrical outlets than I (or anyone else, for that matter) can possibly use.  The hotel people did their market research. It was set up for people who travel with lap tops, tablets and smart phones. And, more than likely, Hitachi wands, given the outlet placements.

We are thirsty and discover that there are two, yes two, plastic cups in the room for our use. There is minimalist and then there is out right, fuckin’ stingy.  Then I discover the ice maker and drink machine is one flight up.  Fortunately they work.  With ice and sodas, I return. We sip our sodas and soon are trying to fall asleep in a strange room with an incredibly noisy air conditioning system, in a city where, at Four AM, every vehicle operating seems to be an emergency vehicle.   It seems like we are in a corner of Post Modern Hell.

Our first trip to the Inner Harbor is for breakfast. We schlep down in the heat. Thankfully, it is a very short distance. We find a  Cheesecake Factory that looks like the Cheesecake Factory at home with the same menu and the same prices. Nice. I order the Huevos Rancheros and coffee.  The service is slow, not terribly so, and the server is courteous and friendly. The food tastes the same as the one at home.

In case we were afraid that everything would be the same as at home, a few thousand of our closest friends decided to stage the Otakon 16 Convention on this very same weekend. We had all these twenty somethings traipsing about in their favorite anime` character  costumes. Being  old and indifferent, the only character impersonators I could recognize were the Sailor Moon wannabes.  All in all, it was fun to watch. Hallowe’en on steroids.

The Inner Harbor has a shopping mall as part of the attractions. The Inner Harbor is a James Rouse project from the 1980’s, when folks imagined the affluence would never dry up.  Today there are plenty of vacant stores. Given that a shopping mall is a shopping mall is a shopping mall, we got the idea fairly quickly of what was there.

It did not, all of a sudden, get cold in the hour we were at breakfast. The lack of sleep was taking its toll. We went back to the room and slept, in anticipation of our trip to the National Aquarium at 6:30 (1830 Hrs). The sleep came easily. Evidently, people having emergencies sleep during the day. I heard not nary a siren. Mrs CorC? decided that watching a Gray’s Anatomy  rerun would tickle her fancy, so I tried to sleep while all these actors were playing doctor.

Finally we get to the National Aquarium and the experience was well worth the aggravation, inconvenience and pain. The place is brilliant in concept, design and execution.  Realizing one visit won’t do it justice, we are already planning a return.

As a finale, we dine at Phillips Seafood Restaurant. It is definitely a little high end in the chain restaurant spectrum,but the food is well worth it. We had the ceviche`. I had the grilled rockfish, she the crabcake and scallop.

By the time we get back to the hotel, all I want is an ice pack at the fusion site and two naproxen gel caps. As non-cable viewers at home, we take advantage of the cable offerings.  We watch HGTV’s House Hunters, amused at what the house hunters are looking for and what they have to spend. They must choose from condos in St John’s, The Virgin Islands, and they are bloody picky!  I would be tickled to death with indoor plumbing and a refrigerator, but their standards are higher. The shoppers are reminiscent  of characters from a Christopher Guest mocumentary and we can imagine Jane Lynch, John Michael Higgins, and Parker Posey as the prospective buyers.

We sleep through the full complement of sirens and cooling systems . Saturday morning comes and I have resolved to leave Baltimore earlier than our 6:17 PM (1817) departure on train 97, The Silver Meteor, to escape the heat. I may as well sweat at home.  The train switch to Train 195, is simple. This cabbie is also polite and efficient. We are at the station in plenty of time for the train’s arrival.  We discover it is late, but only about a half hour.  We climb aboard, find seats, and sit.   Heat is the culprit in these travel delays. It plays havoc with the equipment. We arrive home a mere hour past the scheduled arrival.

A mini-vacation in 21st Century America is completed.  Recovery from this fun-filled extravaganza takes all of Sunday.

An Epilogue: PEG3350. OMG. KMN.

15 Monday Aug 2016

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I received the results of the biopsy of the polyp. It was noncancerous. I see The Boy Wonder (Dr. Gastroenterologist) again in five years.

My back and neck were hurting after this procedure and a nurse friend of mine told me that getting me in the proper position for the colonoscopy (fetal position) may have put some stress on my fusion site,  but I feel a little better every day.

