Biscuit City

My father decided about last Thursday that he would like to go to church. He had not been for a while because of illness and other circumstances, but to do so, he felt he had to wear a suit and neither of the two suits he had fit him.

We asked Becky, the shopper par excellence, where the best place to buy a suit was. She recommended with Peebles or Kohl’s. So off we went to Peebles since it was closer and we had a coupon.

Now, it should be noted that neither one of us knows much about shopping and especially about shopping for clothes.  I am fortunate that Becky buys my clothes for me since I have no idea of color or style. My dad keeps wearing what he has, and,since he’s easy on clothes, it’s not unusual to see him in something he’s had for twenty-five or thirty years. Probably more men would do this if they thought they could get away with it.

Of, course, neither of us knew his measurements. He never did, I think, and I had no reason to.  I took a flexible tape and played tailor and succeeded only in confusing myself. So then we adopted the guy expedient of trying on as many clothes as possible to approximate the correct fit. It’s a process of elimination–a loooooog process of elimination–and after about an hour of trying on a discarded clothes we settled on a coodinated suit jacket/pants combination and picked out a couple of buy-one-get-one free shirts. I hand selected a reddish tie and we were all set after only about an hour and a half.

And here are the results. Judge for yourself how we did.

I wrote about the fun I was having getting the shattered rear window of Misty 6, my Mazda station wagon replaced. When last we left me, I was waiting for a technician to come put in the new rear window Friday afternoon by 5. Time passed, as did 5 o’clock and there was no window. I did receive several calls from shop manager here and from a Safelite vice-president in an undisclosed location (most likely with Dick Cheney) and pieced together a bizarre scenario. The dealer was supposed to have sent the part by 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 PM but didn’t or the part was sent here and returned by mistake or it wasn’t put on the truck or the truck or the part or the driver or the vice-president were abducted by aliens. Or something equally plausible. The manager was quite uspet and told me about 6 PM that he would send a technician to Alexandria in the morning to get the part and that said technician would show up at my house with the part and install it for me. And for Misty 6. I could hardly wait.

So, the next day, nothing happened by noon. I had received an email stating that the installation would take place between 12 and 5. (BTW, don’t you hate service “windows?” I suppose they are meant to make us feel better but a five-hour window of time doesn’t make me feel assured about the people doing the work or the scheduling. You’d think that, allowing for unforeseen circumstances (part was sent back to Alexandria, not put on truck for delivery or abducted by aliens) a company would be able to hit a one-hour window, bringing them in terms of precision to about a fifteenth century level. I know, it’s probably harder than it looks, but I don’t think it’s too much to ask for. Some companies have their techs call you when they’re on the way to your house. I like this, because you can go out with your cell phone and shop for new clothes and the like and still get a nice call to tell you to be at the house, you goober, or you’ll have to reschedule.

Let me also say while I’m saying that I’m not fond of the policy of some companies of requiring a signature for a package or they won’t deliver it. Most times, the delivery people leave the package on the porch if no one’s home or hide it behind one of our porch flowerpots.  Fed Ex attempted a signed delivery today. I could have left the official Fed Ex note saying, “Leave it anyway” which is 81/2 by 11 and call a LOT of attention to the fact that Fed Ex is leaving a package cleverly hidden in the bushes or in the pod bay on the UFO. I could have done this, but my dad and I went out for his doctor’s appointment and I forgot to leave the Mothership landing indicator and so Fed Ex took my little package back to Herndon.

They’re going to try to deliver it again tomorrow (three times and your package goes away somewhere JK) and you bet I’ll be there or have my poor exploited elderly father there or dress Nacho the cat in human clothes and let her receive the silly package. I don’t even remember what’s supposed to be in it.

Anyhow, I am pleased to report that the technician called about 4:15 to say that he was on the way to our house and that we were appointment # 9 out of nine for the day. You’ d think that they would put someone who was inconvenienced for four days ahead of someone who showed up and had every piece of glass in their car replaced 20 minutes after it shattered. I’m just sayin’. 

And so, Misty 6’s rear window was replaced about 4:30 PM Saturday  in front of our house. The tech, who was funny and entertaining,  said the window was cracked before, but the sw wasn’t in a wreck the whole time we have had her. But she was fixed at last. All’s well that finally ends, four days later.

