fauxklore

Getting back to normal life, here are my replies to the November blog prompts.

1. What was your high school's mascot or motto? Team colours? Our mascot was the ram. And our team colors were black and gold.

2. If your life was a reality TV show, what would be the hook that would draw viewers in? I think it would be a cross between Game of Wool and Hoarders.

3. What book setting would you like to visit, if you could? May I please move into a flat at 77 Scotland Street?

4. If you had to sacrifice one of your senses (taste, touch, smell, sight, hearing), which would you choose and why? I think losing any of them would be horrible. I could probably survive best without a sense of taste, since smell contributes a lot to what we experience as taste.

5. What are you saving up for? I’m always saving up for the next trip.

6. What's your favorite place to escape from life temporarily? A park? A mall? Ideally, I’d be somewhere alongside an ocean. But that’s a long drive from where I live. Closer to home, we have some very nice botanical gardens.

7. Would you rather be rich and famous or just rich? Why? I’d rather just be rich. If one is also famous, they are inevitably surrounded by people who want something from them.

8. If you found treasure worth millions in your backyard, would you keep it a secret or would you tell the world? It depends on what the treasure is. If it were something of cultural / archeological significance (e.g. Sutton Hoo), I would tell the world. Or, more accurately, tell experts who could tell the world.

9. Have you ever been in a car wreck? How many? Whose fault was it? I’ve been in a few (fortunately minor) car accidents. When I was in high school, I was hit by a car while crossing the street on my way home from the school bus. That was obviously not my fault. I was lucky to be only bruised. Later on, I totaled my first car by skidding into a guard rail on a rainy day. That was obviously my fault.

10. Who is your all-time favorite sports player? It’s so hard to choose one. For sheer character and eccentricity, I’ll have to go with Bill “Spaceman” Lee. His love for baseball was (still is?) almost tangible.

11. Describe your best childhood friend. Kathy was my best friend starting about 4th grade. I knew her in school and her family moved down the block from me about then. We spent countless hours playing hopscotch, listening to music, and just hanging out.

12. Has religion played a role in your life? How? This is very complicated and probably deserves its own blog post.

13. What is something you are pessimistic about? The future of the United States given the current administration and, especially, the Supreme Court’s lack of respect for precedent.

14. What did you postpone that needs your immediate attention? Answering a bunch of emails.

15. How much water do you drink in a day? Probably on the order of 6 to 8 cups, depending on how much other stuff I drink.

16. What do you think is the least important body part or feature, and why? I can’t think of any body part I’d really want to do without, frankly.

17. If everyone in the world were vegan, would that persuade you to change your diet? Why? Why not? I suppose that would lead to a lack of availability of non-vegan food, so I’d more or less have to. But I wouldn’t be happy about that. While a lot of what I do eat is vegan (or, at least, vegetarian), I do also think of tuna as one of the key elements of what I consider Purina Miriam chow.

18. Describe a favourite piece of clothing - and why it is special to you I have a particularly spectacular little black dress. with elaborate folds. It goes perfectly with my feathered hat and feather boa for a very 1920’s look

19. Which decade of fashion was your favourite and least favourite? I remember liking the late 1980’s when we all wore shoulder pads, which did wonders for making me look like I had a waistline. As for least favorite, there was a different part of the 1980’s when I dressed a lot in very bright colors so I could be seen across a crowded room.

20. What’s something important that you’ve never forgotten? My father used to say that you should always try to do your best and nobody can ask more than that of you.

21. What made you smile today? There were some funny lines in a book I just started reading.

22. What is something you loved to do as a child but stopped doing? Would you like to pick it up again? I loved making music and really haven’t done that in a long time.

23. Waves are those things we face that cause movement to our inner balance. How do you approach waves? I approach those things the same way I approach ocean waves - jump straight into them.

24. What different hobbies and interests have you had throughout your life? There are various categories of hobbies and interests I’ve had. In terms of general categories, I’ve always been an avid reader. I’ve always loved music - both playing and listening - and, except for various injuries in more recent years, have done a lot of different types of dancing. Crafting (mostly with yarn and paper) has always been a big part of my life, too. I’ve also collected various things over the years, with dolls probably being the biggest category. (I am particularly fond of paper dolls, by the way.) And, of course, I always wanted to travel and have been fortunate to have been able to do so.

25. In light of the Internet, do we even need schools any more? The Internet is useful for looking up facts, though one needs to be careful about the reliability of sources. But it doesn’t take the place of mentorship in how to learn things.

26. Look out the door or window - what do you see? When I look out the sliding door in my living room, I see the courtyard of my condo complex. There are often birds or squirrels there, among the trees.

27. Who controls the TV remote control in your family? I live alone so it had better be me. But, frankly, I don’t really watch TV very much.

28. What were the top three lessons you had to learn the hard way? 1) I’m human, 2) Therefore, I make mistakes, and 3) Most mistakes can be remedied.

29. What is on your to-do list? Changing the linens, catching up on my book journal, buying tickets to various events.

30. What is stressing you out right now? What is the root cause of this stress? Trying to get control of my calendar.

I didn’t do much in New York. It was cold out, with some drizzle. I did walk around midtown some. I had vaguely intended to go see the balloons for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade being inflated, but decided I just wasn’t up to dealing with the crowds.

I did, however, take advantage of being in NYC to go to the theatre. There were a few possibilities for last minute tickets and I chose Two Strangers Carry a Cake Across New York. This is a two person musical. Dougal is a young British man who has never met his father, who abandoned his mother before he was born. Dougal’s father is marrying Robin’s sister, and Robin is running errands for the wedding, including meeting Dougal at the airport and picking up the wedding cake in Brooklyn. Dougal is very excited about visiting New York but is, er a bit confused about American geography. For example, he’s looking forward to seeing the Golden Gate Bridge. Anyway, their relationship takes some interesting turns as it turns out neither of them is really supposed to be going to the wedding for various reasons. I found the show very funny, though I didn’t find much of the score especially memorable. The best song, in my opinion, is “Dearly Beloved,” in which Dougal and Robin imagine getting married in a Chinese restaurant. And the performers were both excellent. I should also note that the Longacre Theatre is one of the oldest Broadway theaters and I found my seat rather uncomfortable, largely because it had a weird step in the middle of it. So if you go, you might want to avoid an aisle seat in the last few rows of the orchestra section.

The next day was Thanksgiving. I walked over to try to see a bit of the parade, but the cold air and the crowd made me give up quickly. It turned out that I could hear most of the marching bands from my hotel room. I took an early afternoon train down to D.C. While Amtrak was about a half hour late, the metro behaved well and I had short waits for both the red and orange line trains home. I ate the most pathetic Thanksgiving dinner of my life - a bowl of Count Chocula cereal! I started unpacking but decided most of that could wait until the morning.

Thus ends the travelogue. I’ll move on to writing about other things tomorrow.

You may recall that I had booked the Queen Mary 2 transatlantic crossing from Hamburg to New York City. About a week before departure, I got an email that there was an issue with the ship and it couldn’t dock in Hamburg. Instead, they would bus the passengers from Hamburg to Bremerhaven instead. This was a minor inconvenience, but I certainly would have liked more notice. And it was a bit annoying that they didn’t confirm the bus time until late afternoon on Friday when we were departing on Monday.

I had chosen the first bus time in the morning and took a taxi to the Central Bus Terminal. Several people were waiting around and there were two people from Cunard checking off passengers. There was a bit of a wait before we left and the ride was about 2 1/2 hours. We did have a brief comfort stop and I have to say that the facilities where we stopped didn’t reflect well on German infrastructure. We did, eventually, get to the Columbus terminal in Bremerhaven, where we had to go through assorted checks of our documents (for Americans, this meant passport, boarding pass for the ship, and UK ETA). Then we got on another bus to the ship itself. It turned out that they were supposed to have given me the ship ID card, but had failed to. There were two German men who had the same problem and they made us wait outside in the cold and windy weather before they made new cards and let us on. Apparently the people on the afternoon buses had even worse issues and some of them had to wait as long as three hours before their buses left Hamburg.

Fortunately, the actual voyage went more smoothly for the most part. I had booked an inside stateroom on the grounds that there would be plenty of places other than my cabin to hang out in. That was pretty much true, but I did get in an afternoon nap most days. While I had time for reading and doing puzzles and crocheting, there were enough activities that I didn’t have time for everything I wanted to do. Because I was traveling alone, I made a point of going to many of the twice daily solo travelers’ get-togethers, which were a great way to meet people. In fact, one of the first people I talked with turned out to be someone with whom I have a mutual friend. They have several lectures during the day and I went to some about nuclear energy (e.g. the Manhattan Project), cinema (one on Alfred Hitchcock and Daphne du Maurier and one on Busby Berkeley and Carmen Miranda), a couple of art talks (one on Banksy and one on art as an investment), and (a particular highlight) two by Marcel Theroux (son of travel writer Paul), who talked about making documentaries in Russia and North Korea and about his true crime books. Of course, I played trivia and, in fact, the team I was on for progressive trivia came in second and we won some Cunard-branded tchotchkes. There was also plenty of other entertainment available, especially all sorts of music. For example, I went to the afternoon tea one day, which had a harp player. I also listened to an Irish folk duo a couple of times and to a cocktail pianist who played a lot of show tunes. A couple of people I met sang in the passenger chorus and I went to their concert, too. I didn’t find time to work on the jigsaw puzzles that were set out among the game tables where a few people played board games. I also enjoyed the library which is claimed to be the largest one on any cruise ship.

The food was, in general, reasonably good. There was a wide enough variety to satisfy most tastes. I always ate dinner in the Britannia Restaurant. They had given me open seating, which meant I could show up any time from 6 to 9 p.m. If you want to sit alone, you can, but I always asked to share a table and, except for one night where there 7 people at a table for 12, making it hard to talk to anyone except whoever was right next to you, that worked out well. I met some very interesting people, including one of the lecturers (whose talk on police malfeasance I had missed) and a woman who had worked as a crystallographer. I sometimes ate breakfast or lunch in the restaurant, but more often went either to the Kings Court Buffet or to the Corinthia Lounge, which served “light fare,” e.g. fruit plates and pastries for breakfast or salads for lunch.

I was a little surprised by the demographics, by the way. Yes, there were plenty of older people. In my mid-60’s, I was probably close to the average age. But there also several younger passengers, e.g. a young man who had been studying in London for a couple of years who was returning to New Jersey. The largest number of passengers were (not surprisingly) British, followed by Americans and Germans. On Friday night, they offered a Jewish religious service and the attendees were from several countries, including the Netherlands, Spain, and Canada as well. (By the way, the guy from Germany who volunteered to lead the service had an excellent voice. And Cunard supplied kosher wine, challah, and gefilte fish.)

One other thing I should mention is that I have some friends who told me they would never take a trip on Cunard because they don’t want to dress up. During the day, you can wear pretty much anything. The general dress code for most evenings is “smart attire.” I generally wore one of two dresses I’d brought with me or a nice set of slacks with a twin set, i.e. pretty much what I used to wear to work. There were two gala nights and they tell you the theme long before sailing. I absolutely love getting dressed up, so for the Black and White Gala Night, I wore a full length black dress with an elaborate white neckline. I also had on my grandmother’s amethyst necklace and earrings.

The other gala night’s theme was Masquerade and a bit over half the people wore masks. I opted to wear my longish purple dress and my Mardi Gras themed Lunch at the Ritz earrings.

I got plenty of compliments on both outfits. And I enjoyed seeing what other people were wearing. (There were even a few men in kilts. Drool!)

But there are some people who never dress up and they were free to eat in the pub or the buffet on those evenings.

There was always a show (performed twice to accommodate both early and late diners). My favorite of the performers was a woman named Lorraine Brown who had an amazing voice. For one show, she did a Motown medley and a series of Shirley Bassey songs. Her other show was focused on Dionne Warwick. As far as the other shows, I was disappointed in the Broadway show, which started out fine with songs from West Side Story and South Pacific but ended up with several numbers from jukebox musicals. I don’t go to Broadway-themed shows to hear songs by Carole King, Tina Turner, Abba, and The Temptations. Nice dancing, however.