PEG3350. OMG. KMN.

05 Friday Aug 2016

Posted by in Health Issues

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I have reached that age when my body gets bored with getting me about and being the locus of pleasure.  It is now figuring out ways to kill me if I let it.  At my recent check-up with the internist, I crossed the bridge guarded by the insidious Prostate Cancer Troll. That was easy; a simple blood test screens as well as a digital rectal exam.   My heart still loves me.  My blood pressure has settled down. I don’t piss high fructose corn syrup or its equivalent, just yet.  Lung Cancer might be lurking, but I don’t smoke, even though a fine cigar tempts me like The Whore of Havana. Skin cancer seems to be on hiatus. The last of my body’s hit men, colorectal cancer, got the once-over this morning.

The screening colonoscopy was scheduled for 0800 hours.  Those of us who know the drill know that the actual test is like a vacation  in the Caribbean compared to the preparation for said test. That prep is no fun.  First, one (meaning I) must secure a four liter plastic jug with some innocuous white powder in the bottom, plus a lemon “flavor” packet glued to the outside, from one’s(my) friendly pharmacist ($15). This is the infamous PEG3350 mentioned in the title.   On the day before, one (I) dilutes this mysterious powder in four liters of tepid water, adds the “flavor” and refrigerates.  At 1600 hours, I begin drinking this stuff, an 8 0unce glass at a time, until I begin expelling  something most indecorously. And I keep drinking it until the ,uh, “output” is clear with a yellowish tint from the bile my body still produces. ( No wonder my body wants to kill me. To him, all he would be doing is evening up the score.) 

Last night I go to bed, a dehydrated wastrel, and attempt sleep. No such luck.  Morning comes, I shower, dress, and Mrs CorC? drives me to the hospital.  I show them my insurance stuff, sign the electronic form, go in the back where I undress and put on the accursed gown and wait on a fairly comfy stretcher while my vital signs are continuously taken in what sounds like a perpetual game of Pong.

Who appears, to me, to be a teen-aged girl comes in the room, introduces herself as Doctor Mc***h, and informs me that she is my anesthesiologist. ( Yes the years have passed me by). Later  Dr.T*****n enters the room. He is the Boy-Gastroenterologist.  He apologizes for a slight delay, stating one of the other doctors had a longer than usual procedure.  I suspect, however, that his mother was late dropping him off at work. ( He can’t possibly be old enough to drive.)  This is like a Doogie Howser, MD. episode brought to life and on steroids.

As they wheel me into the room, I notice that the nurses and technicians aren’t at all uneasy around these young whippersnappers. I fully concede to my innermost self, that these children really are adults and I am the one whose perceptor needs adjusting.  Before long, they knock me out, insert the appropriate pieces of fiber optic cables and such into the temporarily pristine reaches of my rectum and colon, do their probing and snipping.Then they wheel me out. I wake up, barely a half-hour later.

I learn I have one polyp. (Just one, for all this?),  some diverticuli, and, ahem, internal hemorrhoids. Said polyp appears to be noncancerous, but they have to biopsy the little bugger.  So I get to wait three weeks til the pathologist offers a diagnosis. OK. Things look good. I’m probably fine, but, worst case scenario, they caught it in time. At least, I hope

Tomorrow I get to see my family, including my sons, my daughter-in-law, niece, her husband, and my adorable 10 month old great niece, named either for our 40th President or a character from King Lear. It is my sister’s, stepmother’s and daughter-in-law’s collective birthday celebration, all falling within a two week interval. My stepmother is 91. The other two birthdays, you don’t need to know.

Life is good.

Hiding

02 Tuesday Aug 2016

Posted by in cooking, Exercise/ Fitness, loneliness, Love and stuff, Sexual Identity

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I do all kinds of things to hide out.  Mostly they are “activities”.  I’m being busy, waiting for the chance for something exciting, exotic, or just plain memorable to happen.  This is not unique to me and it’s certainly not a waste of time. Because there’s a lot of time between the exciting, exotic or memorable events of life. There are gaps to be filled.

So I swim. In the water I get lost. In my thoughts. In time. In my workout. I love feeling the water on my body as I swim. I love how my muscles feel.  I don’t care much about my pace or whether I am moving quickly or slowly.  I fantasize that a woman desires me because I swim, that she finds me attractive, that I’m wanted.