Here’s a final tally for this experience.  Read and learn:

Number of calls made and received in regard to having the rear glass replaced on Misty Mazda 6 station wagon: About 25

Number of appointments in a -day period stated or implied to fix glass problem: 6
 

Number of appointments that actually happened:  1 1/2 ( the first day I actually got the car to the shop but they didn’t have the glass Therein lay the rub. ) 

Time Spent dealing with this: About 4 hours

Upside: Conern of SafeLite and The Travelers.travelers folks

Pay Off: Free replacement wiper, a $22 value. Wow. Maybe I’ll get a pony next time.

I’m here to report that my dad last night finished shredding about 40 years’ worth of tax documentation, He worked at various times on it, by day and by night, sometimes using one shredder; sometimes two. He learned how long each machine ran before it had to cool down, and we took machines apart to free paper jams deep inside the shredder. He started September 27 as reported in the Biscuit City blog, “.069 Tons” and worked for 20 days grinding up the records.  I wish I had counted the leaf bags we put out for recycling.

If my figures are correct, based on the average weight of a piece of paper (5 grams), 150 pounds of paper is about 3000 pages. Our shredders can do about 7 pages a minute under ideal conditions (i.e. no jamming, overheating, burning,bursting into flames or melting), so the total continuous time working was 7 hours.  Doesn’t seem like much, but try shredding for 20 days and see how you feel. Not so good, I bet.

When dad finished the last bunch of checks, I said, “Well, I guess your work here is done.” (I am of the generation that speaks in movie quotes.”

He looked puzzled, “You mean I have to leave?” (He is not of the same generation.)

“No,” I said, “it’s a quote from a movie–Mary Poppins, I believe.” (Actually, it was from The Mark of Zorro, 1942.)

“I’ll find something else to work on,” he said. He likes to be busy–says it keeps him from falling asleep.

The Greatest Generation indeed.

Hello, readers! I hope none of you blew away in the storm last night.  Whew.

I just wanted to tell you that there were five entries for Biscuit City this past week. Because of the way the posts are timed (the World Headquarters for Biscuit City is apparently located in Fiji or something), some posts are labeled with a date that is too early or with none at all.

Here’s the correct sequence:

Monday: The Wedding Singer Part 4: The Beginning of the End
Tuesday: The Wedding Singer, Part 5: Nothing More to Write
Wednesday: Some Lessons from Travel
Thursday: Warm Hearts and Cold Steel
Friday: Walking on Broken Glass

Have a good weekend. Enjoy!

You might remember that I believe that appliances and machines communicate with each other and plan breakdowns in three’s at the same time. (I do not, however, believe in UFO’s.)

My dad and I were coming back to our house with a load of things from his house to take to Caton Merchant House where he will be living in a couple of weeks. Pending a physical on the 18th, we are able to move his things in but he cannot until we get the results of the physical.

As I think I’ve said before, one of our cars is a 2005 Mazda 6 wagon I bought from Alyssa last year. It’s a fun car to drive and quite capacious for a smallish wagon.

Anyhow, as I pulled (slowly) over the apron of the driveway, we heard a tremendous shattering sound like glass breaking. I had a couple of thoughts: first, it was another earthquake, and then second, it was a lamp or lamps breaking. This was my hypothesis until I went to the lift gate to open it to remove a couple of things and…the glass wasn’t there. It had shattered in nice little safety glass bits all over the floor of the cargo area. The only thing I could think, besides, “Golly gee!  Look at that!” was that the wagon’s frame, typically less rigid than a non-wagon, had torqued going over the apron and stressed the rear window to the point of breaking.  That’s my theory, anyhow…but I ain’t sticking to it.

I called our car insurance company (whose symbol is a red umbrella) and filed about the third claim we have had in 37 years. Not too bad. The agent was sympathetic and asked if anyone were injured. I said just my nerves. She took some information and then recommended three glass shops. One of them had fixed a chip in Becky’s car’s windshield a few months before in an expeditious fashion so the agent connected me with the scheduler at the glass repair place, whose initials are Safe and Lite. We set up an appointment for 8:30 Wednesday morning.

