Ending

Okay. It seems you won’t be traveling with Phil the few blocks from Linden Green to Mt. Royal Avenue after all. The Fitzgerald notified me this morning that the apartment I’ve so looked forward to occupying has finally now been occupied. After all my preparations – both practical and psychological – for the move, I’m disappointed. But not really upset. No matter. Now there’s no need to find just the right new round table to sit at the left end of my sofa in the living room. I no longer must decide which wall my desk should abut so that the view out the window will help me find just the right word when I’m writing. I won’t have to use a closet in the apartment as a pantry or grapple with a decision over whether to outfit the second bedroom in a traditional manner or use it as a den with a good sleeper sofa. There’s no conflict about where to put my antique chest, no need to cut down the base on my Paul McCobb credenza, no decision about how to make the lighting in the bathrooms more becoming. My friends won’t have to pay $10.00 for parking in the garage when they come for dinner. I won’t have to give up any of my art. And best of all, I can finally get rid of that sorely dog-eared chicken gravy box that’s been holding all my toilet articles for the last six months.

Last spring, when contemplating a move to The Fitzgerald, I talked myself into leaving Linden Green, imagined myself in new surroundings, tried on the feel of a garage, elevator, receptionist, all those subtle changes that apartment living entails. But as the quest to sell my house seemed less and less likely to be fulfilled, I talked myself back into staying right here, enjoying the view of my garden, the crackle of my fireplace, the freedom of that extra space in my basement, and the oh-so-satisfying feel of rooms so selfishly filled with my own peculiar personality.

If home is where the heart is, my heart’s back here on Linden Green.

Since this blog was designed for sharing my travels – to wherever they might take me – this will be my last entry until some new alluring place in the world attracts my attention. Maybe a cruise next (without a dancing gig) would be a good thing. Thinking about all that effort involved in a move has tired me out. Sunrise at sea, lunch on deck, tea at four and wrapped in a blanket in a deckchair with a good book as the world goes by sounds really relaxing.

Stay tuned.

Pulling My Hair

While a review of my blog shows I haven’t added to it since July – a clear demonstration of my increasing tendency toward retirement laziness – this significant time gap is not only due to my growing lassitude but also to an admonition from my realtor shortly after my last entry when he revealed that a prospective buyer for my house found his (her?) way through Google to my blog and because of what he (she?) read here, decided not to make an offer. “Be careful what you write, “he said. “You never know who’s reading it.” Although this is obviously good advice in general, I think these specific circumstances odd since the only Phil Cooper I’ve found on Google (yes; I’ve looked for myself there, but then, who hasn’t?) owns a trailer manufacturing business in Texas, about as far, both geographically and characteristically, as one can get from this Phil Cooper on Linden Green. And even if I were on Google, how could one find his (her?) way from there to my blog, an illogical connection my realtor could not explain. But there it was, obviously the result of a search by a buyer young enough to have been born with those genes so essential to successfully disentangling cloud formations in electronic space, and I want to sell my house so I’ve followed my realtor’s advice. Now, looking back, I can’t imagine that anything I might write here would deter a legitimate buyer from at least making an offer. So, at the risk of another distress call from my realtor, here I am, back at my word processor, bringing you up to date.

Although traffic through my house has been heavy enough to re-soil the carpets I so carefully had professionally cleaned in May, that traffic has not produced any offers. The Sharon/Karen possibility fizzled out along with the enthusiasm of the young couple who still have to sell their condo. The older couple who had once moved to the country and now want to move back to the city disappeared, as did all those many who were “just at the beginning of their search.” The open houses have generated a few lookers but no takers. The big ad I insisted be placed in the local gay paper has not produced that gay couple, which might be just the “right” people to appreciate and want to live in what has been called “a very special environment.”

Through all of this, I’ve lived as if on stage where, with very short notice before the curtain must go up on yet another showing, I rush to remove the items essential to my daily routine – the toothpaste and the pills, the paper towels and soap dish, the pile of unpaid bills, my calendar, my cell phone charger, the salt box and the pepper grinder, the crock that holds my wooden spoons and whisks, the drinking glass, the dishtowel and apron hanging from the oven handle – and clean and fluff and dust and sweep and rake so a prospective buyer can visualize how he (or she) might live in my space. And then I leave so that my personality can neither influence nor inhibit a free discussion between buyer and agent about the merits of 1306 Linden Green. When I return, I turn off all the lights, left on to make the spaces seem larger, close the closet doors, rearrange the kitchen and move the turkey gravy box that holds my essential bathroom items from its hiding place in the cabinet below the sink to the counter up on top. The flaps on the carton are now bent and frayed and I fear they won’t hold the weight of the giant Costco mouthwash bottle very much longer.

The fact that my house has not yet sold (notice I say “not yet,” for my hope does spring eternal) is not due in any way to lack of effort by my agent, who has been incredibly diligent on my behalf, giving up personal plans and encouraging, I’m sure, even those with only mild interest in a “3 Br, 3 ½ B, brick townhouse hidden on a lovely terraced courtyard” to at least take a look. It’s just a very bad time in real estate. And maybe the statue of poor St. Joseph, kindly donated by a friend and so faithfully and traditionally planted upside-down in my garden for good luck, just doesn’t like it there among my tulip bulbs.

Meanwhile, The Fitzgerald has been incredibly cooperative, understanding my dilemma and continuing to extend the hold on my apartment there. But they’re ability to keep prime real estate out of inventory is limited, so as of November 1 – I’ve just received formal notice of the return of my deposit – they’ve had to put #532 back on the list of available apartments, with the understanding that when/if anyone shows serious interest in it, they will call me before letting it go. I can’t ask for more than that.

So time marches on and, as you can see, I’m pulling my hair.

Stay tuned.

Sharon and Karen, The Agent, and A Dilemma

Once upon a time, not so long ago, a lesbian couple – I’ll call them Sharon and Karen – lived in a small house just a block away from Linden Green with their two adopted sons. After many years together, Karen met someone new – I’ll call her Marion – and she ended her relationship with Sharon and moved into Marion’s apartment some considerable distance away, leaving Sharon and the boys, now 7 and 9, behind. While Sharon and the boys were not happy about this when it happened, Sharon and Karen ultimately arrived at an amicable arrangement. Sharon bought Karen’s interest in the little house and the two of them agreed to joint custody of 7 and 9. But when 7 and 9 traveled to visit their other Mommie, the distance and logistics became troublesome to all. Sharon urged Karen to invest her share of the equity in the little house in a larger one nearby so 7 and 9 could visit more easily, a house with enough bedrooms so that each boy, now sharing a room, could have his own. This plan especially appealed to Karen when she and Marian, new to their relationship, were having interpersonal problems. But when things were going well, Karen was ambivalent about Sharon’s entreaties.

Enter Phil and his house on Linden Green, just a block away from the little house where Sharon and the boys lived and large enough for 7 and 9 to each have his own room. Enter also, Phil’s real estate agent – whom I’ll call Agent – who was friendly with both Sharon and Karen and recommended Phil’s house as the perfect answer to Sharon’s (and, as it turned out, to a lesser extent, to Karen’s) quest. Agent urged Karen to take a look at the house on Linden Green but Karen, who owned her own business, was scheduled to go out of town and couldn’t squeeze a visit to Linden Green into her busy schedule. By way of encouraging Phil who was beginning to feel that his house was never going to sell, Agent told Phil about the Mommies and their dilemma, suggesting to Phil, and to the Mommies, that his house was the perfect solution. While Karen was away – according to Agent’s description of events to Phil – she asked Sharon to take a look at the house on Linden Green to see if it was satisfactory. Sharon came to the house with 7 and they fell in love with it. Agent was pleased. So was Phil. But when Karen returned from her business trip, she didn’t rush to see Phil’s house herself. Phil was not pleased – this delay did not auger well - and by way of explanation, Agent told him of the facts recounted here. Still, after what seemed like sufficient time for Karen to signal her ambivalence about the plan, she came to the house on Linden Green and liked it. However, Agent reported to Phil that Karen wasn’t at all sure she wanted to buy now. Her relationship with Marion seemed to have improved. Perhaps it’s true that even a short separation does make the heart grow fonder. Or perhaps Karen had invested her equity in the little house in her business.