Overall, I enjoyed the transatlantic crossing much more than I’d expected to. I even got this iconic photo as we approached New York at the end of the trip.

Cunard offered bus service to the airports and to the train stations. I decided that, given my large suitcase, it was worth the 60 bucks to Penn Station (roughly what an Uber would cost) instead of coping with the subway. Marriott status proved useful again as I was able to get early check-in (without a fee) and take a nap. Overall, I would take the QM2 again, though I still prefer small ship expedition cruises.

FRA is probably the European airport I’ve flown into the largest number of times and it remains a particularly annoying one. On this trip, we had approximately an hour wait after arrival before our bags came out. I’d booked a night at the Hilton Garden Inn, which is in Squaire, a development that includes a few other hotels, various places to eat, and some other stuff and, most significantly, is immediately on top of the station for long-distance trains. What it does not have is decent signage. In fact, the signs for the hotel (and all the other airport hotels) actually lead you quite a distance out of the way. When I did, eventually, find the hotel, it was very nice. So all was well.

I had booked a train to Hamburg for the next morning. I had no problem finding the right track, but the train was delayed about half an hour. I was a bit surprised at how many trains were running late. My train got into Hamburg about an hour late. I took a taxi to my hotel and was pleasantly surprised that they decided to give me Platinum benefits even though I only have Marriott Gold status. Mostly, that meant including breakfast. Overall, the Renaissance was a very nice place to stay and quite conveniently located. It was a short walk to several restaurants and shops and, more importantly, to an S-bahn / U-bahn station. I got supper the first evening at a nearby currywurst restaurant that even had a vegetarian option (and bison of all things). As proof that I had not really adjusted to the time zone, I failed to order beer with my meal, opting for soda.

Anyway, one of the major places I intended to see in Hamburg was the Auswanderemuseum BallinStadt (German Emigration Museum), which was a short S-bahn ride away. While many of the exhibits were only in German, I did remember enough of my high school German to get the gist of them. And there was enough English to make a useful supplement. I was particularly interested in the exhibits about Albert Ballin, who founded the Hamburg-America Line (HAPAG, which later merged with Lloyd and is still a major shipping company). The museum is located in what had originally been the Emigration Halls that his ocean liners left from. The museum also includes recordings (available in both German and English) that depict the experiences of emigrants. Unfortunately, one of them repeats the myth of people’s names being changed at Ellis Island, including the notorious “Sean Ferguson” story. (The story is that a Jewish man had his name changed but couldn’t remember what it had been changed to. So, when asked, he said “shayn fergessen” which is Yiddish for “I’ve already forgotten,” and his name became Sean Ferguson. The truth is that the immigration officials at Ellis Island never changed anybody’s names, because they just copied names from the passenger manifests and never took names themselves.) By the way, they also have a few computers set up to access the Hamburg passenger lists, but those just take you to Ancestry, which I can just as easily do at home.

Here’s a mock-up of a ship.

I can’t explain why they made the Statue of Liberty pink.

I went back to the center of Hamburg and went to a store called idee. This is, essentially, the German equivalent of Michael’s. I bought a cake of yarn, figuring it would give me something else to occupy myself on the cruise leg of my ship. And, of course, yarn bought in other countries is souvenir, not stash, so doesn’t count.

Then I walked back to my hotel, passing by the city hall. It still amuses me that the German for that is “rathaus.”

I’d picked up various brochures of things to do and, since I love modern art glass, opted for a trip on the U-bahn to the northern part of the city to go to the Achilles-Stiftung Glass Museum. It was a little confusing to find the entrance to it, largely because one of the signs had an arrow pointing the wrong way, but I found it and it proved to be quite spectacular. Here is a very small sampling of some of the best art glass I’ve seen anywhere.

After that, I attempted to go to the House of Photography (sort of near the central train station) but they were closed to set up for their next exhibit. Instead, I went to one of the modern art museums which had an exhibit called On the Origins of the 21st Century of the Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography. The most interesting thing there was a video called 33 Situations that had to do with sexual abuse of lesbians in the notorious Lubyanka prison (former KGB headquarters) in Moscow.

I only had one more day for sightseeing in Hamburg. I could have gone to the Kunsthalle, which is supposed to be an excellent art museum. Or I could have gone to Miniatur Wunderland, which includes the largest model railway system in the world and is, allegedly, the most popular tourist attraction in Germany. Instead, I chose to go to the Composers Quarter. This consists of a series of connected museums having to do with seven composers who lived or worked in Hamburg. The exhibits are largely in German, but they have booklets with English translation available to borrow. And their headphone system gives you a choice of German or English, as well as a lot of musical samples. Since I like baroque music, I spent a lot of time with Georg Philipp Telemann and almost as much with Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, whose clavier they have (along with videos of it being played).

That didn’t leave me enough time for more than a glimpse at the material on Johann Adolf Hasse, Gustav Mahler, or the Mendelssohns (Fanny and Felix). There was a concert in the Brahms Museum and I listened to part of that, but there was a lot more lecture than actual performance. Overall, I spent roughly 4 1/2 hours there and, frankly, I could have spent twice as long. I recommend it highly to any music lovers who happen to find themselves in Hamburg.

One other thing I should note about Hamburg is that, even though I know better, I kept seeing signs saying “Hamburger” and thinking of the food, rather than the city I was in. I did actually get a burger for dinner my last night anyway.

I’ll write about the final leg of the trip in the next post.

The one flight I paid for with actual money (vs. frequent flyer miles) was from Washington Dulles to San Francisco. Because I had gotten compensation for a couple of flight delays over the summer, this cost me next to nothing. The catch was that the flight was at 6:30 in the morning, which meant taking a Lyft to IAD at oh-dark-thirty. As is all too typical when I have early flights like that, going to bed early didn’t really work and I got much too little sleep.

I first flew into SFO in August 1980, when I moved to the Bay Area to go to grad school at Berkeley. The airport was under construction. It has been under construction for the 45 years since. This time it was a particularly long walk to baggage claim and, from there, to the air train. I had decided that staying at the Grand Hyatt was a good use of Hyatt points and this proved to have been a good decision. They charged me $30 for early check-in, but that was a good deal since I’d gotten a $600 room for free. So, instead of going into the city and going to a museum or the like, I took a nap and spent some time reading and doing puzzles. You can avoid the high prices at the hotel restaurant if you realize that there’s a food court outside of security in the international terminal. I did splurge on breakfast in the morning, however.

The flight from SFO to TPE is nearly 14 hours, so it was a good thing that I’d had enough miles to do it in business class. I decided to splurge on a taxi when I arrived instead of trying to figure out the public transportation. That was a smart decision because, as I learned in the morning, Taipei Main Station is a bit of a maze and, while my hotel was a very short walk from the station, finding the entrance would have been challenging on my own. I stayed for three nights at White Space Design Hotel which was okay, but the room was very small and the bathroom was the sort that floods completely when you take a shower.

As for what to see, I had read the relevant sections of both the Fodor’s and Frommer’s guidebooks. I also found Nick Kembel’s Taiwan Obsessed website to be very helpful.

My first sightseeing excursion was to the National Palace Museum. I’d bought a three day pass for the transit system, which was convenient, but not really a great deal. Getting to the museum was easy enough (via metro and bus). The museum itself was completely overwhelming. I’m a big fan of calligraphy and manuscripts, so spent a lot of time looking at their book and scroll collection. Most of the displays had to do with books from the Song dynasty (roughly 1100’s through 1200’s) so I kept making mental jokes about there being a lot of songbooks.

I also looked at other things, e.g. clay and jade and bronze. I particularly liked several of the jade pieces.

I spent several hours at the museum (with a break to have lunch in their cafe) and found it completely overwhelming. I’d have liked to see their textile collection (which is in another building) but, at that point, I didn’t think I could absorb anything else.

I started Sunday morning with the Flower and Jade Markets, which are near Daan Park, which was a pleasant place to walk around. The jade market didn’t really engage me, alas. But the flower market was overwhelming and was one of the highlights of my time in Taipei.

There were several things I was interested in doing, but I decided it was important to take advantage of the weather being clear, as rain was predicted for the rest of my time there. That made it a good afternoon to go to Taipei 101, which had once been the tallest building in the world. There’s a huge food court there, which is a good (albeit crowded) place to get lunch. There’s also an upscale shopping mall. But the real reason to go there is to go up to the observation deck. I chose to go to the 89th floor enclosed area, instead of paying a lot more to go to the outdoor skydeck on the 101st floor. You get views over the whole area, including both the city, with a lot of tall modern building, and the surrounding mountains. By the way, you can also go down to the 88th floor and see the large damper that protects the building from earthquakes.

Overall, the experience is quite similar to the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which is what is currently the tallest building in the world.

The other site in Taipei that I considered essential was the Chiang-Kai Shek Memorial Hall. Fortunately, that is one of the few things in Taipei that is open on Mondays. It is also free to visit. It was a rainy day, which was annoying, particularly because it meant they weren’t doing the famous changing of the guard. But there was still plenty to see.

Note that you can enter at one of the sides and take the elevator up, instead of climbing all of those stairs. The main thing to see inside is the bronze statue of Chiang Kai-Shek on the 4th floor.

There are also several exhibit halls with various art exhibitions. The parks surrounding the monument are lovely and, had it not been windy and rainy, I could have spent much of the day walking around them. Instead, I took the metro to some outlying areas, where I walked around a couple of malls without finding anything (other than a late lunch) that I wanted to buy.

Eventually, I went back to Taipei Main, walked back to the hotel, and retrieved my bag, before taking the commuter train to the Airport MRT Station in Taiyuan, which was a short walk through the Gloria Outlets to Hotel Cozzi Blu, where I’d spend that night and the next. This was a much fancier (and, hence, pricier) hotel, but the price was still fairly reasonable. The room I got was huge and the bathroom was equipped with a Japanese washlet toilet (as well as a shower that drained in the actual shower enclosure, rather than the middle of the floor.) They also provide free snacks, e.g. a packet of potato chips and a small can of coke.

The main reason for staying there is that it’s right next to XPark, which is the aquarium that had triggered this part of the trip. It was also conveniently close to the airport for my early flight on Wednesday.

Xpark did prove to be worth going to, especially if you like jellyfish. (And, yes, I know you are supposed to call them jellies, but old habits die hard.)

They do have a fairly wide assortment of other things, e.g. fish of all sizes (including sharks and rays, but none of my beloved sea dragons). They put the penguins near their cafe, with a tunnel for them to walk over the cafe, which is pretty cute. They also have an outdoor area (with umbrellas to borrow, if you didn’t have your own), but the weather was pretty unpleasant.

My intention had been to use a couple of hours that afternoon to shop. There was, however, a catch. The typhoon that had done some serious damage to the Phillippines was heading towards Taiwan which was why there was so much heavy rain. The city of Taoyuan had pretty much shut down, so both the Gloria Outlets and the nearby Landmark Plaza Mall were closed. There was allegedly a yarn store a short walk away, but it was closed. I retreated to my hotel room to do puzzles and read instead. I was also concerned about my flight the next day. So it was not exactly the best travel day ever. However, the nearby convenience store was open and provided food for supper. (Convenience stores in most Asian countries are, in general, far superior to any American 7-11 or, even, Wawa.)

In the end, my flight did go out in the morning. It was, however, a little over an hour late. Since I had only a two hour layover at BKK, I was concerned about my connection. You can only imagine my relief when I got off the plane and there was a woman standing there with a sign with my connecting flight info and my name. Yes, Thai Air had sent an escort to get me to the flight to Frankfurt. It was a long walk - and a bit confusing since it was going out from the satellite terminal. I got to the gate about 15 minutes before boarding started and collapsed for the next 11 1/2 hours. I’ll pick up the story in the next post.