And I cook. I love the smells, the sounds of a whirring blender, vegetables frying, the colors of the vegetables and fruits.  I love to see heavy cream turn into whipped cream.  I love sharing what I cook with others.

And I try not to think about the void in Passion. The Love is there. Good old Love. Old Love, soon-to-be geriatric Love.  Selfless Christian Sunday School Love. But I need Passion, too. Passion that can flower because that Love is there.  Put all the chips on Passion.  Tattoo your name inside a heart on my bicep Passion.  Staying awake after one fuck, just so we can have another go Passion.   No “good” manners, dirty-talkin’ Passion that would make your friends blush on the outside, while they die of envy.

“Life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone.”– John Mellencamp

501’s. My Kind Of Shrinkage

29 Friday Jul 2016

Posted by in personal grooming, Sexual Identity

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They came from Amazon via UPS. That they still make shrink-to-fit 501’s with a button fly is most gratifying to me. They are made in Egypt now. Back in the 1980’s, when GQ had interesting things to say about clothes, they did a piece on S-T-F 501’s and it impressed me.  Now that I can afford to pay nearly three times as much for these as for a pair of pretty good jeans at BJ’s, I do so. This afternoon, I got naked, put on the unshrunk jeans and stood under the hot shower. I stood there, wondering what Mrs. CorC? would  say if she walked in, and let the jeans and me get good and wet. A nice little puddle of indigo-tinted water accumulates. When I feel as if the job has been done, I peel them off and put them in the washer in hot water. And Bob’s your uncle, when the washing and drying is over, they’re good to go.

Quite frankly, there is something erotic about unbuttoning the jeans to urinate, etc.  Call me crazy.   They look good, especially when paired with a white dress shirt.  I feel attractive and ageless and not 65, with titanium screws holding my spine together. They don’t look or feel like “Old Guy” clothes.  I own enough pairs of constipated khakis to last a lifetime.  I have not worn a suit in ages.  Things have changed fashion-wise.

Wherein A Cubano At The Mall Inspires Musing About Suburban Living.

26 Tuesday Jul 2016

Posted by in food, Suburbia

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The Cubano is another name for the Cuban sandwich. Yesterday, in a bit of defiance against Weight Watcher point-counting, I ordered one at Cheesecake Factory.  I put one half of the beast aside, ate one half. Then, after 30 seconds of not too careful thought, I ate the second half. I now had this agglomeration of ham, roast pork, cheese, pickle and Cuban bread churning around in my gut for what seemed to be an eternity.  I confided to Mrs CorC? that this would be my Cuban sandwich for the Third Quarter. It could be my last one for a long time. Meat, it has been said, doesn’t really have much flavor. We constantly put stuff on it to give it flavor.  This Cubano brought that message home in a big way. I could taste the pickle and the mustard more than anything else. This morning when I scrambled my egg whites with fresh tomatoes, artichoke hearts, fresh basil and Gorgonzola, I had an explosion of taste which I did not experience yesterday.

Maybe it is Cheesecake Factory that ended my affair with the Cubano. Their food is calorie-laden and over-priced.  But it is in the mall near our house. It isn’t a bad mall as malls go.  It isn’t one of those enclosed nightmares.  It has plenty of plants and foliage plus a rather nifty water garden with koi swimming about.  The irony of this mall is that it is a place we drive to in order to walk around.  Weird, huh?

I miss the city, though. I miss walking places.  You could walk to places in the ‘burbs but it would 1) take forever and 2) be inordinately risky with limited sidewalks and street lighting.  Why not move?  The house is paid for, for starters , and I like our townhouse development.  I have dreams of fixing the place up to be the pleasant home I’ve dreamed of.  But every time I drive down to the urban neighborhood  where my lovely parish church is situated, I see tree-lined avenues with sidewalks and streetlights.  There are shopping districts within walking distance.  That urban neighborhood is diverse, but my townhouse development is no monoculture either.  Should we stay or go? We’ll chew on that some more.

