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Unsuccesful Errands

After weeks traveling, visiting, hosting, and doing, I finally got a weekend to stay home and relax. First, we had the wonderful trip to Illinois, then Pedal to Pints, then my physical, then St. Croix, then visitors, and then finally a day to myself. Oh, my. But then Lucy got sick. Normally, we would go together to do errands on Saturday: go to the library, the farmer's market, and the supermarket. But Lucy wanted to stay home. I decided that, since Lucy didn't want to go, I would just go to the supermarket and get ingredients to make chili. I mentioned to Alisa that she might want to go to the farmer's market to get the stuff that Lucy would normally get, so she got up and went with me. Well, normally, I'm pretty goal directed about running errands: I go to get specific things and, if I see something else, well OK then. But I don't wander up and down and up and down looking at every single thing several times. But that's just how Alisa rolls. Eventually, we finish up at the farmer's market and Alisa says she wants to go to Maple Farm Foods. I'm like "Where?" I mean, I've seen it before -- it's near the bike trail -- but I've never been inside there. "You mean that ice-cream place?" She's like, "Wut?"

When we get there, I head for the front door and she's all "I didn't even know they *had* this door!" And we get inside and I'm like, "Wow! There's like a whole grocery store in here!" Well, sorta. It's an odd, eclectic mix with a bit of everything: ice-cream and candy, hot food, deli, salad bar, produce, beer, wine, and lots of weird ethnic foods.

They were doing an open house with a bunch of demos and samples and were just getting set up. We walked through once and then again. After the third time, I was starting to flip out. And then I realized what it really was: the place had narrow aisles and had become stuffed with people. I can only take being crowded in with a lot of people for a few minutes before I need to get out. Once I realized that, was what it was I went outside and sat calmly in the shade while Alisa made her purchases. There are lovely Rose of Charon bushes all around the front of the building that I could sit and look at.

In the end, however, I never got to the store to buy ingredients for chili -- the one thing I had wanted to get done. But Alisa got to buy random weird stuff -- her favorite thing! And I went to the store on Sunday morning to get fixings for chili. Problem solved.

A lovely day

Today, I had to attend an MSP board meeting. Afterwards, I headed off campus, ran a few errands, and then I and spent the rest of the day at a special retreat.

I first visited Hope and Feathers Framing where I arranged to have my Conlang special poster framed. I spent 5 times as much on the framing as I did on my contribution for the video, but I figured that the poster might someday be a collectors item. And I couldn't stand the idea that I'd just stick it up on a bulletin board -- it was signed by the director.

Next, I stopped by Staples. We'd gotten some gift surfertickets, so I wandered around looking at the office supply porn -- I love looking at pens and paper and envelopes and stuff. Eventually, I got some replacement headphones for Charlie, whose headphones had broken recently.

Then I went to Thornes Market, got a cup of coffee at Raos, and worked on writing until Tom arrived.

We've both been working hard on the digital sign project for CNS. Using the same recipe I used to the digital signs in Biology, Tom has built an elegant system for people to maintain signs across multiple departments. I built the players that the sign system uses and elaborated them a bit so that they could work for Tom's system at the college level.

We talked a bit about the sign system, but talked mostly about other things: about our families, about work, about the Biology department, about other projects. It was great to have a chance to catch up on everything else.

Then, at 1pm, Buzz arrived and we went to the Northampton Brewery. Buzz and I tried the Sno-Day IPA, which was wonderful: fresh and crisp and nicely bitter. We had lunch and talked about getting old and elementary schools and Sandy Point and our many other common interests. It was a wonderful afternoon with dear friends.

More errands, another meeting, and then home before bedtime. A long day, but a very satisfying one.

Brazil

I'm back from Brazil. It was an intense trip that got off to a rough start: from the tickets on a bankrupt airline, the visa that never came, and the last-minute frantic drive through Boston due to the collapsed big-dig tunnel, it looked for a while like I might not make it. But I did and I had a tremendous experience.

I spent several days in São Paulo. Its a huge, incredibly polluted city absolutely wracked with fear over a criminal insurgency that conducted around 150 attacks during the week I was there. More than a dozen buses were burned, a fact I was painfully aware of everytime I rode a bus. Many houses and buildings had two, three, or four layers of security to prevent attacks: One house I visited had a huge barred fence, topped with razor wire, topped with an electric fence -- you had to be buzzed through one gate, enter a small barred space and, only after closing the first gate would the second be opened. It is a different sort of place than the Happy Valley.

The congress was fantastic -- Esperanto in the US is often treated as a joke, but people in Brazil really love Esperanto and it really shows. I met scores of people and had very interesting conversations with everyone regarding everything from US foreign policy to showerheads to pets. Next year's congress is in Rio. It would be worth learning Esperanto just to attend a Brazilian conference -- it was a wonderful atmosphere and a tremendous experience. You can read more about the trip in Esperanto.

Coming home has been rough, though. Plato, my beloved dog, was diagnosed with canine lymphoma just before I left and succumbed yesterday. He collapsed in the early morning and we rushed him to the animal hospital unconcious. They got some fluids into and brought him around, but we decided it was better to let him go. We got a few good minutes with him to pet him and say goodbye and then we had them come in and help him go. It was hard, but I feel better knowing that he won't have to go through something like that again.

On the way home, I also strained my shoulder -- the rotator cuff is inflamed and extremely painful. I got a shot of cortisone (with the longest needle I've ever seen) and some painkillers to take the edge off. It's very distracting, however, and hard to get work done.

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