I did promise to write about the around the world trip that I took in November, so let’s start with the planning. I know a lot of people who say they like to travel but hate planning. I’m not one of those people. I love planning travel. I’m generally happy to offer travel advice to other people, but planning my own trips is one of my favorite things.

The real genesis of this trip was in May 2024, when I was in Lisbon before the Travelers’ Century Club conference in the Azores. I did a hop-on hop-off bus tour and went to the Lisbon Oceanarium, which is one of the largest aquariums in Europe. That got me wondering where the largest ones are. One of which is the National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium in Hengchun, Taiwan.

When I was planning this trip, I did a bit more research and one site recommended Xpark, which is near the Taipei Airport instead. It was much easier to get to and there were other major sites to see in Taipei, so I decided that would be a good choice.

But the real reason for the trip was that back in 2000 I had taken a trip in which I circumnavigated the world going eastward. My route was Los Angeles to St. Petersburg, Russia (via Frankfurt, Germany), a train to Moscow where I joined a tour to Tuva, Siberia, and Mongolia, which ended with a flight to Beijing before flying home to Los Angeles.

Because I am slightly crazy, I decided that I should also circumnavigate the world going westward. I’m not sure where I saw an ad for a transatlantic crossing on the Queen Mary 2 from Hamburg, Germany to New York. The dates worked for me and the price was reasonable. I was also able to use frequent flyer miles for the international flights. That resulted in not quite enough days in either Taiwan or Hamburg, but so it goes. I’ll write about each leg in the next few posts.

I started writing this before I left on my trip. I suspect I have more things that I intended to include, but I have no idea where they are. I did add a couple of recent items at the end.

I clip interesting things from magazines planning to comment on them later on. Here is an attempt to catch up on them a little bit.

From MIT Spectrum - Spring 2024: This was from an article about the problem of sustainability in the textile industry. There was the astonishing (to me, at least) information that the textile manufacturing industry produces more carbon dioxide equivalent per year than the aviation and maritime industries combined. The other astonishing tidbit was that “the average garment is worn just seven times before it ends up in a landfill.” I, for one, have been known to wear the same garment seven times in the same month. And don’t get me started on how old some of my clothing is. The other day, I was wearing a shirt that I know I bought in 1998. It is getting a bit raggedy at the cuffs, but it’s still usable for travel.

From Technology Review Reader Mailbag: I am not sure what issue this was from. Someone sent in a question asking if it’s true that if everybody just avoided words like “please,” “hello,” and so on when querying AI models, we could save a considerable amount of energy. The response from a climate reporter who had coauthored a story about the energy consumption of large language models said that, essentially, it’s more important for companies to disclose how much energy AI uses “rather than telling us we should be rude to robots.” Personally. I enjoy being rude to robots. Fuck off, ChatGPT!

In Her Footsteps: I didn’t note which issue of MIT Alumni News had this blurb from the class of 1987. The Association of MIT Alumnae (AMITA) created a series of walking tours called In Her Footsteps. Each tour has 9 or 10 stops relating in some way to MIT women’s history. You can find an example on the website of the clio.com. The clio.com site looks like it has a lot of interesting tours and it would be worth some time exploring it.

By the way, when I was looking up an article about this, I ran across the statement that today “43% of MIT first year students identify as women, 44% as men.” That implies that 13% identify as something else (or, presumably, no gender) which is higher than I would have guessed. I usually see figures under 5%. Those are suspect since they come from studies by sources known to be biased, but I haven’t seen estimates higher than 10% before.

Pneumatic Tubes: An article in the July / August 2024 issue of Technology Review discussed the return of pneumatic tube systems. They are particularly common in hospitals, used for transporting samples and medications. But they are also used in factories and warehouses. There are also a handful of places that use pneumatic tubes for garbage disposal, including Roosevelt Island in New York City and Stockholm. I would never have guessed this.

Mennonites: The most recent issue of MIT Alumni News had a story about Madonna Yoder ’17 who is an origami artist, specializing in tessellations. The part of this that intrigued me is that she grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia “where professors from Virginia Tech filled the pews of her Mennonite church.” I don’t know about you, but my mental image of Mennonites is as farmers, not as college professors and certainly not at a well-respected engineering school. Not only did she go to MIT (where she got a degree in Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences), but her brother got a Ph.D. in materials engineering at Virginia Tech.

The Moon: That same recent issue of MIT Alumni News (November / December 2025) had a note from a member of the class of 1976 who wrote “But what I share with my cohort is that any of us, celebrated and unsung alike, can sit with a child and look up at the brilliant full moon together and tell them, ‘Yes, it’s lovely, but you should have seen it before it was walked on.’” I literally laughed out loud at that.

The bad news is that I have a ton of catching up to do.

The good news is that I've signed up for Holidailies, so intend to post daily from December 1st through January 2nd.

It's traditional to start Holidailies with an intro, so here's one.

I'm Miriam. I starting writing an on-line journal around 1996 with Areas of Unrest and moved on to Livejournal and Dreamwidth later on. Back in those early days, I lived in Los Angeles. I moved to Northern Virginia in 2002 and still live in that area. I am vaguely thinking about retirement communities. (I've been retired for a little over 5 years now, after 35 years in the space industry.)

My great passion is travel. Depending on what you count as a country, I've been to between 93 and 125 countries and territories. I have not ignored my home country either and have been to all 50 U.S. states (plus Puerto Rico and the U.S.. Virgin Islands). And I've been to at least 18 of the 63 National Parks. (There are a couple I'm not sure about.)

Other things I do include:

crafting (mostly knitting, crochet, and various types of embroidery, but I've also done nalbinding, bobbin lace. And I do paper crafts like bookbinding and surface design, too.)
storytelling
genealogy
puzzles and trivia and board games

I read a lot and go to the theatre. I am an unrepentant coffee snob. I love baseball and my favorite teams are the Boston Red Sox and whoever is playing against the Yankees, who I usually refer to as the Source of All Evil in the Universe.

Most of this journal is public. I do lock some entries involving my family, health, neighbors, and almost everything about the person I refer to as the Gentleman With Whom I am Conducting the World's Longest Running Brief Meaningless Fling.

And, since this is holidailies, I am Jewish. Acceptable spellings for an upcoming holiday are Chanukah and Januka (in Spanish). Hanukkah is an abomination. Also, my family always ate our potato latkes with sugar, not applesauce or sour cream.

I got home from my round the world trip on Thursday. Aside from eating the most pathetic Thanksgiving dinner ever (a bowl of Count Chocula cereal), my time has been filled with a few errands.

I hope to write a real entry here in the next couple of days.

In the course of some living room archaeology, I found what I hope was the last of a bunch of notebooks I’d used during my working years and shredded all of the pages of it. But I did want to make a note of a few things from it. (Last in terms of finding it, not last chronologically, by the way.)

First, there is this picture. It captures a couple of types of my usual doodles. I never understood how people could sit in a meeting and not have a writing implement in constant motion. I did sometimes take copious notes, but there were plenty of margins - and, sometimes, complete pages - filled with either branching lines or what amount to glorified stick figures. My other common doodles involved elaborate interlocking boxes.

I also captured a few quotes:

"We are out of money, so now we must think." - Winston Churchill

I won’t identify the sources for these three, because the names won’t mean anything to you and might embarrass the people involved.

"You’re in the business of creating lies we believe."

"When you talk money, I’m awake."

"I would say I’m a theoretician, but really I’m just inept."

The last one is right up there with the most self-aware thing I ever heard anyone say. To wit, "I know I’m right, but nobody will listen to me because I’m a jerk."

Finally, my boss used to ask me to cover his boss’s staff meetings sometimes. This was over the phone since those meetings were in Los Angeles, while I was in the D.C. area. People were not always good about identifying themselves and I didn’t recognize all of the voices. Which led to my writing notes that say things like "an unknown Asian woman said something went well over the weekend." Somehow, I doubt that my boss found that particularly useful information.

Oh, yes, I love being retired.

Scraps of Paper: I have a bad habit of scribbling mysterious notes to myself on any handy piece of paper. This is, in general, evidence of why I got C’s in penmanship in elementary school. Here are a couple of things I managed to decipher.

“Art mirrors the audience, not the teller.” The context is obviously storytelling, but I have no idea who said this and/or who they were quoting. I do, however, think it’s an accurate statement.

I think this is something that got mentioned during High Holiday services. Kafka wrote a story about a leopard that entered a synagogue and roared before leaving town. Three weeks later, the leopard’s roar had become part of the liturgy.

Celebrity Death Watch: Note that I am trying not to fall behind because I am going on vacation soon and would rather have less to catch up on.

Samantha Eggar was an actress who appeared in such movies as Doctor Doolittle, as well as several horror movies. Yang Chen-Ning was a Nobel Prize winning theoretical physicist. Sam Rivers was the bassist for Limp Bizkit. Anthony Jackson is credited with the development of the modern six-string bass. Jackie Ferrara was a sculptor. Sirikit was the queen consort of Thailand from 1950 to 2016. J. William Middendorf was the Secretary of the Navy in the mid-1970’s. Hamilton Smith won a Nobel Pize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on restriction enzymes. Prunella Scales was an actress, best known for playing Sybil in Fawlty Towers. Alison Knowles was an artist whose work defies my descriptive abilities.

Susan Stamberg was an NPR journalist. She co-hosted All Things Considered for 14 years. She also hosted Weekend Edition Sunday from 1987 to 1989, introducing the Sunday puzzle and bringing the Car Talk hosts to the attention of all. She was considered one of the founding mothers of National Public Radio and interviewed too many prominent people for me to attempt to list them.

June Lockhart was an actress, best known for playing TV mothers, in Lassie and Lost in Space. She was on my ghoul pool list and earned me 4 points.

Things I’ve Been Doing - Medical: I finally got in to see my dentist, which I’d been postponing mostly because my schedule has been chaotic. They’ve gotten a new sort of x-ray machine which is much quicker. I also got around to getting my flu shot and this year’s COVID vaccine. My arm was particularly sore this time around. It also probably didn’t help that I was sleep deprived because I’d been woken up at 2 a.m. by a helicopter circling over I-66.

Things I’ve Been Doing - Travel Related:I went to a Travelers’ Century Club luncheon. One person had a horrific story about breaking his hip on a trip to Surinam and having to be evacuated by canoe. There was also a guest speaker who gave an interesting presentation on travel medicine.

I’ve finally gotten all my travel arrangements set up for my upcoming vacation. I do still have a couple of chores related to that to get through. Plus, of course, little details like packing.

I’ve also got three other trips to make arrangements for.

Storytelling: The Washington Folk Festival went well, though the storytelling tent was a bit closer to one of the music tents than I would have preferred. At least the morris dancers weren’t right next to us. (They’re cute, but they’re noisy.)

I also had time to look at some of the art exhibits in another of the pavilions.

My set was titled Spare Change and consisted of stories about transformation. I explained that characters in folk tales are always turning into something and that, on my way to the festival, I had turned into a parking lot. The stories I told included an Albanian story that has the particularly charming detail of the main character being forced to collect back taxes from the snakes in a church, a Mongolian story about a camel, The Neglected Princess (an original story, which started out when I was reading about the decline in frog populations in an article in Smithsonian Magazine), and The Princess Who Turned Into a Flower Pot, which I’d learned years ago from a friend and had told at my brother’s wedding to his first wife. I thought it went very well. And I also enjoyed listening to stories by several other tellers.

I made it to the Scary Stories swap at Quince Orchard Library the other night. The drive up was mildly annoying, since there is always roadwork on the inner loop of the beltway. The really horrible drive was going home, because the state of Maryland decided it made sense to close 3 out of 4 lanes of the outer loop of the beltway for roadwork. Not that there was any actual evidence of anybody doing any roadwork. I find it mildly terrifying to be driving my little car with so many huge trucks surrounding me, knowing that if there were an accident involving one of them I would almost certainly not survive it. Fortunately nothing happened beyond it taking me two hours for what should be a 45 minute drive. At any rate, there was a good mix of stories. I told “Ida Black,” which has to do with a woman getting revenge on the man who had her hanged for witchcraft. Some other highlights included Jennifer’s rendition of “Mr. Fox” and a story about an adoptive mother confronted with a vampire baby.

