Some new friends, some old friends to reread.
Category: Like Life
California Zephyr 2023
A few snaps aboard Amtrak train 5, the California Zephyr, from Chicago to Sacramento via Denver and Salt Lake City.
Climbing the mountains along South Boulder Creek, Gilpin County, Colorado.
Having crossed the Continental Divide via the Moffat Tunnel, we’re now following the Fraser River downhill to its confluence with the Colorado.
Uhh, somewhere on the Colorado River, still in the state of Colorado. (I failed to save my GPS fix.)
And the next morning, having crossed Utah in the dark, here we are in Churchill County, Nevada, northeast of Reno.
Good food on both Amtrak trains (the Zephyr and the Capitol Limited). After three days you sort of get used to the bumpy ride. The Capitol Limited was 45 minutes late into Chicago (largely due to an automated systems failure at CSX); the Zephyr was two and a half hours late into Sacramento (late start due to two different cars that needed to be swapped out; amplified by an unplanned detour through the Union Pacific yards at Reno). Better than I expected!
On deck: 24
A nice fiction/non-fiction balance. On the end at left, the last two freebies from the shelves at work. I’m saving the Proust (Lydia Davis translation) for a long vacation that I have planned.
Some links: 90
- He may pass on before we get to zero, but Jimmy Carter. Made. This. Happen. Guinea worm: A nasty parasite is nearly eradicated, but the push for zero cases will require patience, by Kimberly Paul.
- This project can’t move fast enough. The W&OD’s crossing of Wiehle Avenue is bananas dangerous. Groundbreaking of new bridge over Wiehle Avenue set for next month, by Fatimah Waseem.
- So that’s why I’m not a White House-advising economist with five textbooks published. Utahraptor: “Nah, every time I [have regrets] an alternate timeline version of my self parachutes in and beats me up.”
In other news
Yesterday I retired, after eight great years at NPR. Some looks from last walks around the building (sorry, no pix from the newsroom).
New buildings have gone up; you can no longer see the top of the Washington Monument from the 4th floor terrace.
My year in cities, 2022
Birthday road trip and Virginia Master Naturalists conference.
Overnight stays in 2022:
- Abingdon, Washington County, Va. (and) (and)
- Farmville, Prince Edward County, Va.
- Virginia Beach, Va.
New venues, 2022
I’ll make this brief:
- —
On deck: 23
New books! But I really need to catch up on my Goodreads notes.
Enumerated
Endgame: 1
Noreen Malone captures the mood of the moment:
The act of working has been stripped bare. You don’t have little outfits to put on, and lunches to go to, and coffee breaks to linger over and clients to schmooze. The office is where it shouldn’t be — at home, in our intimate spaces — and all that’s left now is the job itself, naked and alone. And a lot of people don’t like what they see.
And even closer to home:
It wasn’t just the bad sexually harassing bosses who were fired but the toxic ones, too, and soon enough we began to question the whole way power in the office worked. What started out as a hopeful moment turned depressing fast. Power structures were interrogated but rarely dismantled, a middle ground that left everyone feeling pretty bad about the ways of the world. It became harder to trust anyone who was your boss and harder to imagine wanting to become one. Covid was an accelerant, but the match was already lit.
My year in cities, 2021
And one road trip, for my birthday, staying within the commonwealth. Missed Tofurky Day at Charlie’s two years running.
Overnight stays in 2021:
New venues, 2021
I scratched out one new space between delta and omicron:
- Capital One Hall, The Vault: I am no fan of the riser-based seating.
On deck: 22
The shelf was getting a little unbalanced, with too much fiction, but a tip from NPR’s Books We Love led me to Dreilinger. Of the Thoreau, I’ve got The Maine Woods and Cape Cod to read. The Bellotti is for a book club at work—not my usual cup of tea, but I want to contribute to the discussion. I have promised myself that I will crank through another story in the French parallel text collection; will I ever find time for the Echenoz? Juggling two volumes is too much trouble for the subway.
On deck: 21
With a little determination (and self-control in the bookstore), I am back to having only one shelf’s worth of books to read.
And yes, I have become the person with two cast recordings of Anyone Can Whistle, two electric hedge trimmers, and two translations of Du côté de chez Swann.
Back to a hatchback
Say hello to Dr. Hardtacks on his first road trip, already a little dusty from the drive. We’re at the trailheads for Buffalo Mountain in Floyd County, early enough to pick our own space before the parking lot fills up (and it did, on a Friday morning).
With multiple new safety features and an automatic backy-uppy parking trick, the doctor is definitely smarter than me. His surname comes from the name of a turtle that Aaron Posner likes to work into his scripts.
For the first 1000 miles, we’re doing 66.5 mpg.