I woke up on our first full day in Paris with no wifi, and worse, could not figure out how the shower works. It’s embarrassing to have to explain this to the hotel clerk, who was working off the same wifi as I interrupted her, and then having to explain to this American how […]

   The first rule of flying by the seat of your pants is to have pants to fly from the seat of. Our original plan of sauntering from Paris to Barcelona and then onto parts south and east (chasing warmer temperatures) was immediately short-circuited by the total lack of available seats for Eurail pass holders. In […]

D220 to Paris  Say your ten years old and you’re going to Disneyland for the first time. You’re bugeyed with excitement as you enter the Magic Kingdom. There’s just so much you’ve been told there is to see and do. You can’t contain yourself, and you also don’t know where to begin. But you’re ten-year-old […]

   Carol is the only person I have ever known who can turn a fool’s errand into a certain done deal. For almost three years, we’ve been sitting on a pair of Eurail passes that had gone unused originally due to Covid. A series of extensions kept them valid through the period of travel restrictions, but […]

   We’re inside of a week before our planned departure for Europe, and we’re still not sure where we’re landing. That suits Carol and me just fine. We’ve had only one trip together where we had to be in a specific place at a specific time, and I could feel my shoulders scraping against the constraints […]

   It’s been my first solo trip since 2018. Because it’s occurring on the weekend of Carol’s and my third wedding anniversary as well as Valentine’s Day, one might expect a fevered explanation regarding timing. But suffice it to say, this was all Carol’s idea, so the why’s and wherefore’s hardly seem to matter, even […]

   No one was really sure how long the canvas had sat unobserved. Some believed it had always been there.  Others thought it was recently placed in the open. And there were those who’d concluded it had never existed in the first place. “It’s made up,” they’d argued.    It was a white canvas without any defining […]

Carol’s eldest daughter sat down next to me at a recent family dinner, where I’d been maintaining both a stoic and blissful silence. “I know you don’t like conversation, but I understand your next trip is to Portugal.” Now when most people are quizzed about an upcoming European adventure, there is generally an expectation you’ll […]

   Sally Hemings tiptoed into her master’s study, but was surprised to find Thomas Jefferson fully awake. “I’m sorry, master, I thought you’d be asleep at this hour. I’m very sorry I woke you.”    Jefferson shot up straight. “I am not woke!”    “But you are awake.”    “Yes, Sally, I’ve been awake all night.”    “Troubled, master? Is […]

   I have a new superhero. His name is Otto. As Otto makes clear in the eponymous movie starring Tom Hanks, he is more non-social, rather than anti-social. (He affirms that for me in the scene with the UPS driver, where Otto emphasizes his animosity to the “brown trucks” has nothing to do with race.) […]