By the way, somewhat related to “Mr. Fox,” our Brothers Grimm discussion group talked about The Murder Castle, which is a rather unsatisfying version of the same theme, with the added detail of a female assistant and the confusion about whose two sisters had previously been murdered (the assistant’s or the would-be victims.) It’s no wonder that story didn’t make it into later versions.

Voting: I did early voting a week ago. The really challenging decision this time was what to do about the Virginia Attorney General race. The Democratic candidate (Jay Jones) said terrible things that can be interpreted as advocating for political violence. But the Republican party is, in general, behaving in repugnant ways. Jason Miyares is anti-abortion and pro-death penalty and opposes gender-affirming care. I considered abstaining but held my nose and voted for Jones. I was much more enthusiastic about the gubernatorial race because I think Abigail Spanberger is an excellent candidate. I’m also a big fan of my delegate (Holly Siebold), who is running for reelection.

Loser Brunch: I drove to Frederick, Maryland for a Loser Brunch at The Wine Kitchen this past Sunday. The drive up wasn’t too bad so I got there early enough to have a look around a craft market along Carroll Creek. I couldn’t resist temptation when I saw Blind Date With a Book. The idea is that the books are wrapped up, so you don’t know what book you’re buying, but they tell you what genre it is, as well as what year and what its rating is on goodreads. Kathleen took a picture of me holding up my purchase.

As for its contents, the book proved to be The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman, which I had read recently but didn’t actually own. It also came with an eye mask, a tea bag, 2 bookmarks and 3 stickers. Such a charming purchase!

Re: the actual brunch, the potato and mushroom hash I got was pretty good. (I went with the vegan option because I don’t like fried eggs.) The coffee, however, was excellent. It is apparently from Dublin Roasters, which is local to Frederick. But the real point of these things is the company, not the food, and, while there were only six of us, the conversation was lively. Overall, it made for a nice morning / early afternoon.

Usually I wait until at least the end of the month to do these, but this happens to be convenient for me to do right now, while I try to find all the various scraps of paper listing other things I want to write about.

1. What was your favourite subject in high school? In general, I liked my science classes, particularly chemistry. I also really liked the Great Books class I took one semester senior year.

2. Name three people whose lives have been improved by knowing you, and explain why. Cindy, because I listen to her complaints about work and help her plan travel. Kim, because I’m supportive when she’s depressed and I come up with interesting things for us to do. The Gentleman with Whom I am Conducting the World’s Longest Running Brief Meaningless Fling for somewhat obvious reasons.

3. What profession would you have chosen, if not your current one? Maybe a bookseller.

4. How do you react when you realize you've made a mistake? Mistake? What’s that? Seriously, my first instinct is denial, but then I try to figure out how I can fix things.

5. Describe your favorite sound. Waves crashing against a beach, especially on a stormy day.

6. Imagine you are attending your dream concert—what songs would you want to be played? What does the stage look like? I rarely attend concerts that have more than one performer. I would love to see Jonathan Richman again and I wish he would perform both “Give Paris One More Chance” and “Here Come the Martian Martians,” neither of which I’ve seen him do live. Beyond that, I’ve never seen Luka Bloom live and would like to. And it’s been years since I’ve seen Eric Bogle, but I don’t think he's touring any more.

7. Where are you from? I grew up in a ridiculously small town on (well, off the south shore of) Long Island.

8. If there was one person who you had the power of giving immortality to, who would it be and why? I have read enough fantasy to believe that immortality is not a gift, since it doesn’t guarantee eternal health. And one would invariably outlive the people one loved the most.

9. What is your favorite game? Why? Well, the game I play most often (with two different groups of friends) is Code Names. But, if I had to choose one game, it would probably be backgammon. I used to play it all the time, both with a couple of different friends and with my mother (who I taught to play).

10. What is your all-time favorite sports team? First is the Red Sox and second is whoever is playing against the Yankees, aka the Source of All Evil in the Universe.

11. What is a smell that you remember from growing up? The smell of the ocean. I also really love the smells of a couple of flowers - honeysuckle (though it can get overwhelming) and lily of the valley.

12. What is the best decision you have ever made in your life? Probably going to MIT. It opened up a lot of doors to me. And the great thing about MIT is that people there tend to be very devoted to whatever they are passionate about, which is not necessarily their studies.

13. What is something you are optimistic about? It’s rather hard to be optimistic given the politics of our times, but I like to think we’ll get past the more ridiculous aspects of the current world situation and regain the rule of law.

14. What would you say is the biggest accomplishment in your life so far? I had a successful career and am in a good financial situation in retirement. That has enabled me to see much of how magnificent our world is.

15. When was the last time you failed at something? I’ve continually failed to achieve total world domination, but I’d settle for having a clean and organized home.

16. Which wild animal would you adopt as a pet and why? I wouldn’t adopt any wild animal as a pet. Wild animals need to be in their proper environments and suburban America wouldn’t cut it as ideal for any of them.

17. When was the last time you tried something new? I think the paper conservation class I went to in Greece in June counts.

18. What is your favorite room in your home and why? Probably my bedroom, which is usually the least chaotic part of my house.

19. If TV and the internet didn’t exist, what would you do with your time? I’d spend a lot of time reading and listening to music and, hopefully, also making music.

20. What are some major inventions that happened during your lifetime? I am old enough that there are lots of things that didn’t exist in my youth. The most obvious is personal computing and, especially, cell phones.

21. What have you done that was "out of character.” I was almost 40 before I ever slept a night in a tent. With is something I discovered that I really enjoy doing.

22. Name four items that can always be found in your refrigerator. The things I always have in my refrigerator are mostly condiments, e.g. mustard, sriracha, and orange marmalade. There’s pretty much always packets of yeast. There’s also probably things like butter, sour cream, and some sort of fruit, often oranges and/or apples.

23. Do you have any fantasies of living in the jungle? Only for brief periods of time. The jungle tends to be hot and humid and have scary insects.

24. What is on your mind right now, and will it affect your sleep? I’m trying to get some travel plans finalized. I doubt that will affect my sleep.

25. What childhood character traits did you have to let go of but wish you didn’t? What can you do to adopt these traits again? I can’t really think of anything. I think I’m a better person than I was as a child.

26. Do you prefer character-driven or plot-driven novels? Why? I definitely prefer plot-driven novels. If nothing happens and it’s just people talking to one another, it’s hard to keep my attention.

27. What is your favorite type of weather and why? I like dry and crisp air, with temperatures in the mid to upper 60’s Fahrenheit and slightly cloudy skies (to avoid glare). That way I’m comfortable and, as long as it’s dry out, my hair won’t be entering the room an hour before the rest of me.

28. How are you going to entertain yourself when you’re retired? If you are retired already, are you spending your time the way you envisioned it? I think I’m spending my retirement more or less the way I thought I would. The first thing I did after I retired was the Smithsonian Certificate Program in World Art History. I try to go to a fair number of educational events. And, of course, I travel a lot, though there are always more places I want to go.

29. What conspiracy theory do you believe is true? I don’t believe any of them are true.

30. Which person would you like to see more often than you do now? The gentleman with whom I am conducting the world’s longest running brief meaningless fling, of course.

31. What qualities do you judge harshly in others, and how might they reflect parts of yourself? The things I look on harshly in other people are definitely traits that I feel bad about myself for. Those include being disorganized and lazy and being judgemental.

I got back from LoserFest on Sunday afternoon and on Tuesday afternoon I was off to New York for a few days. The official reason for my trip was the premiere of a Yiddish opera. But, me being me, I also had to throw in three musicals and a museum excursion.

When I got to New York, I walked over to my hotel. I had planned to go down to Little Italy for the San Gennaro festival. But it was drizzly and I was tired and, as much as I have fond memories of eating zeppoli at the Feast in my home town, I just wasn’t really in the mood for greasy overpriced food. I did stick to the Italian theme and got cheap pizza. For what it’s worth, $1 Pizza now costs $1.50 a slice, but they haven’t changed the name. (It does also cost extra to add toppings. I like my pizza with mushrooms and black olives, by the way.) It was perfectly adequate and filling, allowing me to collapse happily with a book.

On Wednesday, I had plans for seeing two Broadway shows. I didn’t really do anything touristy in the morning because I had a bit of storytelling business to attend to and I wanted to get further on with a book club book I was in the middle of. After getting a smoothie for lunch, I went to the first of the two shows I had tickets for - the matinee performance of Maybe Happy Ending. For those who are unfamiliar with the story, the premise sounds really strange. Two decommissioned helperbots (i.e. robots that act as domestic companions to people) live across the hall from each other in a complex for retired helperbots. Claire’s charger fails, leading her to beg to borrow Oliver’s charger. This eventually leads them to a relationship. Oliver believes that his former owner, James, will come for him some day, but when Claire expresses a desire to go to Jeju Island (where James now lives) to see the fireflies there, Oliver joins her on a road trip. I thought the show was really sweet and I liked the jazz music used throughout it. I also thought the issues it raised about whether robots can feel the same emotions as humans and the ethics of robot to human relationships were handled well. Overall, this is a clever and original musical and well worth seeing. As an aside, the bio of HwaBoon in the “who’s who in the cast” section of the program is almost certainly the best cast bio I have ever read in a theatre program. Highly recommended.

My evening theatre excursion was Heathers the Musical. I liked the movie it was based on and I have nothing against dark and violent musicals. Unfortunately this show has a fan base of shrieking teenagers who were never taught proper audience behavior. The constant screaming at any mildly amusing line and loud stomping of feet really detracted from the show. That’s a pity because there is some good material and some fine performances. In particular, Erin Morton was excellent as Martha. File this under shows I won’t go to see again, along with Wicked and Six for similar reasons.

I had a bit of shopping I wanted to do on Thursday during the day. An excursion to a dance wear store didn’t yield a brown unitard, but did yield a long-sleeved white leotard that can be died to the correct color for my costuming purposes. And I have a reliable source of tights in pretty much any color I might want. I still need a bunny tail and ears and an apron which I can cross-stitch. But I have a few months before I need this to be done. I could have bought the ears at a costume store one of my friends had mentioned, but the store was more crowded than I wanted to deal with.

I should also note that I’d never noticed the upside-down A in the Herald Square signs before. One of my Facebook friends solved the mystery. That A represents the shape of Herald Square which is really more of a triangle with extended legs.

Anyway, the actual purpose of the trip had been to see the opera The Great Dictionary of the Yiddish Language at YIVO. I had enough time to check out a few exhibits, including one about people who rescued Yiddish books in Vilna (Vilnius, Lithuania) during World War II and one on Jewish artists in Lithuania. The latter, alas, failed to mention any of my artistic cousins. As for the opera, it’s based on the true story of Yudel Mark’s attempt to write a complete dictionary of the Yiddish language, despite the insistence of Max Weinreich that it wasn’t essential to capture every Yiddish word. The conflict between the two men was interesting and provided some opportunity for comedy. I didn’t find the music particularly memorable, but the performances were good and I was glad I’d had the opportunity to see it.

By the way, on the way back to my hotel, I stopped at Aubi & Ramsa, which specializes in liquor-infused ice cream. I got the Old Fashioned, made with Woodford Reserve bourbon and Cointreau. It was very tasty and the place gives new meaning to the term “ice cream bar.”

I’d decided I should use Friday to go to a museum I’d never been to before. Several of my friends were enthusing over the recently renovated Frick Collection. The only place you can take pictures inside it is the courtyard.

For the most part, I found the decorative arts, e.g. the wallpaper and ceilings, to be more impressive than the actual art collection. But I generally prefer modern art to old masters. I will say that they have a nice app that lets you look up info on the endless array of portraits of rich people, shepherdesses, and/or rich women dressed up as shepherdesses. (The biblical scenes are a bit better or, at least, less fluffy.) I’m glad I went to see it, but there are other museums in New York which I prefer. I will also note that their cafe is one of the few places remaining anywhere that serves a Caesar salad with actual anchovies on it.