Meanwhile, Phil is scheduled to move into his new apartment in The Fitzgerald in the middle of August, by now obviously impossible. Without a sale – or even a contract for sale – Phil doesn’t feel comfortable obligating himself for the new apartment. This is what we call A Dilemma. Phil called Agent for advice and was urged to lower the price of the house on Linden Green by $10,000.00 in order to bring the listing into a lesser category on real estate search engines. Everything else, Agent said, had already been done to promote the house and there were no takers: only the African-American doctor with a child and nanny who had found the ceilings of the house too low, and who had (strangely) bought another house just like Phil’s in the same community; and the young couple who loved the house but had to sell their condo first. Phil hesitated. $10,000.00 less was his absolute low number, which left no room for negotiation at a time and in a psychological environment where everyone wants to tell their friends they got A Deal.

Phil called The Fitzgerald and asked for an extension of his occupancy date to the end of September, hoping that Agent was correct in suggesting that although August was hot and no one was buying, September might bring a bump in the market, or the couple would sell their condo, or Karen might fight with Marion and want to move out. Any of these could solve The Dilemma. The property manager at The Fitzgerald answered Phil’s request by saying she had the authority to extend an occupancy date for two weeks but not for six. She would have to go higher up for her answer.

In reserve, the owner of Agent’s agency, a friend of Phil’s, is also a friend of the builder of The Fitzgerald and should the Property Manager’s answer be negative, he has offered to call the builder on Phil’s behalf to plead Phil’s case for the delay.

The story of Sharon and Karen, The Agent and The Dilemma will be continued. Stay tuned.

Wating, Waiting

When I put my house on the market in mid-May, everyone – my real estate team, my friends and neighbors, even I – expected the house to sell quickly. “Your house shows so well. And it has great curb appeal,” one agent proclaimed. “It’s the beautiful, mature garden that will sell this house,” prophesied another. “Be careful what you wish for,” said their manager. “This house will go immediately. You’re planning to move in mid-August? That’s not soon enough. We only need 60 days for settlement.” Also anticipating a quick sale, several of my neighbors told me how sorry they were to see me go – “your house is so gorgeous,” they said, as though my leaving would somehow diminish the value of their own property. One of the officers of our association even called me a “traitor,” for abandoning him. And as for me, I’d already talked myself into my new apartment, readying myself to leave a house I’ve loved for 20 years, willing to give up my fireplace and some of my beloved art, begun picturing myself living in a smaller, newer, less complicated space. It’ll change my life, I thought, and give me new direction, not a bad thing as I approach my 75th birthday.

A professional photographer came to document the spaces in my house with an extreme wide-angle lens that helped produce a beautiful brochure that made the rooms seem huge. My agent scheduled an open house for other real estate firms, and a day when home-seekers themselves could inspect (or curious neighbors see how I live). I put away all the objects that proclaimed my house “mine,” so that prospective buyers could imagine making their own memories in their new rooms. I had the carpets cleaned, the windows washed, planted new flowers in the pots in the garden. But after an initial mostly desultory response – only one agent came to the agents’ open house and no prospective buyers flocked to the Sunday my house was open to all, the carpet-cleaner guy who seemed enthusiastic about owning the house couldn’t raise the necessary cash, the single lady doctor with a child and a live-in nanny thought the house too dark and the ceilings too low, the mixed-race couple frowned and passed, the young couple who want the house have to sell their condo first – the interest and action so optimistically predicted has trickled to a halt, like water from the end of a hose that’s recently been turned off. The timing hasn’t helped: first it was Memorial Day, then Father’s Day, then the Fourth of July. And the weather here, breaking records at over 100 degrees for each of the last ten days, is not conducive to house-hunting. Even our mayor, in daily phone calls, is urging everyone to stay at home.

While I’m not yet desperate, I am discouraged. A house across the street, similar to mine but smaller and listed for slightly less, sold after only 30 days on the market. A house in my own complex, built exactly like mine but with some interior alterations and listed a week after mine for $15,000.00 more, sold in three days. Odd that It was purchased by the doctor who found my ceilings too low. And two townhouses in a complex just south of mine sold immediately, one in the same day it was listed. So I know there’s activity. And I’m convinced there’s someone out there in the world just dying to live in my house; we just have to find him, which brings me back to my agent, whose job it is, I feel, to rustle up that person. But the agent is back-peddling, giving me all the reasons why “this is a bad time, a tough market, a very particular house, needing a very particular buyer.” I’ve suggested that I send a personal email to all the real estate agents – some of them friends of mine – listed in the back pages of the gay paper. Maybe I could feed them lunch, or dinner? No; not a good idea, says my agent. Well how about a sign outside advertising my house for sale, even though our association bylaws prohibit that? You wouldn’t want to upset your neighbors, my agent tells me. I’ve even schlepped to the Catholic book store in Towson, parking illegally while I purchased a St. Joseph medal to plant upside down in my garden. But so far, none of these efforts has paid off.

At the beginning of this quest to sell my house I talked myself into moving, imagined living in a new space, looked forward to a major change in my life. How odd it now seems that I find myself moving in the opposite direction, preparing myself for the now possible letdown of remaining exactly where (and how), at nearly 75, I already am.

Stay tuned.

Half Full? Or Half Empty?

A couple of years ago, I enrolled in The Osteoarthritis Initiative, a joint research study (no pun intended) between the Johns Hopkins, and the University of Maryland, hospitals. Twice a year I starve myself for 24 hours and then am pricked and prodded and probed and MRI’d to reveal how my knees look and perform in this visit as opposed to the last one. It’s a little inconvenient – going without food is not my strong suit – but I feel good about making the contribution. When the study began, there was no compensation for involvement, but I guess somebody came up with some money from somewhere and the principal investigator decided at least some of us might be motivated to remain for the five-year-duration of the study if there was a little monetary carrot to balance the stick of a sharp needle in a tender arm. So some months later, when it comes as a complete surprise – not a bad thing – I now receive a nice check for $75.00.
On the way to my bank to deposit the last check, I first stopped at The Fitzgerald to confirm some measurements. A filled-out deposit slip and the check, endorsed “for deposit,” were paper clipped to the front of a file folder that held my furniture layouts. Going up the many stairs with one of the sales staff – the elevators are not yet working – I must have brushed the check and deposit slip against my leg for they fell off unnoticed on the steps. Fortunately, a workman coming up behind said, “Hey, you dropped some papers,” and he retrieved the check and gave it back to me. I went on to take my measurements and in the process stopped at the model apartment, a completed apartment in my stack and the still unfinished space where I will actually live. Satisfied, I returned to the garage, dropped the sales lady off at her office and went on to the bank. When I got there, the check and deposit slip were missing. I looked through the file folder several times, thinking that because the check had come off the front once, I must have put it more inside, where it would be more secure. But alas; no check. I searched the car, thinking it might have fallen off the folder and gotten down on the floor. But no check. I went through all my pockets, both on my shirt and in my trousers, but no check. I went home in some degree of frustration and guilt. Losing a check. How stupid! I should have been more careful.
Now, 75 bucks won’t change my life. But I hate to pour that much bread down the drain. So I called Meghan at The Fitzgerald office and told her what had happened. She said they’d check the route taken on my tour and let me know if they found anything. She’d also alert the construction crew: many men, mostly Hispanic, in hard hats and work boots, shuffling through the construction debris. But no check. I decided to just let it go. But a week later, the stingy Puritan in me, and my managerial perseverance, insisted I do more. So I called the study office but there was no answer. I guess they only work certain days of the week. I left a message for them to return my call but, now that my quest to recover the $75.00 had begun, I wanted action. So I stumbled through the hospital bureaucracy until I finally found the pay office for the project. Carol was very nice to me but she couldn’t stop payment on the old check nor issue a new one without the authorization of the study office. Back to ground zero. I waited for the OAI office – so much of our lives is now expressed in initials – to call me back. When, a few days later, they did, I faced more bureaucracy. Robin would have to consult with the manager of the study and they would probably have to have a signed affidavit from me explaining the circumstances of losing the check (if that’s what had happened) before they could stop payment on the original and issue me a new one. She would get back to me.
A day or so later, I was working on my bank reconciliation statement and was very surprised to find that it included, on the day after I had lost the check, a deposit of the missing $75.00. My first reaction was to wonder if my memory had failed so much that I had actually made the deposit and just didn’t remember. No. I’m very careful about putting the receipts for deposits in my check book. I had definitely lost the check. So how had it been deposited in my account? Some workman must have found the check, with the deposit slip, and gone to the bank for me. What a great guy! (There are no women on the construction crew.) And what a lift! Not only had I retrieved my 75 bucks, but my view of humanity had improved dramatically. I called The Fitzgerald and explained to Meghan that the check had been found and deposited. She was very pleased. I expressed my hope that she would tell the construction manager so he could complement whoever this Good Samaritan was.
But at the same time that I was reveling in my good fortune and in the cozy warmth of man’s humanity to man, I must admit that another less positive scenario occurred to me. If, knowing from his boss that a check had been lost, wouldn’t a workman who found it, return it to the office? Wouldn’t he know that this good deed would naturally redound to his benefit, get him some points? So suppose, instead, that the workman actually went to the bank and tried to cash the check. Had the bank clerk been sufficiently astute to ask for identification to verify that this Hispanic man at the window in front of her was actually Phil Cooper? Or had she simply seized the check because it was endorsed for deposit? Would an employee of PNC Bank be that aggressive?
Life is full of conundrums. I try to look at it through a glass half full instead of giving in to the half-empty cynicism that so easily seeps into life at my age. But that’s not always so easy. So maybe I shouldn’t choose. Maybe I should be less Western in my thinking and in a more Eastern point of view, just hold both possibilities in my mind at the same time. After all, I’ll never know the truth. And both alternatives are equally valid. Anyway, my $75.00 made its way to my bank account and for that I’m grateful. 75 bucks will buy almost a month’s rent on my new parking space in The Fitzgerald’s garage.