I taped a plastic sheet over the gaping black hole in Misty’s read end and did a nice job of it, even if I did it. Here is a picture of the damage:

And one of my coverup job:

Looks natural, doesn’t it?

The next morning I interrupted my scoring to take Misty to the glass shop. The young fellow there frowned and said they didn’t have the part.  I showed him the confirmation for the appointment, as if that would create a part. He said it wasn’t available in local warehouses and they would have to get one from a dealer’s warehouse which would take five to seven days. I was overjoyed (NOT!) but there was nothing to do but limp back home with Misty.

I wrote a scathing email to the glass company about my loss of time and income (a big $20) and sent it off, not expecting much. Some time that afternoon it occurred to me that my insurance covered a rental vehicle. I could get a small truck and continue moving stuff!

I wasn’t able to call Travelers until the next morning (24-hour service doesn’t apply to glass replacement). I asked about a rental car, but the agent seemed more interested in the idea of a 5-7 day turnaround.  “I don’t think so,” she said.  She put me on hold while she contacted the shop. She was back on soon with the news that the replacement part had never been ordered, not on Tuesday, and not on Wednesday. She indicated that she would put me on with the manager and my car would be fixed the next day.A properly contrite manager set up an appointment for noon Friday, with a repair time of about an hour. Amazing.

And better yet, a vice president from Safelite called to apologize and offer me free wipers which I had asked for with my inconvenience and missed income. A $22 value, but also a feeling that some companies and their people do care.  That, my friends, is priceless.

1. Don’t go in the first place. Travel is a curse. Psych! Just kidding!  It’s an adventure! Sometimes it’s more adventurous than others.
2. Take spares and duplicates of essential items. My glasses, which came from large retail outlet with a stylized star (an asterisk with two arms missing) in its logo, lost one of the nose pads. I could of course have worn them but I might as well have put white tape on the bridge and sported a pocket protector. Sometimes you get what you pay for. These are the same glasses that shed a screw in the frame in August on our way to Lynchburg. I didn’t have a spare then (Becky did, though) but I did this time. 
3. Use a checklist when you pack.  You can make your own or get one off the web. A study done in several major hospitals indicated that surgical teams were less likely to omit important steps or items if they used a simple checklist.  I didn’t use one this time and forgot to pack a charger for our new Nikon.  My omission meant we had to improvise to recharge the battery which kept dying prematurely.
4. If you forget something you need, improvise!  Like Bear Grylls, see what there is in the environment you can use to survive. Hotels, for example, usually have boxes of cell phone charger cables that you can use or have.  With our camera, I bought a USB connecting cable from the local Radio Shack and used it to charge the camera from a USB port on the laptop. It worked, even when we were traveling and the goofy battery went out again. We recharged it off the laptop’s battery, which is much bigger. (I know, I am a technical genius.)
5. Take proven equipment.  Our camera was about a month old, and, not knowing what I was doing, I didn’t “condition” the rechargeable battery—i.e. discharge and charge it several times, which makes the battery “recognize” its full capacity (Sheez—I sound like an elementary principal.) (I love elementary principals! They are so cool! Don’t make me repeat fourth grade just because I made mild fun of you!)  I also tested washable clothes I took to Europe this summer (only to be partly thwarted when the room we were in was incredibly humid. We had to squeeze, blow dry and iron garments to get them to the point that they were only slightly moist). I’d also add it’s not a good idea to take a new pair of shoes, especially if you’ll be doing a lot of walking.  Blisters are not fun.
6. Check your GPS against a good map. Huh.  Word just put the previous sentence in bold, automatically. Amazing. I learned this lesson again this trip. No matter how good your GPS is, it will make mistakes and select weird routings.  A good map helps keep it (and you) on course.  “Recalculating…”
7. Know where you are and know which way north is. If I had followed these rules we would not have gone 15 miles out of our way one dark and rainy night, turning a five-minute trip into a hour’s ordeal. Knowing where you are comes from the map (or #8) and knowing where north is helps with directions.  I have a good sense of direction once I know where north is. On this trip, I had trouble clicking that in. It was two days before I got it. It’s easier during the day when the sun is out, or if you can get a shot at the north star. Or use a compass. I plan to take one next time. Just call me Daniel Boone.
8.  Ask directions. Take a lady—your wife, female partner, friend, co-worker or relative—for this purpose.  I am not kidding. Men hate to stop and ask for directions. They don’t want to appear dependent on someone else and would continue driving for an hour in the wrong direction than stop and ask someone, a process that would take thirty seconds. Men also do this because we’re stupid. (Sorry, guys, just broke the bro code there.  We’ll watch some football and drink some suds later, dude.)