I decided to spend some time in the afternoon strolling around Central Park. Back in high school, I went to a Saturday science program at Columbia University, which is where I met my 10th grade boyfriend. We had classes in the morning and periodic afternoon special lectures. On the Saturday afternoons when we didn’t have a lecture, he and I would often go to Central Park. My funniest memory of that was that we had an obligatory stop at a store that sold telephones, which he collected. Even 50ish years later, that’s still my major mental association with Central Park. That store is, of course, long gone. So I settled for looking at people playing with remote controlled yachts on the lake and listening to various street musicians. I also had to take a photo of the Alice in Wonderland statue.

I had bought a ticket to see the musical This Is Not a Drill at York Theatre on Friday evening. I realized that the Upper East Side branch of Pastrami Queen is just a few blocks from there, so I decided to fulfill my periodic need for Jewish deli food. I got my standard order - a tongue sandwich, pickles, kasha knish, and Doctor Brown’s diet cream soda. It was delicious.

By the way, I posted that photo to the Save the Deli Facebook group and got over 300 likes for it! Plus, of course (and alas), people telling me I was doing it wrong because the rye bread is unseeded and I prefer tongue to pastrami and I like cream soda, not cel-ray. But most of the comments were positive.

As for This Is Not a Drill, the premise is that a group of people are at a resort in Hawaii when there’s an announcement over the radio about a North Korean ballistic missile alert. This is based on an actual event in 2018, by the way. Since this is musical theatre, all of the people at the resort have relationship issues, which they resolve in song during the 38 minutes between the announcement and the revelation that yes, actually, it was a drill. I liked a lot of the music and the performers were good. But I thought the story was rather thin and predictable.

I took a train home early on Saturday. I ended up calling into my travel book club from the food court at Union Station shortly after I got to D.C., then took the metro home. I finished off my theatre binging on Sunday with Damn Yankees at Arena Stage, but I already wrote about that. (Short version: it’s wonderful and you should go see it if you’re local-ish.)

The first of the two trips I took in September was to South Carolina for LoserFest Grand Strand. For those who are unfamiliar with the Loser community, it’s essentially people who are involved with what used to be the Washington Post Style Invitational, which now has its afterlife via Gene Weingarten’s substack page, as well as a couple of related Facebook groups. There’s a lot more information on The Not Ready for the Algonquin Roundtable Society website. There are a number of Loser social events, with brunches roughly monthly and a couple of big parties a year (a post-holiday party around January and the Flushies award ceremony around June). Every year or two, a group of Losers get together to go somewhere for what is called LoserFest. I first went to one in Pittsburgh and have since been to Frederick (Maryland), Niagara Falls, and Philadelphia. My schedule worked out to enable me to go to this year’s LoserFest in the Myrtle Beach, South Carolina area.

Why there? Well, a long time Loser, Kathleen, moved to Surfside Beach a while back and lobbied for it. The primary organizer (known as the LoserFest pope), Kyle, published a “Fungenda,” and people signed up for which events they wanted to go to, including various meals and sightseeing events. He’s very good at finding things to do and I also appreciate that everything is optional.

Anyway, I flew down on Wednesday, early in the afternoon. It was easy to pick up my rental car and a short drive to my hotel, though it was a bit challenging to actually find the front desk since my GPS had outdated directions. (I’d gotten a good deal at the Grand Palms Resort, where am entire 2 bedroom villa cost slightly less than a room at the Holiday Inn.) I had time to settle in and take a short nap before going to Kathleen’s house for an informal dinner. She’s got a lovely little place, with a plant-filled backyard. There were probably a dozen or so of us there and we had the usual lively conversation, while nibbling on various goodies.

We had originally been scheduled to do a dolphin watching cruise on Friday morning, but the weather forecast was unfavorable so it got switched to Thursday morning. We had an excellent breakfast beforehand at the Golden Egg before driving to the Crazy Sister Marina, where we boarded a RIB (rigid inflatable boat). We saw a lot of dolphins, including some leaping right in front of us. Alas, I failed at dolphin photography, which is not surprising since every time I’ve been whale watching I’ve mostly gotten pictures of where whales were. It was really awesome watching them and an excellent start to the day.

Then we drove north to Myrtle Beach, where we had lunch at Margaritaville. That was followed by the Myrtle Beach Pinball Museum, which was fun, even though pretty much all the pinball machines were after my time. I thought the Munsters themed one was the most interesting machine, but most of them were fun.

From there, we went to Ripley’s Aquarium. This was a bit pricy for its small size, but they did have some interesting exhibits, starting with African penguins.

There were plenty of assorted fish, including at least one robotic one. There were also a lot of jellyfish. And sharks. They didn’t have any leafy sea dragons (my favorites at any aquarium that has them), but they did have weedy sea dragons.

And there was an axolotl, a creature I’ve been mildly obsessed with since I learned about it via a crossword puzzle.

That, of course, had me singing The Axolotl Song for days.

We finished the day with dinner at 42nd Street Bar and Grill. The food was good, but rather pricy.

On Friday, we started the day with breakfast at Blue Sky Restaurant. I suggested the Myrtle Beach Art Museum as a substitute for the dolphin cruise which had gotten shifted to Thursday. The museum proved to be small, but very good. There were two exhibits. The upstairs gallery had enhanced cyanotypes by Cora Ennis Morris.

The downstairs gallery was more to my taste, with an exhibition of winners of the Artfields competition. This piece by Brent Afford is titled Remember This as a Time of Day and pays homage to cast iron skillets.

The intriguing thing about this portrait by Stefanie Glen is that it was drawn in one continuous line.

I think most of us really liked Consume by Mike + Patz Fowle.

My very favorite piece was Mexicans in Canada, by Amira Hanafi. This is an interactive exhibit, which you can stop by touching the television screen. You can also start and stop the on-line version to see how clever it is.

We drove up to Brookgreen Gardens, a former rice plantation, where we started with a lovely lunch at the Austin Harvest Restaurant. After eating, we had a docent tour. Unfortunately, the docent started out by standing in one place and talking for over 20 minutes. We assumed he’d seen all the grey hair in front of him and thought we wouldn’t want to walk. But, actually, standing in one place is harder on most of us than walking.

It wouldn’t be South Carolina without a live oak allee and Spanish moss.

The main thing to see is the collection of American figurative sculpture, which is huge and impressive.

Our next stop was at Atalaya Castle. It would have been helpful if the directions had mentioned that the actual entrance is marked as Huntington Beach State Park, instead of claiming that it was “just across the street” from Brookgreen Gardens. The only sign that actually says “Atalaya Castle” is some ways down the state park road.

The castle was built as the winter home of philanthropist Archer Milton Huntington and his wife, sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington. Frankly, I wasn’t particularly impressed with it. Apparently, they kept bears, horses, monkey, and a leopard in enclosures within the castle, which might have made it more interesting.

I was feeling rather grumpy. And the Red Sox were playing the Source of All Evil in the Universe, so I decided to skip out on dinner at the Gulfstream Cafe in favor of takeout food and watching the ballgame. Which, alas, my Bosox lost.

We had breakfast on Saturday at Johnny D’s Waffles, which had the advantage of being particularly close to my hotel. Then we went back to Brookgreen Gardens, where we did the Creek Excursion. This is a lovely and peaceful boat trip along the creeks of the property.

After that, some of the group went to the zoo, but I’m a lions and tigers and bears (oh, my!) kind of gal and don’t feel the need to look at non-predators. The plan to have lunch at a barbecue restaurant followed by miniature golf and shopping for tacky souvenirs also failed to do anything for me. But Brookgreen had a Gullah Geechee Junkanoo Festival going on and music and dance and, especially, storytelling are very much my sort of thing. So I listened to a singer and a storyteller who had an Anansi story. Then I checked out the art exhibit and sampled jollof rice and delicious pound cake. There are also several recordings which you can listen to which feature local people of Gullah descent talking about their lives.

I finished the day by strolling around more of the gardens and looking at more sculptures. Here’s an interesting one relating to the Pledge of Allegiance.

There was a brief downpour, which started ironically just as I reached Rainey Plaza. I took refuge in the gift shop, but didn’t see anything I wanted. I drove back to my hotel and rested for a while before heading back down o Murrell’s Inlet for dinner at Dead Dog Saloon. We were rather crowded together and the food was just okay, but the atmosphere was fun, with lots of 1970’s music.

My travel home the next day went smoothly.
All in all, it was a fun trip with a lot of interesting activities and, more importantly, fun people (which is really the point of it) and I look forward to the next LoserFest. (I’ve been lobbying for New Orleans, by the way.)

Birthday:Moving on to what I did in September and so far in October. First of all was my birthday. I’m now 67.

A Few Things I Did in September: I took two trips which will get their own blog posts. Alas, my needlework group conflicted with one of those trips and with Yom Kippur, so I only made it to one meeting. I saw the movie Guns and Moses (which I already wrote about in my quarterly update on books, movies, and goals) at Tyson’s Corner and browsed an Indian clothing store while I was there.

Dinner With Friends: I went to dinner with friends from Flyertalk at the end of the month. Note to self: the pizza at Fireworks in Clarendon is better than their other menu offerings. The fish sandwich was okay, but fish sandwiches should really come with cole slaw, not potato chips.

High Holidays: I went to High Holiday on-line services at Fabrengen, mostly to save the hassle of dealing with things in the city. I generally try to find some interesting take away every year, particularly for Yom Kippur. This year, my takeaway was this quote from Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel at the August 1969 Liturgical Conference in Milwaukee, which was in a footnote in the machzor (prayer book):

Prayer is meaningless unless it is subversive, unless it seeks to overthrow and to ruin the pyramids of callousness, hatred, opportunism, falsehoods. The liturgical movement must become a revolutionary movement seeking to overthrow the forces that continue to destroy the promise, the hope, the vision.”

Damn Yankees: I did a bunch of theatre going on one of my trips, but still saw two musicals when I was home. The first of those was Damn Yankees at Arena Stage. I’d talked my friend, Cindy, who was entirely unfamiliar with it, into coming along. While I’d seen the movie version and listened to the original cast recording a gazillion times, I hadn’t seen a live performance of it before. Anyone who knows me at all knows how I feel about a certain pinstriped baseball team (who I was very happy to see lose to Toronto after beating up on my Bosox, but I digress), so it’s no surprise that I love this show. This version was updated, to the early 2000’s and the Source of All Evil in the Universe was playing against Baltimore, not Washington, presumably to make it feasible for the two teams to face each other in the World Series. Anyway, the score has some iconic songs - especially Heart and Whatever Lola Wants, but I think the real highlights of this production were Near to You and A Man Doesn’t Know, both of which I found very moving. I can’t ignore the choreography which was excellent, though I still think the song Who’s Got the Pain? is useless filler. All of the performers were excellent, and I want to particularly note the singing of Quentin Earl Darrington, who plays the aging Joe Boyd, and the dancing of Ana Villafañe as Lola. I should also mention that they had the Orioles mascot come out and lead everyone in Take Me Out to the Ball Game after intermission. But the Orioles don’t actually do that. For some ungodly reason, they sing Thank G-d I’m a Country Boy instead, which is just wrong. Anyway, the show runs through November 9th and you should go see it if you possibly can.

By the way, we had dinner after the show at 54 Noodles Bar, a new Vietnamese restaurant near the Waterfront metro station. The spring rolls and pho were both very good and the service was efficient enough. I’m likely to eat there again in the future.

The Turn of the Screw: The other musical I saw locally was The Turn of the Screw at Creative Cauldron, which has moved to a new location, still in Falls Church. I read the novella it’s based on long ago and remembered it being creepy, but unsatisfying, with the key issue being that there is no resolution as to whether there are actual ghosts or the governess is losing her mind (with the children possibly manipulating her). This version added another twist, as it implies that the boy may have been sexually molested by the valet. (I should note that Cindy did not interpret things that way at all.) I was also unimpressed with the acoustics of the new space. On the plus side, the uncle (whose song I’d Rather Not Know was the best of the evening) was played by local favorite Bobby Smith and it is good to see him back on stage after several months recuperating from a terrible car accident.