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Plans

One of my strongest suits is logistics. I love planning. So when I decided to move to The Fitzgerald, I visited the site many times, first to pick out the specific apartment and then several more times to measure the spaces. From those dimensions, I drew a plan view and played with placement of my furniture, also carefully measured, until I decided where everything would go. As anticipated, there was a lot of furniture left over. This went on a list of things I must dispose of, one way or another. I called an auctioneer who was willing to come to see if he was interested in carting it all away for sale. I told him I’d get back to him once I had a contract on the house.

In addition to excess furniture, there were other problems. While I love my art, I have a lot of it, too much, in fact, to fit the wall space in the apartment. After I’d placed all the furniture in my mind, I went back to the building to measure wall space and planned where the art I couldn’t live without might live. Sadly some of my collection would also have to go. Naturally, I made a list, and would the auctioneer take that too, after I had a contract on the house? Further, since there are no bookshelves in the new apartment and I have lots of books – as well as other things that should go on shelves, like boxes of photographic disks and negatives and albums – I made several trips to Ikea to find a system that might solve that problem. I played with those possibilities until I had designed one whole wall of bookshelves for the master bedroom. Maybe, when that time came, I could get Eric to put it all together? Yes; he’d be interested, when I have a contract on the house. Next was the lighting. I bugged the construction manager until he sent me a lighting plan from the building’s blueprints so I could determine which switches controlled which fixtures, and where both the switches and the outlets were located. With my own lighting plan in hand – I decided I have to put up lots of track to light the spaces the way I want them lit – I went back to the building to confirm that the track would not interfere with the air-conditioning ducts. Then I went to my friend, Bob Jones, for advice on the lighting. David, Bob’s assistant, sent me a quotation covering our decisions, but I won’t be buying it, David, until I have a contract on the house. With this issue settled, I went back to my realtor to clarify which fixtures would not go with the house but would move with me to the new apartment (once I have a contract on the house). Having always coveted the Eames chair and ottoman made by Herman Miller, I visited American Office Furniture, the Herman Miller dealer in Baltimore, where Mandy gave me a quotation for them. Would that be in cherry frame with black, or brown, leather? I could decide that later, I said, when I have a contract on the house.

And so it goes. I’ve planned as much as I can, going as far as I can until… well, you know.

Stay tuned.

Living in a Stage Set

Once I put my house on the market, it had to be properly staged for viewing. I was told, nicely but firmly, that prospective buyers need to see a house not as you live in it, but as they might want to live in it. This means removing most of the things that make this house my home. Avendui, my agent, said there were too many tschotches on the cocktail tables in the living room, too many gadgets on the kitchen counters, too much fuss in my den, far too many cookbooks, sweaters on the shelf in the closet, shoes. So I went to work putting things away. The kitchen got the most extensive treatment. Gone are the coffee maker and blender from the counter in the kitchen; gone the container of wooden spoons, the whisks, the pancake turners, the spatula. Gone are the dish towels from the handle of the oven door. Gone from the side of the refrigerator are the magnets that once held cards for the appliance repair man, the handy man and the painter, gone the number for the Salvation Army and the hours of operation for the library in Roland Park, gone the photograph of Rhea and her new (now not so new) grandson and the print of Bert and me at a long-ago party. Banished from the top of the cabinets are the extra rolls of paper towels, the big glass bowl I use occasionally for flowers, the toaster/oven, the Mexican casseroles, the parchment paper for lining cookie sheets. I drew the line at the canisters of sugar and flour and tea, and the tea kettle on the stove. But the rest of the house has suffered as well. Gone from the cocktail table in the living room are the little boxes I’ve collected from all over the world, packed away in unprinted newspaper, not to live again until they reemerge in my new apartment. Gone are the animals on the chest, the framed photographs (especially those; too personal, too distracting) of my family, and the good luck Eye of Turkey in water in the glass vial that Susie somehow, miraculously, got to me without its breaking. Gone are the candlesticks from the dining room credenza, the Kleenex box from the top of the toilet tank in the guest bathroom, the piles of papers on my TV cabinet in the den, the stapler, paper weights, the note pads, the Scotch tape dispenser, the paper clip box and stamp holder from my desk, the books from the table next to my favorite chair, the throw slung over its arm to use when I’m cold. Gone are the sweaters from the shelf in my closet, packed carefully away in hard-to-see-through plastic boxes that “will read as one.” The shoes are now lined up perfectly, scrunched together like peas in a pod. And in the basement, gone are the many framed photographs of friends and family that lined the bookshelves, the photograph albums of my many trips, the little dragon cigarette lighter, the plastic wind-up toy of the monk beating on his drum, the colorful control board from a failed air conditioner from my (once) house at the beach, my photograph of Fred when he was very sick, looking out forlornly from his hospital bed. Gone from the house, in so far as possible, is my personality.

Living in this notable lack of chaos is not easy. Some things just have to come out of hiding for daily use (the dishtowels and the sponge and soap in the kitchen) and when I’m warned that a prospective buyer wants to see the house, go back in again. All the cosmetics I use on a daily basis – pills, lotions, toothpaste, hair gel, deodorant, shaving cream – have been relegated to the space under the sink where, for ease of access, they now reside in a small carton, begged from Eddie’s and which once contained cans of turkey gravy. I leave the carton out until I’m told someone wants to see the house. Then the turkey gravy carton goes back under the sink. Sometimes I forget where I put things or find them in odd locations. Where’s the spoon holder? What’s this dishtowel doing with the frying pans? Why are the wooden spoons in the refrigerator?

Presumably, this rigid military order will help to sell the house. I sure hope so. I’m not used to living in such serene surroundings. It’s like eating meals without any salt and pepper.

Stay tuned.

Giving up the House

Imagining myself living in an apartment was not so difficult – after all, I’ve done it twice before – but picturing myself giving up my house was something altogether different. 1306 Linden Green has truly been my home for almost 20 years and I have endless happy associations with living here (I have some not so happy memories of that, too, but that’s not part of this story), many of them connected with my family and my many friends: birthday parties, dinner parties, benefits and celebrations, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween. The house has also become the amber of my life, frozen with art I’ve collected, each piece with its own history, and the many objects I’ve dragged home from my trips. While some of this is transferable, other parts of the house are not. There’s the small stain on the sisal carpet in the dining room, where Fred, my English cocker spaniel, bless his heart, peed when I didn’t get home in time to take him out. There’s the dent in the living room floor where the little marble table fell over when a date and I got too exuberant doing the samba. Fortunately, the marble didn’t break. There’s the spot in the kitchen floor where a beautiful dish fell out of a too-fully-packed refrigerator, smashing into many pieces and spewing the sauce everywhere at a critical moment when I was about to announce a fancy brunch. There’s the touch-latch door in my den that will never close properly, the wall sconce that has to be coaxed to stay lit, the scorched spot on the laminate counter top in the kitchen and the one under counter light that burns for a while, goes out, and then comes back on. There are the so many things that give my house flavor, personality, uniqueness. Sentimental me; I wondered if I could face giving all that up.

