DEC-A-8
RETURN TO IAD, DC, GWU, DERWOOD
FROM THE SNOWY START OF WINTER IN PITTSFIELD
AND ALBANY DEC. 9—12, 2001
I have had a slow moving finish to my visit to the Berkshires as the weather forecasts were giving a 100 % probability of seven inch-accumulation of snow only two days after all the warm-weather records were set for the respective dates of early December. I went with Parvis and Kay Sadighi to the home of Dick and Kathleen Basille, as the holiday party season started up here in the cheery Berkshires. It also started down in Maryland, with parties for everything from MCRRC and DCCRC and GWU all on the same evening, so I am just as well off being here without having to make choices among the options nearer home.
I had awaited a call from Jim Carey, a surgeon who said he would call for me at the Crowne Plaza, so that we could go out for a run. But he did not call, and I realized that both the light and temperature were falling fast at around 3:00 PM when I had already got very weary of trying to transfer over the phone numbers and addresses from my 2001 daybook to the 2002 diary. This ritual near year’s end takes almost a full day, and at every transfer of the tiny hand printed numbers, errors creep in from the micro-text, so I hope to just quality-control check this once in the future and store it for electronic transfer. I can no longer stare at these small numbers and write them over without having 100% of them in error at some digit or another, since a “4” looks like “9” or “7” and a “0” becomes a “6”, and I decided to bag it all and go out for a run alone.
I went to the Intrepid I had rented and not used since I drove in, and drove it over to the Pittsfield State Forest, which I had been to, but not in, on previous runs. It was cloudy and already getting dark when I parked the car and began to run up the main loop road in the forest. If I had seen it all ahead of the start, I might not have begun the run. It is a steep uphill, and wound around the turns and twists of the steep mountainside, so I kept going up until I came to the crest of the area from which I could look across an Azalea forest—it must look spectacular in the Spring—and saw Berry Pond. This is called the highest natural body of water in Massachusetts at 2,125 feet. I had seen the top of Massachusetts atop Mount Greylock several years ago, and had mentioned in Dec-A-7 the story of Herman Melville looking out from the barn loft from which he did his writing at Arrowhead, and with the snowfall covering the long slope and massive peak of Greylock may have given him the image of the “Great White Whale.”
BUMMER!I AM TRAPPED IN THE
BOARDING LOUNGE OF ALBANY AIRPORT,
WITH NONE OF MY STUFF TO BE FINISHED, AND AN EIGHT HOUR WAIT!
I have probably not had so wasted a weekend in the whole year, with it being especially painful since I had so much uncompleted year-end stuff I had packed away and checked in with my big suitcase, so as to have only this machine and little else except for a water bottle to carry through the security at check-in after driving through he snow and dropping off the Thrifty Intrepid. I did so, and at the security check-in I was told to prove that the bottle I was carrying was water by drinking part of it, which I did. I came into the waiting lounge and learned there was a 3:00 PM flight, having missed the 11:00 AM I had hoped to get on, but was told I could stand-by for the 3:00 PM. Sure enough, it was overbooked, so that the next flight I can get is actually at 8:00 PM, so I will have to just cool my heels here in the cold lounge with the sun just now coming out to reflect off the snow that has been plowed off the runways, but I will not see it now when I finally taxi out since it will be well after dark when I get to leave. And all the materials I had packed along are in the suitcase which is checked in and I cannot get to any of it for the year-end tasks I had packed along for just such a “down time” as this now wasted with the feverish fervor of NFL in play-off season approaching, with non-stop hype over teams I do not care about with life and death excitement in all the airport TV’s at high volume.
I will not be able to get through the Dulles bag claim and onto the Washington Flyer and Metro back to GW and then on to Derwood until well past midnight, with all of the stuff I have left undone still awaiting me when the new week is already crushing in with new things to attend. One of these items is an annoyance from prowling disapproving observers of my home. I must get back to the defense of Derwood from intrusive “urgent maters requiring immediate attention” from the disapproving pseudo-concern of those paying excessive attention in close surveillance so as to support charges of gross negligence in the maintenance of this “development property.”
Meanwhile, I am sitting here with loud TV play-by-play hype of a half dozen NFL games going full volume. A week from today, Michael and Judy will be coming about this same time of day to stay overnight. The twins will be here in Derwood, a place I was thinking of as a great playground for them later in their next visit. When I was trying to repair and clean up a few things last week, I found that the space trolley I had got for their father just a little bit later than their age now has been stolen after being broken earlier. I must not only get Derwood ready for them, but also have to pack up for my visits on which I take off the following day. Judy and the twins will be in the area for another week, while Michael flies back on the same day I take off. They can move on to hear all about how the house at Derwood is in imminent danger of falling down before the developers are invited in to bulldoze it.
So, for the moment, I am simply waiting, and will then do the later “hurry up” to try to get to the point of catching up. All the decks will have to be cleared next week, since I will be gone all of the following week before returning to the empty Derwood manse for Christmas itself. I have not yet heard from the Gainesville end on what I will do and when down in Florida, and the next week Gene Curletti will be joining the other group from Denver, Arizona, Atlanta, and Maryland as we go to Cumberland for Nancy’s Fancy and the hog hunt that follows.