October So Far: My book club met this past Wednesday night and talked about The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams. I loved this book, as did most of the other people in the book club, though one person couldn’t get through it. I posed a question that I thought would make for good discussion, namely what books you would put on a list that you think everyone should read. Unfortunately, nobody else took the bait. (For what it’s worth, my top choice would be Alice in Wonderland, which is the best book ever written about pretty much everything.)

Story Swap: The monthly Voices in the Glen story swap was held over zoom tonight. I ran through a story I am planning on telling next weekend at the Washington Folk Festival. The highlight of the evening (in my opinion) was Margaret’s recitation of Christina Rosetti’s Goblin Market.

Shameless Self Promotion: The Washington Folk Festival is next Sunday, October 19th at Glen Echo Park. I’ll be on the Storytelling stage from 3:30 to 4 in the afternoon. My blurb is “Spare Change - Join Miriam Nadel for tales of transformation and metamorphosis from around the world and across time.” There’s also plenty of music and dance. It’s always a good time.

Celebrity Death Watch: BeBe Shopp won the 1948 Miss America pageant. Joan Bennett Kennedy was the first wife of senator Ted Kennedy. Mike Greenwell played left field for the Red Sox from 1985-1996. Tommy Price was the drummer for Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. John Lodge performed with The Moody Blues and wrote the song I’m Just a Singer in a Rock ad Roll Band. Diane Keaton was an actress whose film roles included Annie Hall. Tony Fitzpatrick was a collage artist. Sandy Alomar Sr. played second base, primarily for the California Angels. He also had two sons who were successful baseball players - Sandy Alomar Jr. and Roberto Alomar. D’Angelo was a neo-soul singer-songwriter.

Mel Taub created the Puns and Anagrams puzzle in The New York Times. This is not quite as complex as a typical cryptic crossword is. But, as a person who loves puns (and, as far as I am concerned, the more atrocious the better), they were always fun to solve.

Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt was the chaplain for the basketball team at Loyola University in Chicago. She was the subject of numerous newspaper articles about being a superfan and even became the subject of a bobblehead. She was on my ghoul pool list and earned me 24 points, which includes the 12 point uniqueness bonus. I was, frankly, surprised that nobody else had her on their list, since she was 106 years old.

1. What actor would you hire to play you in your TV movie biography, and why? Definitely Amy Irving, because she’s played a lot of quirky women.

2. What extinct animal would you bring back, if you could? According to a list of cute extinct animals I found online, the lesser bilbo was “a small marsupial that looked like combination of a mouse, kangaroo, and bunny.” Aww.

3. When have you realized you were really wrong in your judgment about someone? As I’ve gotten older, I understand my parents better and cut them more slack about areas where I disagreed with them.

4. Who was the best teacher you ever had, and why? It’s really hard to choose one. One piano teacher I had, Johanna, stands out because she was the first person who ever suggested to me that I was having trouble with something (in this case, playing triplets with one hand and 4/4 rhythm with the other) because it was actually difficult and not because I was a musical idiot.

5. What is your favorite season and why? Autumn, because I love the crispness in the air and the colors of the leaves.

6. What was your major in college? How did you choose it? My degrees are in mechanical engineering. I’d started out planning to major in chemistry, but some aspects of organic chemistry didn’t resonate with me. I could figure out some reactions that might happen, but never quite grasped how I could tell which one would happen. I read about work some professors were doing on intelligent prosthetics and that led me to mechanical engineering. One of my early classes in that field was Introduction to System Dynamics and it just clicked with my world view.

7. If you had a mind-reading ability but could only choose 3 people to read their minds, who would they be? The most obvious one is the Gentleman With Whom I’m Conducting the World’s Longest Running Brief Meaningless Fling. Next would be my brother. As for a third, on any given day, I would suggest one or another of my friends, but perhaps it might be more interesting to get into the mind of one of my favorite authors, e.g. Jasper Fforde or Alexander McCall Smith.

8. What is an experience you have had when you went fishing or swimming? When I was in grad school, there was a period when I lived in an apartment building with a swimming pool and I swam almost every day. I found that I could sometimes get into a state of perfect flow, with my mind completely relaxed thinking only of the rhythm of my strokes.

9. What do you like to do when it is really hot outside? Cower next to the air conditioner.

10. Tell about the kind of kids you hung out with as a kid. I mostly hung out with the other kids who lived on my block when I was younger. As I got older, I spent time with people with whom I had overlapping interests, ranging from dancing to playing tennis to science.

11. What are two things you want to do less of next week? What are two things you want to do more of next week? I want to waste less time watching dumb reels on Facebook. I want to spend more time reading and crafting. I should spend more time on housework, but I don’t really want to.

12. Which do you prefer, a shower or a bath? Why? Showers are for cleaning. Baths are for soaking and relaxing.

13. if you were on a game show (like Big Brother or Survivor for example) what would your strategy be? Lay low? make big moves? Win all the comps? How would your strengths and weaknesses play a role in your success or failure of the game? I can’t really imagine being on that sort of game show, where the whole point is interpersonal relationships. My idea of a fun game show is trivia / knowledge related and the only real strategies for those is to just know a lot of stuff. (Note: I was on Jeopardy! in 1989 and The Challengers around 1991.)

14. What does success mean to you? Success means meeting one’s goals to the best of one’s ability. It has to be self-defined, not dependent on another person’s standards.

15. How comfortable are you with saying “no”? It depends on the situation. I am usually good at saying “no,” but sometimes agree to go to an event I don’t really want to in order to support a friend or relative.

16. When was the last time you woke up and realized that today could be the best day of your life? I feel that way whenever I have plans to do something I’ve always wanted to but have never done before.

17. Where is your “happy place?” What about it makes you feel content? I often joke that my natural habitat is an airport lounge. In short, traveling makes me happy. That said, I love being near a beach with white sand and few people.

18. Have you ever pretended to be someone else? Why? Does giving a fake name and phone number to a guy who was hitting on me count?

19. Describe a game or activity you used to play with a sibling. My family played board games a lot. My brother was the worst person in the world to play Scrabble with because he was obsessed with keeping track of every move each of us made and it made things take forever.

20. Do you think your next car will be electric/hybrid? I doubt that I’ll live long enough to own another car. Twain (my Hyunday Accent, the logic being Accent Mark / Mark Twain) is 6 years old and has under 20,000 miles.

21. What's your earliest holiday memory? I don’t know if it’s the absolutely earliest holiday memory I have, but I remember the parades we used to have outside our synagogue on Simchat Torah when I was a child. We’d wave brightly colored flags and eat candy apples.

22. If you could be anybody, who would you be? I’m quite happy being myself.

23. What would you write in a letter you could send forward in time to yourself in 10 years? Hmm, maybe congratulations on having reached my late 70’s and wishes for continued good health.

24. Describe your favorite memory about an amusement park or county fair you visited. Do the rides at the 1964 New York World’s Fair and Expo ’67 count for amusement parks? I think Expo ’67 had a bobsled ride (on a track, not downhill) that I really enjoyed because it was fast but not high. There was also a small amusement park next to Nathan’s in Oceanside and I remember liking the helicopter ride.

25. Imagine you're stuck on the roof of a house that has been carried away by a flood. Which person would you most like to be on the roof with you? Practically speaking, I think it would be best to be on the roof with somebody trained and skilled in water rescue.

26. If you suddenly gained the ability to tell whether someone was lying, would you use it? Sure. It sounds useful, particularly with people I don’t know well.

27. When you were a child, how did you imagine your adult life? How is it similar or different to what you imagined? The main thing I remember imagining about my adult life had to do with where I’d live. I had some sort of building kit that let you design a studio apartment. I loved rearranging the walls and the furniture. I also liked drawing house plans. As an adult, I haven’t lived anywhere that matches the perfection of what I imagined when I was young.

28. What was the first way you earned money? My parents used to pay both my brother and me for certain chores that they considered above and beyond what we were normally expected to do. For example, in the autumn, they’d pay us so much per bag when we raked leaves.

29. What foreign countries have you been to? Which ones do you want to go to? Counting only UN member states, I’ve been to 93. In alphabetical order, those are Andorra, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, The Bahamas, Belarus, Belgium, Benin, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, China, Costa Rica, Czech, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Eswatini, Fiji, Finland, France, The Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Haiti, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kiribati, Laos, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Malta, Mauritius, Mexico, Federated States of Micronesia, Monaco, Mongolia, Namibia, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Norway, Oman, Palau, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru. Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Turkiye, United Arab Emirates, UK, USA, Uruguay, Vanuatu, Vietnam, Zambia, and Zimbabe.

As for where I want to go to, pretty much all of them but the top five would be Bolivia, Cabo Verde, Eritrea, Mozambique, and Turkmenistan..

30. Tell about the first time you ever held hands with someone. Assuming you exclude family members, it was probably a boy I knew in summer camp when I was about 10 or 11 years old. For what it’s worth, I’m in my late 60’s and I still think it’s really sweet when old folks like me and The Gentleman With Whom I’m Conducting the World’s Longest Running Brief Meaningless Fling hold hands in public.

Books: I read 8 books this quarter.

Colm Toibin, Long Island. An Irish woman, married to an Italian-American man and living in close proximity to most of his family, learns that her husband has gotten another woman pregnant and that woman’s husband plans to leave the baby on their doorstep. The Italian family plan to have her husband’s mother raise the child. She goes off to Ireland for her mother’s 80th birthday and rekindles an old flame. But she doesn’t count on what his current lover plans to do. Overall, this was readable if you suspend a lot of disbelief about human behavior, but it lacks a satisfying resolution. My book club concluded that Toibin was setting things up to write a sequel.
James A. Michener, Tales of the South Pacific. I read this for my travel book club and, frankly, found it a total slog for the most part. The best stories are the ones that were used for the musical South Pacific but I had to read through plenty of racism and sexism (which, alas, was realistic, though unpleasant to read) and far more detail about how tedious waiting for battle was to get to the good stuff.
Alison Espach, The Wedding People. I didn’t expect to like this book, which I also read for my long-standing book club. The premise is that a woman who has failed both in her academic career and her attempts to have a baby goes to a fancy hotel in Newport, Rhode Island to kill herself and fails at that too. Everyone else at the hotel is there for a wedding. She gets involved in the bride’s wedding plans and a lot of absurd things happen. Despite this ridiculous idea, I actually enjoyed it. The tone was light and the events were just plausible enough to keep me from wanting to throw the book into the river.
Felicia Day, You’re Never Weird on the Internet (almost). If you’re not familiar with Felicia Day, she reached a level of nerd fame via The Guild, a web series about a group of gamers. She also played Penny in Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. This wasn’t a bad read, but I had expected it to be brilliant. Alas, it didn’t go into enough detail about the weirder aspects of her life, to be completely satisfying. However, I do recommend her chapter on GamerGate and being doxxed if you want to understand how scary being a highly visible woman on-line can be.
Richard Osman, The Thursday Murder Club. I was probably about 2/3 of the way through this book before I realized that the author is the same Richard Osman who has appeared on many British quiz shows. (It turns out that he also created Whose Line Is It anyway? and Deal or No Deal, as well as Pointless, which is one of my favorite British quiz shows. None of which really ties into this book directly.) Anyway, the premise of this book (and several follow-ups. which I haven’t read yet) is that a group of elderly people at a retirement community meets weekly to discuss the cold cases of a one-time detective, who is now suffering from dementia. Then a murder happens. And another one. And the discovery of an older one. They enjoy solving all of those. I mostly enjoyed this but I didn’t like that there were characters with similar names, e.g. Stephen and Steve and John and “Turkish Johnny.” You know, they sell books of baby names for a reason. That won’t stop me from reading more of the series.
Andrés Reséndez, A Land So Strange: The Epic Journey of Cabeza de Vaca. I read this for my travel book club. The story involves a group of men who set out to colonize Florida in 1527. Due to a hurricane and navigational errors, only 4 of them survived - three Spaniards and a Moroccan slave. It took them almost 10 years to cross from Florida through what is now the American Southwest (e.g. Texas, New Mexico and parts of Mexico), including six years of enslavement by various native tribes. They learned to pass as medicine men and gain favor with some of the groups they encountered. This was a very interesting book and I appreciated learning about a part of the history of exploration that I had been entirely unfamiliar with.
Mary Janice Davidson, Fish Out of Water. Yes, I sometimes read paranormal romance. This is the third book in a series about Fred, a half-human, half-mermaid who is torn between a human man and the prince of the Black Sea. In the meantime, her father shows up and is trying to overthrow the royal family of the sea people. Overall, this is an amusingly silly book and a nicely diverting quick read.
Lisa See, Peony in Love. This complex historical novel follows the life of a teenage girl in 17th century China. Her family puts on a production of an opera called The Peony Pavilion and the female members of the household are permitted to watch from behind a curtain. Peony is overwhelmed by her emotions and leaves for a while, meeting a young man who enthralls her, even though neither of them knows that he’s the man who her family intends her to marry. This leads her to die of “lovesickness,” i.e. anorexia. Her ghost wanders the area and things get more complex when the man marries another woman, who Peony then induces to add to a commentary that she was writing about the opera. After she dies, Peony arranges a third bride, who also adds to the commentary. The commentary of the three wives becomes the first book written and published by women. I found this book a fascinating insight into traditional Chinese belief and culture, based on real events.