In time, I came to realize that this “stuff” is all associated with my past. So I just decided to let all that go. Focus on the future, I said to myself. Think about a whole new way of living, in a whole new environment. Imagine the possibilities, the excitement, the learning. You’ve grown stale, I said. Stretch! Grow! Become!

When I realized I had begun to speak of 532 as “my apartment” (shown in the lead photograph on the top floor between the glass bridge and the vertical construction pylon), I knew it was going to be okay. I put my house on the market.
Stay tuned.

More Travel

Yes, I’m traveling again. But no, not to some exotic location touted in the pages of those glossy travel magazines. Instead, I’m going just five blocks away to The Fitzgerald, a new apartment building on Mt. Royal Avenue at the foot of Bolton Hill.

For more than a year, I’ve considered selling my house and moving to an apartment. My reasons, gently sloshing around in the back of my head, seem, when examined in the front, both sane and practical. The house is really bigger than I need; I live in only a few of its rooms. The house is in good shape now, but in any house built 35 years ago, disturbing problems of maintenance suddenly appear with upsetting practical and financial implications. The garden I’ve loved and carefully tended is now beautifully mature but my failing knees – even the replaced one – prevent me from working in it comfortably. And once the mosquitoes come, my extreme allergic reaction to their bites prevents me from enjoying the greenery, which I now rush through on my way to my car, slathered with mosquito repellant, a pungent cologne sure to make me unpopular at dinner parties. Further, I realize I’ve reached an age when I want a simpler life, and have given up the dream, albeit reluctantly, of a second home somewhere in the woods where I might use that second set of stainless steel I’ve been saving in the basement since closing my apartment in New York. No; I’m ready.

In retrospect, I realize I was even ready a year ago. But I was also smart enough to understand that my living environment – and the way I live in it – is critical to my happiness. When the thought of moving first popped into my consciousness and I consulted a realtor, we couldn’t find an apartment that spoke to me of home, that possessed the necessary features: an unusual configuration with possibilities for the expression of my creativity, sufficient wall space for my art and a place where I would feel down-sized but not down-graded. So I gave up the idea. Still, it persisted. So when The Fitzgerald opened its rental office in a trailer across the street from the site on April 1, I decided to investigate.

I’ve watched the building going up for some time and have been intrigued by its strange design and configuration. Clad in what looks like corrugated panels of dull blue plastic, the two most prominent wings of the building, five floors high and connected by a stack of three covered glass bridges, come forward toward the street like giant pliers not quite closed. (As I try to make this description as accurate as I can, the building sounds really ugly and I’m sure some will find it so. But to me, it’s just interesting, and unlike any other building I’ve seen anywhere.) Because of the angle of Mt Royal Avenue, the western wing’s six end apartments have angled walls with a lot of glass. These looked interesting. Inside the trailer, Meghan showed me the site plan and the layouts of the apartments I wanted to see. She gave me a hard hat and we went exploring. Tramping through plaster dust and threading our way around cables hanging from the ceiling, we made our way to apartments 532 and 533, the ones that looked interesting from the street. I liked them both immediately. Meghan explained that the one looking north was already reserved for the owner of the restaurant planned to go in on the first floor. But the one facing south was available. I took floor plans of them both and went home to see how my life might fit into these unusual spaces.

Both apartments consisted of a large room designed to function as a living, dining and kitchen space, with a granite-topped island facing the angled windows. Both had two bedrooms and a small den, two bathrooms and lots of closet space. I played with both designs and decided that I preferred the larger apartment. I went to work trying to fit my furniture into the spaces. It wasn’t easy, but I managed to find room for what I thought essential. Placing the art was much more difficult. The flip side of having all that light from such large windows, was not enough wall space for paintings. I forced myself to decide which art was essential and which I could give up. I still didn’t have room for it all. So I decided I would just have to live like the Cone sisters, who had so much art that they hung it stacked almost to the ceiling. I’d just do the same.

Confident now that I could live in 532, I visited the rental trailer again and gave Meghan a deposit that took the apartment off the market. But with that accomplished, I now had to face giving up my house. Could I really do that?

Stay tuned.

Yippee!

T. S. Eliot’s poem, “The Wasteland,” starts with the famous line, “April is the cruelest month…” I used to wonder what that meant. But the poem goes on “…breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.” How beautiful this continuation, which clarifies the beginning, leading me now to presume Eliot meant that April’s rejuvenation is cruel because it reminds us of both our “dead” past and a “hopeful” future, of the end and of the beginning.
Spring’s beginning was exploding all around me in early April as I walked the short two blocks to an Easter Sunday service in Brown Memorial Church, which I attend on special occasions. It was a beautiful, warm, clear day. The pink and white blossoms of ornamental cherry trees and Bradford pears, scattered around the streets of my neighborhood here on Bolton Hill, seemed purposely flung up against a perfect, deep-blue sky, as though designed to lure us to look to the heavens for beauty, glorious relief from the straightforward view of our more ordinary, winter lives. Even the yellowy-green of new leaves, tentative sprouts on the dark, seemingly dead branches of the maple trees, forecast the coming spring, the April renewal of Eliot’s poem. Inside the church, dedicated in 1870 to the memory of George Brown, a son of Alex Brown, the air was heavy with the scent of an extravagance of white Easter lilies and giant purple hyacinths, perfumed messengers of the season.
At the door, I was warmly welcomed by the traditional church greeters who pass out programs and who met me with a smile, thinly disguising their natural curiosity about this stranger to their congregation. I found a seat at the end of a pew far enough in the back of the church to fully see and enjoy the huge stained glass windows in the north and south transepts, two of the dozen windows made for the church by the Louis Comfort Tiffany Studio in 1910. Their brilliant and complicated colors, some made from many layers of glass, have always been an inspiration. The organist was playing a prelude by Bach, one my mother had often played for Sunday services in our Methodist Brick Church on Main Street in the little town where I grew up. I nodded to the others seated in my pew and settled in, reading the program and marking the pages for the hymns. Above me, the groined arches of the ceiling, painted a brilliant blue and accented with lines of deep red and gold leaf, rose dramatically, crossing over and back, over and back in a timeless, majestic rhythm, a lovely counterpoint to the ordered Bach. Their supporting columns, carved in granite grape vines, climb ever upward, with a ribbon of gold leaf interwoven among the fruit. It’s a truly beautiful church, helpful to a spiritual atmosphere and one where, when that time comes, I hope my memorial service will be held.
The first hymn was the familiar “Christ the Lord is Risen Today.” A-a-a-a-le-lu-a-a-lu-u-ia. I know it well enough to try the bass. As I was singing, gaining confidence in my ability to still read music, I felt that smarting in the back of your eyes that forecasts tears. I didn’t think much about it but went on with the hymn, concentrating on the bass line and finishing the hymn with a calm “amen.” We all sat down. The pastor, Reverend Conner, a short and youngish man, with coal dark hair and eyes, and the white skin of the truly Irish – obviously greatly talented, and maybe a little proud to have been selected for such a lofty church – usually delivers a message I find worthwhile even though his delivery is a little too dramatic for my taste. My sister, who attends church more regularly than I, tells me that’s now the “style.” Despite my slight distaste for this quality of his sermon, another feature of his tenure that I heartily endorse comes early in the service, when he calls all the little children to the front of the church where they sit on the steps to the altar and he tries to tell them, at their level of understanding, what this Sunday’s message is all about. In this service, he asked them if knew what day it was.
“Easter,” they said, more or less in unison. “Easter!”
“And what do we say on Easter?” he prompted.
There was a chorus of alleluias.
“Yes,” the pastor said. “Alleluia. Now do you know what that means?” he asked.
There was a lull as the children thought. Their parents hadn’t prepared them for this question. Then one precocious little boy yelled, “Yippee!”
The pastor laughed. “Yes,” he said. “Yippee! It is a time of celebration.” And he went on to explain that Easter celebrates Christ’s triumph over death, the promise of everlasting life for all of us. Yippee!
As the children came back to their seats, I felt that smarting at the back of my eyes again. I tightened my jaw and was relieved to be able to prevent tears from gathering. The service continued.
The anthem was a difficult, modern piece of music. Accompanied by a special brass and timpani ensemble as well as the booming organ, the choir struggled through the piece with admirable enthusiasm, coordinated by the waving arms and flying hair of the director of the Baltimore Choral Arts Society. Dramatic, I thought. But maybe just a little too ambitious. I repressed my tears.
Reverend Connor’s sermon, didn’t stem from the children’s yippee-theme, which was a shame. (When discovering that Christ’s body is gone, Mary Magdalene has a “Yippee Moment.” But then, from all I know of him, the reverend is not an extemporaneous kind of guy.) Instead, he’d obviously and carefully prepared a sermon that began with the story of how the disciples were not expecting Christ’s resurrection, even though He had predicted it to them several times. This theme segued into the pastor’s main message: we should learn to recognize and accept the unexpected inspirational events that naturally crop up in our everyday lives, and use them toward our, and our brethren’s, better future. It wasn’t a bad message and even though I thought he could have done so much more with “Yippee,” it still brought more tears to my eyes, warm soft streams down my cheeks I could no longer suppress. I finally had to take the white handkerchief out of the breast pocket of my coat and wipe my eyes.
Collection was gathered by the children, tentatively holding out the collection plates at each pew while their mothers hovered behind and prompted when necessary. Communion was also given and I joined the line from my pew to receive the bread and dip it in the wine, trying not to get two pieces instead of one and being careful not to drip the wine outside the golden cup. “Do this in remembrance of Me.” Wash away your sins. Be renewed. I had to swallow hard.
The final hymn was the Alleluia Chorus from Handel’s “Messiah.” The choir
spread out individually down the aisles of the church so each member could be nearer the congregation. A tenor standing at the end of my pew managed all those alleluias quite admirably while I, trying valiantly to match him in the bass line syncopation, got hopelessly lost several times. By the time we reached the great “amen,” tears were rolling down my cheeks in force. I wiped them away with my handkerchief. The congregation lingered, as it always does, and I was the second person out of the church door, quickly shaking Reverend Connor’s hand and telling him I had enjoyed his Easter message.
On the way home, I wondered what had made me weep. Was it the Bach I’d heard so many times before? Or the familiarity of an Easter hymn? Was it the beauty of the Tiffany windows, shining such brilliantly colored light into my Sunday morning? Was it the thought of the perpetual innocence of children, running yippee-forward into such a troubled world? Maybe it was the residue of an unexpressed grief over my mother’s death now almost a year and a half ago. Or was it thoughts of endings and beginnings, of a childhood filled with dreams now no longer possible to realize? Or maybe, just maybe, it was all that pollen from a beautiful but cruel, exploding April spring.