Actual recreated dialogue from various trips (Becky drives because she likes to. I navigate because I like to and I need to appear to be doing something useful.):

9. Ask the locals about food and attractions. Rachael Ray says to do this but so does Becky.  We’ve eaten in some terrific places and seen some great sights because she asked a local. I wish we had asked a local about the OASIS Aquarium in Burlington. Not very good, I’m afraid.
10. Take lots of pictures even if you’re not very good at it. Becky is very good at photography and took over 500 pictures on a ten-day trip to Europe in June/July.  I took about four.  With digital cameras, you’re not out much if you take a lot of pictures and most of them stink. Who knows, you might learn to be a better photographer.
11. Expect the unexpected. After all, travel is an adventure…isn’t it?

Some people have asked me why this series of posts is titled “The Wedding Singer: Part Whatever.”  Well, it’s a little English major joke that’s also pretentious but I had fun with it. In the great epics of the past, the poet, feeling inadequate to the task of writing about such high and noble acts, invokes the muse, the inspiration for the account of the story. In many cases the poet asks the muse to sing to inspire him.

Homer in Book I of The Odyssey:

“Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns

driven time and again off course, once he had plundered

the hallowed heights of Troy.”

Virgil, in Book I of the Aeneid:

O Muse! the causes and the crimes relate;

What goddess was provok’d, and whence her hate;

For what offense the Queen of Heav’n began

To persecute so brave, so just a man…

 

Dante Alighieri, in Canto II of The Inferno: 

 

O Muses, O high genius, aid me now!

O memory that engraved the things I saw,

Here shall your worth be manifest to all!

(Anthony Esolen translation, 2002)

John Milton, opening of Book 1 of Paradise Lost:

 

Of Man’s first disobedience, and the fruit

Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste

Brought death into the World, and all our woe,

With loss of Eden, till one greater Man

Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,

Sing, Heavenly Muse, […]

William Shakespeare, Act 1, Prologue of Henry V: 

 

Chorus: O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend

The brightest heaven of invention,

A kingdom for a stage, princes to act

And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!

There was no wedding singer at this wedding (there was a d.j.) but there could have been and s/he would have been my inspiration. Had s/he only have been there.

Anyhow, when we last left our story, United Airlines had just announced cancellation of our flight due to mechanical problems. Practically everyone in the waiting area took off just about at a run. Not having done a lot of air travel, we asked Alyssa where they were going. “To rebook,” she answered. And so we joined a long line of people working their cell phones to get on other flights. I jumped on mine and found there were possibly seats on a 6AM Delta flight, which was very early (duh!) and a 2 PM USAir flight. We were already booked on the original flight a day later but Becky wanted to get back as soon as possible for a couple of rehearsals Monday late afternoon and evening. The United agent on the phone said she would have to wait to hear back from Delta and USAir. By the time we reached the counter, both those flights were overbooked and we settled for a 5:20 flight going into National Airport. Our car was at Dulles but we figured we could call Amy (who was home from the trip) or take the subway/bus connection between the two airports. (In another hundred years or so there will be a Metro connection between them.)

As it was, Amy was able to pick us up, for which we were grateful. Also, Alyssa was ahead of us in line and insisted,using her retail manager/HR specialist mojo, that we be given passes to stay at he Hilton Lakefront in Burlington. The shuttle to the Hilton had stopped running for the night but Alyssa and Chris had already rented a truck for transportation.

And so we checked into the Hilton about 11 PM.  It was the poshest hotel I have ever stayed in.  Who knows what I might do if we stayed at the Ritz in New York City? Go up in smoke, probably. (Not a good figure of speech in the same paragraph with references to hotels.)

The next morning we took it easy. The lake was covered with mist which meant no pictures and no cruise, which we probably didn’t have time for anyhow.