Movies: I saw three movies in theaters this quarter. I only had two flights that were long enough to watch movies on, but I think I was too absorbed in what was reading to bother.I

Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight: I’d loved Alexandra Fuller’s memoir of her childhood on a farm in (then) Rhodesia, which is now Zimbabwe. So I had to see the film version, which I thought was pretty true to the book. Lexi Venter, who played the 8-year-old Bobo, gave an impressive performance. You do have to be able to tolerate a fair amount of violence and racism, however.
Cat Video Fest 2025: This is an annual event, which consists of a curated collection of cat videos. In addition to live videos, it has memes and animations. The whole thing is less than an hour and a half, so not particularly good value. My basic conclusion is that, yes, the cats are cute and often funny, but it’s not really satisfying as a movie. However, part of the proceeds (admittedly only a little over 10%) do go to cat-focused charities, so you can feel like it wasn’t a waste of time.
Guns and Moses: Sal Litwak, known as the Accidental Talmudist and famous for his videos of old Jewish jokes, wrote, directed, and produced this movie, which tells the story of a small town rabbi who sets out to solve the murder of one of his congregants. The police are insisting it was the act of a neo-Nazi, but Rabbi Mo thinks otherwise. He investigates some shady goings on and learns to use a gun himself when he becomes a target. It was entertaining, though rather more violent than something I would normally watch. I also want to give the writers kudos for using the song “Kol Ha’olam Kulo,” which is a personal favorite, in its soundtrack.

Goals:

I made a lot of progress on my plans for a westward circumnavigation of the world. I still have a couple of hotel bookings to make, but I’m pretty close to having a complete itinerary.

I made it to two minor league baseball games. I was just too busy with other things to get more games in.

I’m not quite as far along on my Tunisian crochet afghan as I thought I was. I am, however, making a serious attempt to get that done this month. I’ve also got a couple of smaller projects in the works.

As of the end of September, I was only at 25 books. But I’ve already read three this month, and I expect to have a lot of quality reading time on my round the world trip in November.

Updating my life list should only take me an afternoon, but I’m the sort of person who starts my weekly to-do list with “write to do list” so decision making tends to move slowly.

I can sound out a certain amount of Hangul, but there are some letters that continue to confuse me. At least I now understand the “r” vs. “l” confusion that is common in many Asian languages. As for Korean more generally, at least I’ve finally figured out that the verb always goes at the end of the sentence, but I still find the syntax very non-intuitive.

I did nothing on going through my parents photographs and slides. Nor did I make any progress on organizing genealogy files. Nor did I make it to any national parks.

I had good intentions re: going through cassette tapes, but discovered that the little cassette player I found in the closet in my study doesn’t work. I need to try to remember how to work the tape deck on my stereo system.

Celebrity Death Watch - August 2025 Linda Hodes was a dancer and choreographer who was closely associated with both Martha Graham and the Batsheva Company in Israel. Loni Anderson was an actress, who was most famous for appearing in WKRP in Cincinnati. Paul Vincent Davis was a puppeteer. Jane Morgan was a pop singer, most famous for the song “Fascination.” Eddie Palmer was a pianist, composer, and bandleader. Antony Maitland wrote and illustrated children’s books. Gary Theroux was a rock historian. David Ketchum played Agent 13 on Get Smart. Bobby Whitlock was a singer and songwriter, who performed with Derek and the Dominos and with Delaney & Bonnie and Friends. Cool John Ferguson was a blues guitarist. Louis Naidorf was an architect who designed several significant buildings in Los Angeles, including the Capitol Records Building. Jackie Bezos was Jeff’s mother. Greg Iles was a novelist and was part of the musical group, Rock Bottom Remainders, with several other authors such as Dave Barry, Stephen King, Amy Tan, and Matt Groening. Dan Tana was the proprietor of an Italian restaurant favored by Hollywood personalities. Joe Hickerson was the Librarian and Director of the Archive of Folk Song at the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress and is credited with creating some folk songs, including some of the verses to “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” Gene Espy was the second person to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail. Maurice Tempelsman was a diamond magnate and the longtime companion of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Ruth Paine was a teacher who housed Lee Harvey Oswald’s wife, Marina, in her home for several months, and in whose garage Oswald stored the rifle he used for the Kennedy assassination. Chelsea Quinn Yarbro wrote historical horror novels about the Count of Saint-Germain, a vampire.

Jim Lovell commanded the Apollo 8 and Apollo 13 missions. He was one of only three men to travel to the Moon twice, but he never walked on it.

William H. Webster directed the FBI from 1978 to 1987 and the CIA from 1987 through 1991. He was the only person to have held both of those positions. He was on my ghoul pool list and earned me 14 points.

Tony Saletan was a folk singer. He is credited with the rediscovery in the 1950’s of the songs “Michael Row the Boat Ashore” and “Kumbaya.” He was also the first musical guest to appear on Sesame Street.

Celebrity Death Watch - September 2025: Graham Greene was a Canadian Oneida actor, most famous for appearing in Dances With Wolves. Darleane Hoffman was a nuclear chemist. Ken Dryden was a Hall of Fame ice hockey player for the Montreal Canadiens. Mark Volman was a founding member of The Turtles and later performed as Flo in Flo & Eddie, as well as playing with The Mothers of Invention. Rick Davies was the founder, vocalist, and keyboardist for Supertramp. Marilyn Diamond wrote books promoting a diet for longevity. Ann Granger was a prolific writer of mysteries. Philippe Goddin wrote several books of literary criticism about Tintin. Polly Holliday was an actress, best known for playing Flo in the sitcom Alice. Robert D. Maurer did not invent optical fiber but did develop it into a viable technology. Bobby Hart wrote the song “Last Train to Clarksville.” Charlie Kirk was a MAGA icon. Thomas Perry wrote thrillers. Marilyn Hagerty wrote a newspaper column for the Grand Forks Herald and became famous for her review of the food at Olive Garden. George Smoot was a Nobel Prize laureate in physics. Sonny Curtis performed with The Crickets and wrote the song “I Fought the Law.” Marian Burros was a food writer for The New York Times. Aaron Bielski (aka Aaron Bell) had been the last surviving brother of a family of partisans during World War II. Henry Jaglom wrote and directed very weird films, e.g. Eating. Claudia Cardinale was a movie actress. Danny Thompson was the bassist for Pentangle. Patricia Crowther was a British occultist. Belva Davis was the first African-American woman to become a television reporter on the U.S. West Coast. Sara Jane Moore attempted to assassinate Gerald Ford. Chris Dreja played guitar for The Yardbirds. Russell M. Nelson was the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Lally Weymouth was the last member of the Graham family to be affiliated with he Washington Post, which helped her get a lot of high profile interviews, e.g. with Saddam Hussein, Muammar Qaddafi, and Benazir Bhutto.

Davey Jonson was a second baseman, primarily for the Orioles, and later managed several teams, including the Mets from 1984-1990 (which includes their 1986 World Series win) and the Nationals from 2011-2013, which includes their first division title since they moved to Washington, D.C.

David Baltimore won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1975 for his work on reverse transcriptase. He helped establish the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at MIT. He later became president of Rockefeller University and of CalTech.

Robert Redford was an actor and director. He was one of the heart throbs for my generation, particularly for The Way We Were. He also co-founded the Sundance Film Festival. In high school, one of my friends had a huge crush on him. A few of us went to a John Denver concert at Madison Square Garden, but her parents wouldn’t let her go. When we told her we had seen Robert Redford at the concert, she dropped the stack of books she was holding!

Ashleigh Brilliant was an epigrammist and cartoonist. His Pot-Shots were sold primarily in head shops during my teenage years. A few of my favorites of his epigrams include “I feel much better now that I’ve given up hope,” “Appreciate me now and avoid the rush.” and “I have abandoned my search for truth and am now looking for a good fantasy.”

Celebrity Death Watch - October 2025 (so far): Edward J. Kennedy was a former mayor of Lowell ad a member of the Massachusetts Senate. Patricia Rutledge was an actress, best known for playing Hyacinth Bucket on Keeping Up Appearances. Ivan Klima was a Czech writer and playwright. Jilly Cooper was a romance novelist.

Jane Goodall was a primatologist who spent more than 60 years researching the lives of wild chimpanzees in Tanzania. She wrote 32 books, including 15 for children.

One of my NPL friends had mentioned SporcleCon on his Facebook page just about when I was making my travel plans for the IAJGS Conference. For those who aren’t familiar with Sporcle, it’s a web site with lots of fun trivia quizzes. SporcleCon was being held in Chicago the weekend just after the IAJGS conference. Since flights via ORD were the best option for travel between WAS and FWA, it seemed like a no brainer to just stop in Chicago for the weekend on my way home. I registered for SporcleCon, booked my hotel registration at the Hyatt attached to the McCormick Place Convention Center, and arranged my flights accordingly.

That meant leaving FWA crazy early on Friday morning, but there’s no shortage of things to do in Chicago. So I confidently shared an Uber to the airport with another conference attendee. Alas, the best laid plans of mice and Miriam once again went agley. About a half hour before the flight was scheduled to leave, I got a notification from United about a flight delay, due to a mechanical problem with the plane. The delay started at about 3 hours and increased. Several people left to rent cars and drive to Indianapolis or Detroit. Since I was staying in Chicago for the weekend and, therefore, didn’t have to worry about making a connection, I figured I could wait things out. To cut to the chase, the eventual delay was nearly 10 hours (for a 40 minute flight!) and they had to get a rescue plane to fly in from northern Michigan. (I did get compensation, by the way.)

On arrival, I took the El to the Cermak-McCormick Place station. It actually made sense to stop in McCormick Place and do the SporcleCon check-in on my way to the hotel. Then I went to the hotel, checked in, grabbed some supper, and pretty much collapsed since I’d been up since oh-dark-thirty.

Since I still can’t be in two or more places at the same time, the number of different trivia games going on at a time is both the best thing and the worst thing about SporcleCon. I had to make wild guesses about what event I would enjoy most. The way I handle situations like that is to just tell myself that it doesn’t matter. I figured that general knowledge events were a better bet than more specialized single subject events. The first event I went to on Saturday was Orange Cat Trivia, which was fun, though the room was very crowded and, hence, noisier than I’d have preferred. I particularly liked the Before and After category.