Encounter

On a recent trip to India, I wanted the full Indian experience, so in addition to wandering through crowded markets on foot, riding in a rickshaw bicycle and tramping through endless city palaces, I at least tasted all the food put in front of me. Breakfast, my favorite meal, was easy; nothing too spicy there. After initial testing of some Masala-this and Tikka-that, I learned that the safest thing to order for lunch was a club sandwich. The Indian version comes with a fried egg inside, a welcome addition for a breakfast lover. Dinner was more dicey; even the vegetables were hot-ish land mines. And of course, cows are considered sacred in India where they wander freely on the streets so there was never any beef. As a consequence of all this foreign fair, after a few days back at home, I was dying for a good, old, American hamburger.
No one was available to join me for my hamburger, so I decided to just go it alone. I hadn’t shaved – and didn’t want to – but figured that although my whiskers are now all white, if Harrison Ford can make unshaven a fashion statement, so can I. And I’d worn my most comfortable clothes all day – an old T-shirt, a pair of soft khakis and my orange Crocs – and didn’t feel like getting gussied up. So I just threw a black sweater over my T-shirt and got out that black, soft leather jacket I bought in Turkey some years ago, the precious one I’m always afraid I’ll damage in the rain. If not now, Phil, when? I added a black baseball cap from the Chepe Railroad in Mexico and headed out, feeling vaguely sophisticated in my schlumpy, Harrison-Ford-like adventurer finery. Still, I didn’t want to go where I thought I might see anyone I knew – although the City Café has great hamburgers, it was definitely out; too country club – so I decided to try Alize (or whatever it’s now called), where I’d heard one could just sit at the bar and the hamburgers were, as they say, to die.
Although I hadn’t eaten there in years, I know the restaurant well. Tucked into a semi-grand hotel cum condominium complex, it’s been through several incarnations, each a little more down-scale than the last (and patronized less and less) until it’s now thoroughly flushed of its former haughtiness. Where the so-called socially connected once fought for the prime table opposite the entrance, where they could see who was coming and going, and be seen in return, four men in shirt-sleeves were having an animated discussion over beers and chips. The bar, which used to be marble-topped and subtly shrouded in an air of sweet success, where you might score the latest scandalous gossip or a connection to cocaine, is now just a long top of simple whitish plastic slightly embedded with flecks of mica, which give it a sparkling air of aspiration to its more glamorous past but must make it hard to keep clean. When I arrived, there were only two patrons at its long, Swoosh-shaped expanse, a man sitting near the long side of the angle and a youngish woman a couple of bar stools beyond. Both projected a subtle aura of being from someplace else, as though guests in the hotel, just in the bar, like me, for a solitary meal. An over-large TV slung from one wall was tuned to a football game and even without the sound on, was hard to miss. Underneath it, the woman bartender was busily washing glasses, bent over her work, her hair falling down around her toward the suds. I wondered how she got away with that. I took a place near the angle at the short side of the bar, far enough away from the man so that we might maintain everyone’s natural need for separation but close enough for conversation should that ensue. The bar stools were uncomfortably soft and far too low, and instead of the pose of adventurer I had so carefully assumed, I felt like Lily Tomlin in her sketch as Edith Ann, sitting in an oversized rocking chair. The bartended finally tore her attention away from her dishwashing and came over to ask me what I wanted to drink. Although I usually drink vodka on the rocks, I ordered a Bombay Sapphire gin and tonic, partly because I’d drunk them in India where they’d helped me capture a feeling of the Raj, and partly to boost my flagging sense of adventure. While the bartended moved away to create my illusion, I studied my companions at the bar.
The woman, probably in her late thirties and conventionally attractive in that on-the-road-professional way of a lady drug salesmen – she might be called Diane – in a tailored suit and rimless glasses, was eating her dinner while engrossed in her laptop, perched on the bar next to her plate. The man – let’s call him George - sitting closer to me, had a professorial air, all graying curly, with a full beard, probably in his forties, wearing a non-descript suit with a non-descript shirt, open at the collar. His cell phone was on the bar in front of him as though he was waiting for an important call and he was consulting a sheaf of papers while he nursed his martini. Years of sensitivity to what’s inside and underneath, I concluded that he had a good mind and an average body, but leg man that I am, I could see he had very good thighs. And no wedding ring. In-ter-est-ing. My drink came and I ordered my hamburger, medium please, and hold the proffered garlic aioli, a taste, and a pretension I could do without.
Since there was so little else to do, I watched the football game, but could see that George often glanced in my direction as though tempted to initiate a conversation. I quickly lost my feeling of being Edith Ann as my sense of Harrison-Ford-adventure returned. The next time he looked, I smiled. He said hello and we began to talk. I moved immediately into my Gentleman Host mode and asked him many questions. He was a biologist from Houston where he was engaged in research at the University of Texas. No, he didn’t actually perform the research, but managed a group of people who did. He was moving his whole lab to Hopkins, which had just agreed to fund his research – I was too engrossed in his twinkling eyes to understand just what kind it was.
Shortly after our conversation began, Diane joined in from the other side of him, almost as though she had been laying in wait for her opportunity to attract his attention and now that I had – or we had – broken the proverbial ice, she wanted into the pool.
George turned in her direction to respond to her smiling comments. But I wasn’t to be outdone. I asked him some more questions and he turned back to me. Then she made more comments and he turned to her, his head swiveling back and forth from one side to the other as we, in turn, engaged him. I wasn’t forceful in this competition, not wanting to be too obviously attracted to him, which I was. But I wasn’t going to give him up either. He also seemed more interested in me and she finally went back to her computer. I contemplated him more thoroughly. Could he be gay, and available? Might my evening’s adventure have a productive ending? Should I invite him home? For a drink? Or to see my etchings? I was getting way ahead of myself. But I was having fun.
George was moving here from Houston, he said, and was looking for a house to buy. He’d had trouble finding one but had seen one today that attracted him.
“What attracted you to the house?” I asked, an inane question but one that could at least keep the conversation going.
“Oh, it had a great kitchen,” he said.
“I gather you like to cook.” He wasn’t married and he liked to cook. Not a bad beginning.
“Yes,” he said. “I love it.”
We cha cha-ed some about cooking and he further explained the merits of the kitchen in an end-of-row-unit in Rogers Forge, not the neighborhood he would have chosen – he really preferred to walk to work – but a good one nonetheless. He’d made an offer on the house and in a move he said unusual to him, and vaguely worrying, he’d agreed to a $500.00 escalation over every other offer up to a certain dollar limit. I thought that a good idea. He was creative as well as attractive. My interest grew.
His food came, a breast of duck, he said, a dish he loved. I was surprised that my hamburger joint even offered a breast of duck on their menu and couldn’t imagine it being very good. But after his first bite, he declared it “perfect.” I wondered if he was truly a connoisseur, or only a poseur. Hard to tell.
At this point in my adventure, which up to now had been going well, Diane turned to him again and said, “Oh, you like the breast of duck.” She hadn’t given up after all and had just been waiting for her chance.
He turned away from me and said to her, “Oh. You had the duck, too?”
“Yes,” she said, pointing to her plate. “It was delicious.” She smiled. She had very good teeth.
Harrison Ford would never be defeated by a lady drug salesman I thought, but I didn’t know where to go from there. Luckily, George turned back to me to continue our conversation about his prospective house. I noticed that he attacked his breast of duck in true Falstaffian fashion, his right fist firmly curled around the fork that skewered the meat while he sawed away with the knife in his left hand. He shows gusto, I thought. And a touch of low rent. Not an altogether good combination.
Then my hamburger came, without the aioli, as requested, with French fries in a little wire container with a handle, like a miniature fry basket, the kind used in McDonald’s. Cute, I thought. I dug in.
“How’s your hamburger?” George asked.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ve been away for a while and when I come home, one of the first things I always want is a hamburger.”
“Yes,” he said. “An American tradition. But it can’t compete with a breast of duck.”
So, he was competitive as well. “No, I guess not,” I said. “Not in the same league.”
Then his phone rang. He picked it up from the bar and put it to his ear, looking off into the near distance behind the bar, like we all do, focused more on what he was hearing than what he was seeing. He frowned and got up from his stool and walked away, outside the bar area. Diane went back to her laptop and I concentrated on my hamburger, not the best one I’ve ever had, but serviceable.
When George returned, he was grinning. He also had good teeth. “I got it!” he said.
“You got your house?” I asked.
“Yes. They accepted my offer.” He stabbed the last few pieces of duck and ate them quickly, asking for his check at the same time, with his mouth full. Definitely not a good sign.
“Congratulations,” I said.
“Thanks. I’ve got to go and sign some papers.”
“I hope you’ll be happy in your new kitchen.”
“I’m sure I will be,” he said, sticking out his hand. “It was really nice talking with you.” And he was gone.
A few minutes later, Diane closed her laptop and rose from her place at the bar. As she walked past me on her way back to the hotel lobby, she smiled (or was it a smirk?) in a way that said it all. “Nice game,” it said. “But neither of us won, did we?”
I finished my hamburger and went home.