We made one last swing through the Church Street Marketplace and at lunch at a Mexican food place, Miguel’s on Main Street.  Good food, but spicy, oh my.

We walked back to Hilton,did our final packing and caught the shuttle for the airport.

The TSA was even more aggressive this time. They had me put my stuff into six bins and then fussed at me when the bins backed up.  They said I was slowing the operation down. I said I had done what they asked, but didn’t say any more since I might want to fly at some point in the future.

We met up with Scott in the airport. He said their flight to D.C. had been delayed and then they would go to San Francisco, do laundry and then off to Hawaii for the honeymoon. It was good to see him.

Our flight was delayed about half an hour, but the aircraft was medium size pure jet so I was happy.  The seats might have been leather (not sure).  The flight was uneventful, with one of the smoothest approaches I’ve ever experienced. We recognized the Masonic Temple, the Woodrow Wilson Bridge and I-95 on the way in and clearly saw the Capitol, Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial and Washington Cathedral lit up after we landed.

We retrieved our luggage and called Amy, who was waiting in the cell lot.  She drove us to Dulles where we retrieved our car and drove home.  The trip was over.

Tomorrow: Some Lessons from Travel

Of our trip, at least. Nothing more dire than that.  Having seen the happy couple matched, hatched and dispatched (I think I got that wrong–it was just matched…but that’s enough) we awoke to a rainy Sunday morning. I have to say that we were confused enough by the church names that we couldn’t figure out which one to go to, so we didn’t go anywhere. I know this is a perfidious turn of events, but what are you going to do?

We went for breakfast at a place that served “Dutch pancakes” which I figured were at least made from potatoes but which turned out to be a thickish crepe about the diameter of the diner’s head. Becky got one and I got scrambled eggs. I was feeling a trifle under the weather due to my ongoing sinus infection, two days of shopping and sightseeing and being nearly blown off a mountain by hurricane force winds. (Someone said the winds got faster every time I mentioned them.  Come to think of it, they were like an F5 tornado.) That’s why I had eggs and not a giant Dutch  flatcake. I can see why there’s no “International House of Dutch Pancakes (IHoDP).” (sounds like an acronym for an auto immune disease). Maybe it’s just me, but Dutch pancakes are fairly low down on my list of alimentations.

Anyhow, we went back up Mountain Road in the general direction of the lodge. Someone had told us the day before that there was “7%” chance of snow on top of the mountain the day before. Why 7% and not 5% or 6%? Around here, we get “slight chance of flurries with amounts ranging from two feet in the highlands to a trace by the shore.” (You know what I’m sayin’.) Becky took some pictures of the lodge in only overcast, not 500 mph supersonic extraterrestrial winds storms. Then we went over to the gondola “shack.”  Here’s a picture Becky took of the alleged shack. As you can see, this “shack” is more like a “barn.”

The gondola concept is pretty cool.  They run on a continuous loop (like many politicians) and so when they are working they never stop. riders have to leap on while the cars are traveling at maybe, I don’t know, two miles an hour. Every part of the ride is exciting, from wondering if the door is open and we were all going to tumble down the mountainside, pushed by immeasurable winds to leaping amain from the car and rolling to a stop. Or something like that. So, here is a picture Becky took that shows what the experience was like without the tsunami and earthquakes:

After that, we took pictures of a covered bridge, which we found charming and picturesque. Here’s a rather artistic shot of the bridge that I took with my camera phone:

We shopped our way back down Route 110, or at least Becky did while I took naps in the car.  We had lunch at the Whip again, which I kept trying to call the Silver Dagger or the Golden Chain or something like that. Then we were on our way back to Burlington to turn in the rental car and catch our flight. We were way early and passed what we planned to be our last couple of hours in Burlington at the big two-story Barnes and Noble near the airport. We made our way to the airport, turned in the car and went through the fearsome ministrations of the Burlington TSA. I found out that the miniscule bottle of maple syrup I had bought was a potential explosive fluid. Uh, right.

The flight was delayed for twenty minutes and then United made an announcement that it would be delayed while two tires were shipped from Albany, NY, about three and a half hours away. I was just thinking that if it took that long the crew would exceed their time worked allowance and the flight would be cancelled. Just then the P.A. announced the cancellation of the flight.