Saturday Miscellany

23 Saturday Jul 2016

Posted by in Health Issues, Love and stuff, personal grooming

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( I wrote this post two years ago when I thought Senator Kaine had a modicum of decency about him. That was before his moral cowardice on abortion truly disturbed me, before his going along with the travesties of of the current Democrat coup d’etat in slow motion has crippled this nation, before the FBI and DOJ’s perversion of the FISA process brought shame to that great law enforcement agency. So long, Tim)

The buzz around Richmond today centers around Mrs. Clinton’s Vice-Presidential selection, Tim Kaine.  He is well-liked in these parts. Republicans who don’t agree with him respect him as a decent guy who lives by his principles.  A friend of mine who went to high school with his wife admires him tremendously.  His father-in-law,  Linwood Holton, was the first Republican governor since Reconstruction.  Governor Holton kept his children in the Richmond Public Schools when white flight, accelerated by a mandatory busing court order, dramatically changed the demographics of the schools.  Tim’s a good guy and the son-in-law of a good guy.

But enough politics. Today was my Weight Watchers weigh-in and meeting. I lost another 1.6 pounds and could break the 200 pound barrier as early as next week.  There is one remarkable lady at this meeting who is always cheerful, shares from her heart and invariably has something wise to say. I told her that she was the reason I came to this meeting, even though it starts at 7:30 AM. She was genuinely touched and cried when I told her.  I was surprised at her response because I thought everybody in the whole wide world could see that she was a truly remarkable woman and that she must have heard that praise day in and day out.  Moral of Story:  Do not ever hold back praise! Never. Ever.

I got a haircut yesterday and I really like what Karina, my barber at Sport Clips, did. She did something to the back that looks pretty good.  Hopefully I got it to post right.  There were several young boys in there with their mothers getting haircuts and it was fun to watch them. One little boy, maybe 8, looked very, very serious when told  to sit still. And still he sat, as if he were sitting on a land mine that would go off if he so much as flinched. He looked pretty sharp, cleaned up.

My big plans for dinner evaporated when Mrs C or C? worked late again.  It was OK. I was basically too tired to cook. There is a nice piece of sockeye salmon waiting in the fridge I can cook tonight or tomorrow.

The sex piece with Mrs C or C? is still a work in progress. Don’t think for a moment that the only people messed up around sex were raised Catholic.  She was raised Southern Baptist.  We shall see.  (Note: Both parties being awake and in the same room at the same time increase the likelihood of meaningful dialogue taking place.  Baby Steps)

 

 

Flashback To 1979, Formerly Titled Saint-Saens Flashback

21 Thursday Jul 2016

Posted by in Classical Music, food, memoir, seduction

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The Compact Disc set arrived yesterday. I have always been a fan of the Saint-Saens Piano Concerti from the time I first heard them back in 1979.  However, until I put the first of the discs in the player yesterday afternoon, and heard the french horns open the Concerto #1 with the orchestral response, I didn’t realize how deeply this music had affected me.

You see, it was the background music of an affair, of a romance that morphed into a marriage.    I don’t know the precisely first time I heard them. The pianist on that first recording , on vinyl, of course, was Aldo Ciccolini,  a great interpreter of Saint-Saens.  What I remember was a dinner at her house. There were grilled chicken breasts, and a salad with slivered almonds and mandarin oranges on romaine, tossed with olive oil, lemon juice and parmesan cheese. Rice? Perhaps. Memory goes in and out. But there was wine, dry white wine, that generic “Chablis” that came in a three liter jug. She was very genteel and tastefully decanted that dreadful swill into a lovely decanter with a lovely stopper, etched glass at the base with a solid glass sphere atop it. The dinner and the music were pleasant and cordial. We talked of our pasts. I came with the baggage of a broken marriage, she with a live-in relationship that did not end well. We drank more wine. We were not yet lovers.

To reciprocate her invitation, I invited her to dinner at my apartment. I fixed the quiche Lorraine  I learned to make from The Joy of Cooking.  We had a pleasant dinner, although the news that day featured a plane crash and an execution. We talked some more. Then we made love for the first time. I remember the skirt she wore, a pale blue skirt with flowers on it, in a very light material and it draped beautifully from her full hips. She proudly told me later that she had a “black lady’s ass”. She did.