India Was

I had always thought of India as exotic and colorful and have wanted to go there for a long time. But it was much, much more than I had anticipated: rich in culture and history, steeped in myth and tradition, complicated, mysterious, mystical. It's past is far too complex to absorb, it's present evolving in a whirlwind too extreme to comprehend from just a short scratching of its surface. It's myriad traditions are as bewildering as the secret passageways of its palaces. And any place you might turn your camera is a composition wild with color and diversity. Even though traveling there is difficult, and getting there expensive, I'm very glad I went. I wasn't disappointed. The easiest way to summarize is to steal an idea from my friend, David, and make my own list of adjectives I think apply. India is crowded and noisy, busy, cacophanous, rude and pushy, dirty, poor, disgusting, sad and struggling, impossible, exhausting, incomprehensible, gorgeous, courteous, polite, ancient, dusty, brown, pink and orange and red and yellow and acid green, monotonous, colorless, scary, soothing, friendly and obtuse, smelly, melodious, energetic, and so much more. It's a place of extreme extremes, a genuine adventure, an experience never to be forgotten.

As I travel more - if and when I do - I'll try to keep this blog going. And maybe I'll just add some ordinary thoughts to it from time to time. Thanks for following along. And stay tuned.

March 7-8: Getting Home

Saying goodbye to India was both slow and tedious. My cold prevented me from pursuing any additional adventure in Delhi on the last day. I just stayed in bed late into the morning and then lay around the pool reading in the afternoon. After the four of us who were going home checked out of the hotel about 7:30, there was a tedious wait for new SITA personnel to come to take us to the airport but the mini-bus arrived on time and we piled in, none of us - Cesar, David, Dennis and I - felt much like talking. About fifteen minutes after we left the hotel, our guide explained that he was leaving us and someone new would meet us at the airport. The driver stopped at a light in heavy traffic and the guide simply got out and disappeared. I had visions of the driver taking us down some dark and lonely road (if such a thing exists in India) and abandoning us there, which shows just how paranoid I am when I have a bad cold goes to my head! But another man met us at the airport and helped us through the process, which wasn't easy.

Indians seem far more concerned with security at their airports than we are here. This is both a good and bad thing. Good because it instills a sense of "...well, they're really taking care of things," and bad because it takes so long to get to the plane. As usual, we had to stand in line to enter the terminal and show our passports at the door to a uniformed officer who took an inordinate amount of time looking at my picture and comparing it to my face. Although the photograph is far from flattering, there's no doubt it looks like the real me. But no humor, please; this is serious. Then, in the Bujsiness-First line, which usually moves quickly, another uniformed Continental man stopped me to check all my papers again, even before I'd reached the desk. Then came the usual check at the kiosk where the clerk told me someone would come to take me to a special security screening. When he arrived, and I asked what this was all about, he explained that I'd been especially selected for additional screening. He didn't say why. Maybe it was because my bag is now torn - could that be cause for security concern? - or because my passport is so full, or I was hiding contraband in the Kleenex I was using to blow my nose. He accompanied me to immigration where I filled out yet another form, to get out of the country, just like a form I'd filled to get in. The immigration officer checked them both carefully, kept the immigration form and stamped my boarding pass with a loud and authoritative thump and waved me on to my special security man who was waiting on the other side. Then it got a little scary. He led me around a wall and into a dimly lit office where there were several people in civilian clothes, babbling away at each other. A man at a desk motioned for me to sit down in front of him. Then he went on babbling with the man standing next to him. My companion laid some papers on the desk but the man behind it ignored him. I wondered if this was where they were going to strip search me. Partly to hide my concern, I casually glanced at the papers at the man behind the desk quickly moved them away from me and looked at me for the first time. He asked me a question I couldn't understand and when I asked him to repeat it, he looked at me in disgust and waved me away. That was it. I was happy to be on my way. But wait. Then there's the usual security check to go through. And the lines were long. My replacement knee set off the alarm, of course, and the man wanding me made me take everything out of my pockets even though I'd been careful to be sure there was no metal there. It's very humiliating to pull wads of spent Kleenex out of your pocket for all the world to see. After I was cleared, I had to wait for another security man to check my carry-on and camera case. Even though they'd already been through the usual machine, I had to open them both while someone pushed and shoved around, rummaging through the dirty underwear I'd so carefully wrapped around a marble box I was bringing home. But that was finally all complete and the guard stamped the little orange tag on each carry-on. At the gate, we had another security check - passports, boarding passes, orange tags - and just as we were about to board the plane, we had to go through the process all over again - this time taking off our shoes and the bags going yet again through yet another machine. By the time I got to the plane, I was surely secure.