Tomorrow: The Wedding Singer, Part V: Nothing More to Write.  Part the Last.

I spent yesterday scoring SAT essays for the College Board (actually for Pearson, which designs and administers the test and its scoring) and captioning the pictures of our Vermont trip, which are available on Facebook, if you are my friend. If you’d like to be my friend, send me pony (I’d like a brown one)…no, just ask and it’s yours! What a deal!

We had dress rehearsal for Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory last night and I think it is going to go well. There’s still time to get your tickets for tonight’s performance at 7:30 PM and tomorrow night’s at the same time. For more information, go to http://www.manassaschorale.org/home.aspx. We hope to see you there!

Anyhow, as I was saying, we left our hotel in Burlington about 8:45 Friday morning for the relatively short drive to Stowe. I had forgotten how close together destinations in New England seem as compared to Virginia or Texas or, say, Siberia.

We stopped by the Ben and Jerry’s factory in Waterbury on the way. The half-hour tour was a lot of fun thanks to the guide and educational and included ice cream samples at the end. What more could anyone ask for?

We continued in the mist and rain to the von Trapp Family Lodge located on a washboarded road up a mountain. The Lodge is quite impressive. We skipped the tour which Becky had read was long (1 1/2 hours and old school) and instead wandered around admiring the woodwork and Austrian decorating sensibility. (Didn’t see a single cuckoo clock, though, which was a disappointment and a good thing all at once). We took ourselves out of there about 11:30 AM and drove down the mountain to Stowe, joining a long line of traffic at the three-way stop at the center of town. We parked and took ourselves up and down the main street, shopping, looking and taking pictures.

Alyssa had arranged for us to meet for lunch at 1 PM at the Whip Restaurant, which is part of the Green Valley Inn. We had not seen her or Chris for a couple of weeks. They had been on the West coast for a wedding and conference for Chris. Alyssa telecommuted to work. It was good to see them, and the food was excellent.

We checked into our hotel, the Town and Country Resort, which was a case of back to the ’50’s, but it was adequate. By the time we got in and rested for a bit it was time to dress and go to the wedding. We were supposed to meet at the gondola lift at Stowe Mountain Resort but luckily turned into the resort itself where we saw Amy, Alyssa and some of Amy’s William and Mary friends standing under the entrance cover at the resort. We gave the car to the valet and greeted them before we all climbed aboard a school bus which took us to the gondola loading house. We could not believe the wedding was going to go as scheduled, outdoors, at the top of the ski slope.

Here is what a gondola looks like when you can actually see the mountain:

We were offered hot cider and brown blankets against the cold, piled into a gondola car with six other people, and started the 20-minute climb up to the top. We reached the restaurant and huddled there under or blankets or plastic bags until it was time to go outside in the gale and freezing rain for the ceremony. We continued huddling there as the flag flapped furiously and the rain drove sideways. We could see members of the wedding party as they ran to the front, but not much else since we were all on one level (and huddled together). We could hear the mercifully truncated ceremony with a promise that the readings and meditation would happen at the reception. And so they were married; we all gave a frozen cheer and lined up for the trip back down. A warm school bus was never so cherished.

I think it was a measure of our love and high regard for the couple that everyone took the adverse conditions with good humor and an appreciation for the uniqueness of the event and circumstances. Becky said it would go in the book she plans to write about the thousand or so weddings she has played for. (She didn’t play for this one since the worst enemy of a keyboard wouldn’t have had it out in such weather. The priest had the service on his i-pad and didn’t take it out in the storm.)

The reception was in a fabulous hall at the lodge. Here is a picture of the hall from Vermont Bride magazine. 

 We are not the fabulous people in the picture, but we were fabulous in our own way. 

The food and company were great; the parts of the ceremony left out on the mountain happened; we ate and talked and some of us danced.  The d.j. cranked up the music about 10 PM, which Alyssa said was to make the old people leave, which we did about !0:30. The wedding cake was cut about 9 PM, and was promptly spirited away. We never saw the pieces, leaving us with an as-yet-unsolved mystery: what happened to the carrot cake?

Monday: The Final Chapter in the Saga of the Destination wedding, or, The Wedding Singer, Part 4: Take Me Home, United Airlines…or Not