We went on trips together in her blue 1970 Olds F-85. with a cassette player. The pirated cassettes of the Concerti  went with us. We drove to Highlands, North Carolina to see a friend of hers. A great trip. Sex. Wine. Pot. Music, Saint-Saens.  A few weeks later we drove to Utica, New York where she interviewed for a college teaching position. By then we were deeply in love. I was ready to quit my job and follow her to Utica if she were hired. And again we listened to Saint-Saens in the blue Olds as we explored the countryside of upstate New York, towns like New Hartford  that featured a green town common reminiscent of Norman Rockwell.  We went to Cooperstown to the Baseball Hall of Fame, where we both concurred that one old baseball glove from the 1930’s looks like any other old baseball glove from the 1930’s. We went to the Oneida Community, where John Humphrey Noyes, in 1848, founded the commune that would spawn the flatware manufacturer and Noyes would experiment with a group marriage, what we would consider polyamory today. Plus ca Change… eh?  More Concerti and the  Septet in E Flat, Op. 85, filler on the album, but a perfect gem in its own right.

The music played on  that summer. We discovered we both loved sailing.  One Sunday night, after a day on the water, we made love on her green printed sheets that featured sailboats and wooded islands, evocative of Maine, I guess. That night, I proposed. She accepted. We smoked more marijuana, listened to Paul McCartney sing  Maybe I’m Amazed, made love some more.

Maybe it should have stopped there. Maybe I would have grown up sooner, quit drinking sooner, stopped using sex as if it were another drug sooner,  faced my demons sooner. Maybe there would not have been the penultimate nightmare of divorce, the ultimate nightmare of her untimely and secretive death. Mixed in with all that pain and all that folly was all that love and hedonism and passion. That’s right, our deepest yearnings.

Rest Day

20 Wednesday Jul 2016

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Back in high school, fifty years ago this fall, I went out for cross country, then track.   I got used to working out five days a week.  Five workouts a week mean I’m serious about the program. I like the self-discipline it fosters. Yesterday I finished my five workouts (lap swim 2050 meters 82 lengths of a 25 meter pool) I started Friday. By then my body was feeling the fatigue and the work I had put my body through.

Workout #5 was not without drama, all internally generated.  The mental fatigue wanted me to just skip it, wait till the next day or the next. I left the house, did some errands first, and  got to  the Y around four P M.  Looking at the sky, I saw dark and ominous storm clouds in the northwest sky.  Usually the storms come out of the west so I thought we might miss this batch of nasty. No such luck. The pool closed just as I was ready to go in. So I got dressed, went home, resolute to return. I had time to go online, and take a nap before I ventured to return . When I got back the lifeguard was outside and he told me the pool would reopen in about 25 minutes. OK.

I get in the pool and start. Every little tweak and funny feeling I magnify into a re-injury of my shoulder or my back.  I find that groove that distance athletes can find, where I feel I can go on forever. I finish my distance.  It was faster than yesterday.  The feeling of accomplishment and being on “purpose” is great.

Home again. Mrs C or C? had already texted that she was tired and hungry. Fortunately I had brought some steaks down from the freezer to thaw that I would fix on the George Foreman grill. Paired with the fresh local tomatoes, we enjoyed a delightful supper, with minimal effort.

Today, on the rest day, I had a nap that was more a continuation of the night’s sleep. I’m enjoying the luxury of doing what I wish to do, write. Then I will read,starting a novella by James Baldwin Giovanni’s Room. It is a gay-themed story, from a major American writer of the Twentieth Century. I read some essays by him in high school,  Notes of a Native Son.  After I finish reading Baldwin, I’m moving on to Nelson Algren.

Retirement. It’s about creating your own world. Cool

Monday Evening 

19 Tuesday Jul 2016

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I’m sitting here with a cold pack on my shoulder. It’s a little sore from my swim. Not unusual.

We had a cold summertime supper, spiced shrimp, fresh tomatoes, artichoke hearts, pickled red cabbage. I’m drinking my decaf, watching a World War Two documentary,  The World At War. Upstairs Mrs C or C? is watching. The Bachelorette,  perhaps the most effective form of birth control ever created. It is a real erection-killer.

The heat is kicking our rear ends as it always does in July.  There may be a break on Wednesday. We shall see.  I would prefer to write at the computer, but that would mean sitting up and keyboarding for a while. And my energy is draining from me. 

Goodnight all.