Fourteen hours is a long time but I slept some, if fitfully - it's not easy to sleep on your side in a chair - and read a lot of a book called "A Princess Remembers" about the life of the last Maharana of Jaipur whose father, brother and husband were all maharajahs. She lived a priviledged life during the Raj and was very involved in politics after. I found her story fascinating. And then we were in Newark, where David and Dennis got their luggage immediately but mine was almost the last to arrive on the belt. While I was waiting, I had visions of it stuck in that dim office back in the Indira Gandhi Airport and having to cope with the lost baggage office and going to BWI to claim it when it might finally arrive. But it came, we breezed through customs, said a hugging goodbye to Dennis who was off to Cleveland and took a cab to Penn Station in Newark where we waited for the first train to Baltimore, which finally arrived amid much very early morning rush hour confusion at 5:45 AM. There were no double seats available on the quiet car so David and I were separated and I finished my book just as we pulled into Penn Station in Baltimore about 8:00 AM. As usual, I couldn't find the keys to the house so I had to drag myself around to the front to retrieve the outside key before I could get in.

I don't know why my house always looks smaller when I return home. Perhaps it's because I've been in the wide, wide world. It was also cold - I'd turned the temperature down to 55 while I was away. I was too wired to sleep (and didn't want to) so I set about with unpacking, laundry and all the usual chores one has to face after a long trip. I was fine until about two, when I got dizzy, couldn't think, and just had to collapse in bed.

Despite taking melatonin, jet lag drags me into bed about 8:30 at night - early even for me - and I sleep in segments of about an hour and a half each, waking up from some strange dream and trying to then go back to sleep. Last night (Tuesday), in the first one, I was covered with brown insects that although didn't hurt were sucking my blood, like leeches, and I was desparate to brush them off me. In the second segment, I was going to war with an Indian general, all tarted up in a Nazi-shaped helmet with a swastika on the side - the swastika is also an old Indian symbol of purity and life - and glitzy golden fringed epaulets, his face colored as for Holi. And in the final dream, I had received an order for 10,000 chairs and while I was delighted with the volume, I had no idea how we could produce so many chairs in so little time. After that, and even though it was only 3:30, I decided it was time to get up and work on this blog.

I'll write one more piece before I end this saga. So if you're still with me, stay tuned.

March 7: Winding Down

I was sorry to leave the lovely Water Palace Hotel in Udaipur: such a lovely setting and beautiful surroundings, such great service, such lavish attention. But it was time to move on, back to Delhi. Among other things, Udaipur is known as a city that has fostered the arts and because we had the time (and I suspect, as always, that our guide receives a commission on anything bought), we stopped at an art school where there was a demonstration of grinding minerals to make pigment, mixing that with sap and water and then applying the paint with brushes made from the eyelashes of camels. So romantic! The paintings were lovely in that ornate and extra fine way of so much art from this part of the world – my uncle was stationed in then-Persia during the Second World War and brought home many paintings on ivory – some of it on bone or marble so transparent that the light showed through. Although I valued the work, it isn’t my kind of art. I was more interested in the carved marble boxes and bought yet another box for my burgeoning collection.
Security at the airports here is very tight. One has to show a passport just to enter the terminal. Then there are several more security checks along the way to the plane, including a final showing of the passed hand luggage just before entering. The flight was routine and, thankfully, short. I always seem to be squeezed into a middle seat between two much larger travelers where the etiquette of sharing the armrest is uncertain or, more likely, first come, first served.
On the way in from the airport, Anil (who was still with us) got a cell phone call from William, the teacher of cinema from Houston, who was connecting directly to his plane back home. Anil thought he had managed everything for William and that he was safely on his way but William called to say he’d lost a briefcase. Some little time was spent on trying to solve this problem but the briefcase was finally found, there on the ground, where William had dropped it, an object so loaded today with terrorist possibilities that no one had picked it up. Poor William. So frail and delicate. I hope he made it home safely.
I was happy to make it to the hotel where due to a terrible cold, I couldn’t wait to lie down for a while. David and I had arranged to meet Shiba and Bobby Singh, friends of the Rosens, who were taking us for dinner. We sat in the lobby for over an hour, missing their message that they would be late. No matter. There was a wedding reception in the hotel and as we were waiting, we got a great view of the guests entering the lobby for the festivities. The women were dressed (mostly) in beautiful and colorful saris, many of them encrusted with stones, some so heavy that the wearer had to hold it up with both hands in order to walk. Most of the women were very chic, carefully made up and suavely groomed. Although I was tempted, as always, to take photographs, I thought it impolite so will have to only remember in my mind this beautiful parade.
Shiba and Bobby took us to Le Meridian Hotel, owned, as I understood it, by Bobby’s family. Shiba suggested that we have dinner in an Indian-fusion restaurant and not knowing exactly what Indian-fusion meant, how could we demur? I suggested that Shiba order for us and although she tried to tone down the spice, it was still a pretty hot meal. We had an interesting conversation about their family and their lives and learned something about Sikhism, their religion.
As our group scattered for their various flights back home, it was sad saying goodbye. We’ve been a mostly cohesive group, with no standout complainers, no one seeking too much attention, no fights. And we’ve made some new friends, particularly Ron and Chad who live in DC and who I’m sure David and I will see again.
I’m nursing my cold today and will stay around the hotel, relaxing, until we leave at about 8 PM for the airport and our scheduled 11:30 flight to Newark. When I finally get home, I’ll probably write a summary of the trip, which has not been a holiday but rather a rich and challenging experience. Stay tuned.