After lunch, I went to a talk by podcaster Gary Arndt about extreme travel. I could tell he was a Travelers’ Century Club member because his blurb referred to his having been to over 200 “countries and territories.” Only TCC people put in that “and territories” phrase. I wasn’t super impressed by the talk, actually. He may have me beat on sheer numbers, but I’ve been to places that he hasn’t, e.g. Paraguay and Kiribati.

A few events used the trivnow platform, which I thought worked well. The first of those I played was Triviality. It was a bit more pop culture heavy than is optimal for me, but I did still finish in the top quarter.

The biggest event of the con is the Battle of the Brains on Saturday night. I had chosen to have them assign me to a team and, for the most part, the team I was on worked reasonably well. I wasn’t completely useless, though how on earth is it possible that Austin, Texas is bigger than Atlanta, Georgia? I guess you can’t rely on traffic as a measure of how big cities are! I did at least know an answer relating to African geography. Anyway, we did respectably, finishing 15th (out of 100+ teams) overall. By the way, they also have special guests introducing some categories. I found the South Side Drill Team impressive, but Second City reminded me how much I hate improv comedy.

On Sunday, I did a few games at Sporcle’s World Fair. I won a bunch of raffle tickets, but no prizes in the drawing. I did win a banner from the Geography section. Then I played Crowdsourced Curiosities, which I was very bad at. I did much better at Liquid Kourage Trivia, mostly because I ended up with a team that had a good mix of different areas of knowledge. I did find it hard to believe that I was the only member of our team that knew what university has an annual puzzle hunt every January. (I’ve done the MIT Mystery Hunt. And that didn’t even exist until long after my time at MIT.)

Overall, I had a fun weekend. I probably won’t do next year’s SporcleCon since it is going to be: a) in November (generally a good month for international travel) and b) in Schaumburg, which is even less convenient to anything interesting in Chicago than McCormick Place. Anyway, after SporcleCon ended, I walked to the el station and headed to ORD, where I spent the night at the Airport Hilton, which is very convenient if you have an early morning flight.

Alas, the curse of ORD weather struck. I once (several years ago) had a flight from ORD that got delayed by a tornado, followed by a mechanical problem, followed by a crew timing out. In this case, there were thunderstorms, which caused all flights to the east to be shut down. We got lucky and they were able to reroute us around the worst of the weather, so we were going to be only about an hour and a half late. Except there was a fire (or, at least, a fire alarm) at DCA, which led to the control tower there being evacuated. We didn’t have enough fuel to keep circling until that was resolved, so they had us land at IAD. Normally, that would have been fine, since I live halfway between the two airports and I could have just taken the metro home from there. But I had checked a bag and they announced that: a) they weren’t taking any bags off the plane and b) they wouldn’t deliver bags to people. So I waited a bit over an hour while we refueled and we took the 15 mile / 11 minute flight to DCA. Where it turned out that my bag was waiting for me, because they had put it on the 5:21 a.m. flight.

And now I’m caught up through August!

My next trip was to Fort Wayne, Indiana from 9-15 August for the annual conference of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS). This was only the third time I attended the conference, though I had gone to bits and pieces virtually during the COVID shutdown. The two I’d gone to previously were in London and in Philadelphia. So why was it in Fort Wayne this time? Well, Fort Wayne has a small Jewish community, but it also has the Allen County Public Library, which has the second largest genealogy collection in the United States, behind the LDS Family History Center in Salt Lake City.

I flew in on Saturday, via Chicago. My flight to ORD left about 40 minutes late, so I was a bit concerned about my connection. But we did make up some time in the air. And I walked as quickly as I could through the unwashed hordes at ORD, arriving at the gate for the FWA flight slightly out of breath just before it started boarding. I forgot to look for the stand that allegedly gives out cookies to arriving passengers in Fort Wayne, alas. I did find where the van to the Hilton picks up and had a bit of a wait for that. The hotel check-in was on the slow side, but I got to my room just fine. I walked around a little and got some mediocre Chinese food for supper. Then I spent time in my room reviewing my plans for which conference sessions I wanted to attend.

On Sunday, I checked in at conference registration. Then I connected with a guy from my home town (who I didn’t know before, though I’d been friendly with his sister, who was in my Hebrew school class), connected with my cousin Fred who I hadn’t met in person before, and compared photos with a woman whose father had been in a DP camp in Italy with my father. I spent an exhausting amount of time in the exhibit hall, where I learned about some potentially useful resources. The opening session was that evening, with keynote speaker CeCe Moore, who spoke on The Power of Genetic Genealogy. Her most significant advice was to “fish in all four ponds,” i.e. have your DNA data on all of the major DNA sites. She also talked a lot about the use of genetic information in solving criminal cases, with an example of how finding DNA data for close relatives led to solving a murder.

Monday (day 2 of the conference) started with a breakfast with Jody Tzucker of LitvakSIG. For some mysterious reason, one person kept asking questions about Slovakia. After that I went to a talk by Rabbi Ben-Zion Saydman on Morris, Izzy, and Seymour: What’s In a Name, which was amusing, but rather sloppy about some details.

The luncheon for JRI-Poland (JRI=Jewish Records Indexing) had a talk by Halina Goldberg on Not Warsaw: Jews and Culture Beyond the Capitol. A particular line I liked was “let’s get the fiddler off the roof.” I followed that with Robinn Magid’s presentation on What’s New at JRI-Poland.org. They still need to unify systems to pay for things, e.g. membership is not handled through the shopping cart. It does look like they’ve added records for Tykocin (where my Chlebiocky family is from) so I need to spend some time on that. My favorite quote from that talk was “There was no one in 19th century Poland named Jennifer.” But I learned recently that there actually were women named Tiffany in medieval times, so you never know. Also, they have a new book club,although another book club is the last thing I need.

Small world department: I was washing my hands in the lady’s room in between talks when someone said to me, “Is your name Miriam?” When I said “yes,” she asked “did you go to West Hempstead High School?” She turned out to have been in my high school class!

I managed to find someone who could read the writing on the back of one photo and was able to verify that I was correct about who it was of. Then I spent about an hour and a half mentoring someone re: a ship manifest. I discovered that the person she was researching wasn’t traveling alone, but was probably with a son or nephew. (I did some other mentoring later on in the conference, but that was mostly answering quick questions, e.g. reading a name written in Russian.)

After that I went to the Family Journey Showcase talks, mostly to see what people were doing that I should keep in mind for my presentation on Thursday. The day ended with a presentation by Karen Franklin on JewishGen 2025, which had some info about who is filling what roles. The item of the most interest to me is that Shul Records America now includes Canadian and Caribbean records.

Which brings us to Tuesday, day 3 of the conference. I started it with another “Breakfast with the Expert” session. This one was with Curt Witcher of the Allen County Public Library. The table I was at had a lively discussion about how to get younger people interested in genealogy. My answer to that always has to do with emphasizing stories, rather than lists of names.

Next, I went to an excellent talk by Ellen Cassedy about Women of Lithuania. Something I learned from that talk was that Lithuania was the last country in Europe to become officially Christian. In 19th century Lithuania, Jews were the middle class, below aristocrats but above farmers and peasants. The first Lithuanian women’s conference was in 1907. Jewish women played the role of healers and non-Jewish women went to them for help with the evil eye, for example. Also, in 1926, the quota for Lithuanian immigration to the United States was 380 people. That explains why so many of my relatives who left Lithuania went to South Africa or to Argentina instead.

Continuing on that regional theme, the LitvakSIG meeting had updates about new records that have been added, as well as about changes in board members and leaders of District Research Groups. Afterwards, I talked to somebody who turned out to know part of my Atlanta family. That was followed by the LitvakSIG luncheon, where Dan Rabinowitz talked about The Strashun Library Ledgers Project. This wasn’t a lending library, but rather an annex to the Great Synagogue, with a reading room. There were 5 ledgers which have records of the reading lists of its members.

After lunch, I went to a talk by Anna Wiernicka about How to Learn Family Story from Crumbs - About the Value of Notary Records. I don’t know of my Polish ancestors having had any court cases that would have been handled in notarial courts, but who knows? Maybe somebody did own land and had a deed recorded or there was some issue with an inheritance.

Dan Rabinowitz gave his second talk of the day, this time on Vilnius: Traces of the Jerusalem of Lithuania. This is an almost 800 page book by Irina Guzenburg that is designed as a comprehensive guidebook to the city. There is a version in English, published in 2021,that includes several tours, with detailed information. This looks incredibly useful and I definitely want to try to get my hands on a copy.

The last talk I went to on Tuesday was titled My Mother’s Life in Cuba - In Her Own Words by Martin Fischer. Mostly, this had to do with poverty and moving from house to house because of it. While it had interesting material, the presentation annoyed me because I hate when people just read their slides verbatim.

A large group of conference attendees went to a baseball game that night. I pulled out my Hebrew language Nationals ball cap for the occasion. Here’s a picture of me wearing it, sitting next to a statue of Johnny Appleseed. who spent the last 10 years of his life in Fort Wayne and is allegedly buried there.

As for the ball game itself, the Fort Wayne TinCaps are the High-A affiliate of the San Diego Padres. They beat the West Michigan Whitecaps, who are affiliated with the Detroit Tigers. Here’s a picture of Parkview Field. which was nice enough but had very limited vegetarian food options. (I got a slice of cheese pizza for supper.)

Day 4 of the conference was Wednesday. I started with another Breakfast with the Expert. This one was with Jude Richter from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Our table had a good discussion on what resources you can use only on site.

The first presentation I went to was by Debra Kaplowitz on Using Pre-1826 Polish Parish Records in Jewish Research. The basic point was that there was no civil vital records registration in Congress Poland until 1826 and vital records were maintained by Catholic parishes. Those records also include things like manufacture and sale of alcohol, which was a a trade dominated by Jews. There may be some things in these records that are worth looking at.

I walked over to the Allen County Public Library where I watched a short movie, The Ice Cream Man about a Jewish ice cream parlor owner who was targeted by Klaus Barbie shortly after the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands. It was interesting and very moving.

I stayed at the library and did the (somewhat overwhelming) library tour, followed by some time using some of their resources. I spent some time looking at the 1896-1897 directory of Bulawayo (in present day Zimbabwe) but that appears to be too early to find information about my Meltser family who I have reason to believe went there.

I went back over to the conference center for the IAJGS annual meeting. The big (and disappointing) news was that next year’s conference will be virtual. They are also trying to plan some sort of events in association with the 250th anniversary of American independence. After the meeting, I sat down with my cousin, Fred, and we compared trees.

The day ended with the annual banquet. The banquet speaker was Daniel Horowitz, a retired Smith College professor (as opposed to the Daniel Horowitz of My Heritage). He gave an amusing talk about bears, primarily teddy bears and Paddington Bear.

Which brings me to Thursday, which was Day 5. I slept in a bit. The first talk I went to was by Banai Lynn Feldstein and had to do with Morse Code: Favorite Tools on Steve Morse’s web Site. Like many people, I most use stevemorse.org for searching immigration records and finding enumeration districts (EDs) for the U.S. federal census. The key new thing I learned is that there is now an interactive map of Manhattan on the ED finder.

Tammy Hepps gave a very entertaining presentation on The Dark Side of the Census No One Told You About. Her examples included an enumerator who didn’t understand exactly where his district was, so recorded the area on the wrong side of a major road and another enumerator who just made up at least 40 entire families. She also discussed several strategies which can help, such as searching by address instead of name, looking for names of other family members or neighbors, and using the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps.

Suzanne Fialkoff gave a talk titled Find Your Ancestors in These Little-Known Publications. Some of the resources she discussed include the American Jewish Yearbook, synagogue yearbooks, industry publications (such as Fur Trade Review), Who’s Who in American Jewry, and state and local historical societies.

Finally, it was time for my presentation His Own Teeth, which was part of the Family Journey Showcase. I didn’t have as many listeners as I’d hoped for, but those I did have were responsive and thought the story (which has to do how my grandparents met) was charming.

Overall, I enjoyed the conference and thought it was worth my time. I had some travel issues the next day, but I’ll write about that (and why I spent the weekend in Chicago) in another post.

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