March 5: Another Day, Another Temple

It’s now 6:15 on the morning of Saturday, March 6, and I’m in my lovely room at the Water Palace Hotel in Undaipur, using a laptop provided by the hotel for all guests who want to use the Internet. Unlike most hotels, the Water Palace has no business center but is wired instead for Wi-Fi, which means I can use the computer in my room instead of out in some public room where the birds are already chattering away, which although romantic, is distracting to thought. This is our last official tour day. We fly back to Delhi this afternoon and many on the tour go immediately home from there. Dennis and David and I are booked into the Taj Hotel in Delhi for tonight and leave very late tomorrow night (11:30) for our flight back to Newark.
We had a choice yesterday of going on a tour to a famous Jain temple or having free time. David and I chose the temple tour despite its being at least three hours there and three hours back. Dennis hasn’t been feeling well – like so many others, just getting over his serious bout of Delhi Belly – so decided to pass on the tour and spent some leisure time shopping with Bob and lounging around the pool here.
Gandhi said that if you wanted to know India, you had to go into the countryside and visit the villages. So, our trip was an opportunity I didn’t want to miss. Most of the land is now brown and dusty, waiting patiently for the monsoon rains in July, August and September that will turn them almost overnight into luscious, green fertility. In the background are the mountains, misty purple and mauve, and the blue, blue sky, an unusual combination that, once you’re used to it, seems lovely. We drove through many villages where we were observed with some curiosity, a bus, with white faces peering out through the windows and many flashing cameras. We passed endless opportunities for great pictures, mostly of women in brightly colored saris, their orange or red or brilliant yellow standing out dramatically against the drab background. We stopped a couple of times, once at an ancient waterwheel where two oxen were turning the mechanism that brings the water up from a deep well and women where collecting the water in burnished aluminum pots. The wear of their lives showed on their faces and for a few rupees – ten or less, about a twenty cents in US dollars – you could get a great Betty-Rosen-type photograph. I couldn’t help wondering, as I have before here, what they thought of us, Americans from the big bus with their expensive cameras forcing their way into those rustic lives. Yesterday was also the last day of Holi (celebrated for a week) and in the countryside, the last day is special for children, who build a blockade across the road with rocks and charge a few rupees to remove enough rocks for the bus to pass. As we approached each one – some only a few yards from the last one – the children would jump up and down with glee at stopping such an imposing vehicle. Their faces were often painted blue or purple (apparently the most popular colors) and they crowded around the bus with their hands out, smiling for their five rupees, delivered by the bus driver or his assistant. This scenario provided many opportunities for photographs and, since I subscribe to the maxim that to take great pictures you have only to take a lot of them, I took many.
Jainism is a branch of the Hinduism that eschews ornamentation. Its followers wouldn’t kill even a mosquito (which wouldn’t do for me) and are strict vegetarians who won’t even eat anything that has to be pulled from the ground on the idea that by doing so, one “kills” the entity. Some extreme Jain priests even go completely naked to show their distain for the adornments of the world. It seems therefore seems contradictory that their Adinath Temple at Ranakpur is so incredibly luxurious. Nestled deep in the back country, hidden, as it were, from the temptations of the “other” world, the temple dates from about 1432 and so far as archeologists can tell, took 2000 people more than 67 years to build. Under its central dome sit four statues of their deity in lotus position, each facing a different direction their marble visages startlingly adorned with black eyes surrounded by shiny mica-like whites. In their hands is evidence of homage – usually brightly colored flowers – paid by pilgrims who must wear only white to visit the temple. Sadly, for it would have made a great picture, we were not allowed to take photographs of the deity. Surrounding the central dome are many other domes and the whole structure is supported by 1400 massive marble columns each heavily carved and no two alike. The whole effect is an enlightened gray, punctuated by tourists – many of them Indians – in bright colors, which makes for great photography. The complex also has a dormitory, kitchen and eating space where pilgrims can come and stay for a few days at no cost. We watched as many of them – some obviously European/American – washed themselves and their clothes, and those of us who needed “facilities” (as they call it here) used their toilets, simple holes in the marble where one squats to relieve oneself. I passed. (Desperate for relief one day on a tour in Turkey, I had to use one of these “facilities” and unable to squat because of a faulty knee, I had a terrible time “performing.” Never again!) The temple was lost to the jungle for many years and was only rediscovered, like Machu Picchu, in 1932. Since then, many millions of rupees have been spent on its restoration. Much of this came from the Jain community, which although constituting less than one percent of the Indian population, is responsible for more than 40% of the Indian economy through banking and business.
On the long ride back, we had many more encounters with kids – school was now out – and they threatened to throw paint on the bus if we didn’t pay their ransom. Our guide told us that even though there are only 365 days in the year, India celebrates more than 450 festivals. Every day is something. Menash was also quite pleased with himself, telling us almost immediately that he had once been the guide for Madonna and Guy Ritchie when they came to Udaipur with their three children, two secretaries and two Israeli bodyguards. He also told us that to drive in India, you need three things: a good horn, good brakes, and good luck. I believe him.
Back in Udaipur, where the streets seemed less crowded than in other cities but still sprinkled with heaps of garbage and trash, I was reminded of a story about a Maharana, who when in London, visited a Rolls Royce showroom. He was offended when salesman told him that such a car was more than a “cup of tea.” The Maharana instructed his aide to buy all the cars the showroom had in stock – there were three – and he had them shipped back to Udaipur where he had their tops cut off and used them to collect garbage. When the British representative in Udaipur reported to London what the Maharana had done, Rolls Royce offered to buy the three cars back but the Maharana wouldn’t sell, insisting on using one of the most lauded symbols of British snobbery for the good of his people.
After a shower and a short rest, we gathered for our farewell dinner. I learned there that John and Tom had succumbed to Delhi Belly – even Anil was sick – making me the only one (so far; knock on this beautiful horn-inlaid desk where I’m working) not to have gotten sick. Dinner was at an open-air restaurant where we had Indian music, wailing away, and four dancers in traditional costume, performing traditional dances: put another pot on the head and see if she can still balance the load; how about pots with flames coming out of their tops; swing around until you’re dizzy. Near the end of the performance, we were invited to join in the dancing and one of us – meek, quiet John from Denver – went wild, gyrating madly all over the grass to the obvious displeasure of the girls who found it impossible to integrate him into their act. It was very funny. We enjoyed – I use the word loosely, since many stomachs are still tender – a combination of Indian dishes and there was a fireworks display that made me quite dizzy, straining my head back to fill my ever present need for just one more photograph.
Taking the boat back to the Water Palace was a memorable experience. There was a huge party going on at the other water palace, one that can be rented for such occasions, and it was all lighted up like an ocean liner at night, with loud music pounding across the water. The party was thrown by an American medical company (who else?) and must have cost a real bundle. (I hope they’re making a profit.) From our launch, low in the water and moving slowly, we could enjoy the view of the City Palace, all lit up on the embankment, its reflection making the water appear a burnished copper, and our own hotel, a mirage in the middle of the lake. Ron, who was sitting next to me, said he’d really like to come back and spend some time at the hotel but we agreed that a taste was probably better remembered than a whole meal.
Back at the hotel, we were welcomed by the ever-present major domo who always seems to favor helping me up the many red-carpeted steps to the lobby, and by the clerk who took my room key out of a slotted drawer and laid it on a tray for presentation to me. I thought that a typically glamorous touch to the degree of service here. And I noticed, for the first time, that even the bathroom scales are covered with a worked crewel cozy.
We’re here until noon when we check out for a flight to Delhi, a night at the Taj there, dinner with the Singhs, and the horrors of getting through an Indian airport and its security for the flight back home. I may – or I may not – send another post from there. Stay tuned.

Today, another temple

I’m not sure where the expression came from but at least in this case, the best was saved for last. Yesterday (Thursday) we flew from Jaipur to Udaipur early in the morning. Security here at airports is extremely tight. You can’t get into the airport building without your passport. Then you hang a tag on your hand luggage that has to be stamped, along with your boarding pass, once you’ve passed through security. Then, at the gate, the bags are checked again, to be sure they have the security stamp. Planes are old, the stewardesses impolite, the flights are late, the terminals dirty. You try to ignore all that in anticipation of getting to your destination.
Udaipur, a small city of only 150,000, is the capital of the state of Rajasthan. Because of several lakes – all manmade – the city is known as the Venice of India. It has spectacular sunrises and sunsets and is a favorite honeymoon destination. The city was founded in 1159 by Maharana Udai Singh, who was known as a great warrior. It is said that it’s defenders would rather die than surrender and the women of such warriors would commit suicide rather than be captured. Unlike other Hindu kings, the Maharanas of Undaipur never married a daughter to a Mogul emperor and so are known for their independence and are considered the first among equals. The royal, Mewar (Maharana) family is among the oldest in the world and can trace its family tree back 76 generations to the year 569.The city looks like any other Indian city we’ve been in except not so crowded and it does have an air of some prosperity.
We are staying here at the Lake Palace Hotel, world famous for its location in the middle of the main city lake, Lake Pechola. To get to the hotel, one passes through security at the embankment and then boards a boat that shuttles back and forth from shore to the hotel. We were greeted in grand tradition by a uniformed doorman who met us at the dock with a ceremonial umbrella. He accompanied us up the red carpeted steps to the hotel lobby and as we approached, we were showered with rose petals from the storey above the hotel entrance. Inside, we all were honored with the traditional bindi spot on our foreheads and slumped down in the sumptuous lobby where we were served glasses of watermelon juice while we waited for our rooms. It was all very low-key-grand.
The hotel is one of two on the lake, both originally built as summer palaces for the Maharanas, and still owned by the Mewar family. It’s probably the most beautiful hotel I’ve seen. Although substantial renovated by the Taj hotel chain in the 1960’s, the main spaces are still elaborate in the Maharana tradition: sleek fabrics, many pillows, marble everywhere and room borders outlined in embedded strips of colored glass. My room is furnished in a strange (but elaborate) combination I might call Edwardian/Indian, with a built in window seat, many pillows, lamp shades with glass-ball fringe, furniture with horn inlays and marble floors. It’s the only hotel where I have been presented with a pillow and quilt menu: contoured cervical, micro-fibre, natural wool, natural lamb’s wool, aromatherapy, down, shredded foam – take your pick.
At check in, I received a message that the event planner to the court of the Maharana had called and wanted to get in touch with me. (My friends, the Fords, in Baltimore, had tried to arrange an introduction for me with the Maharana, who is a friend of theirs.)The hotel called her back and after some delay, I finally spoke with her. She insisted that our whole group attend a reception in the City Palace for the inauguration of a collection of textiles designed by the Maharana’s daughter, the Princess Mala (as she is familiarly known). The collection was dedicated to her father, the Maharana, and he would attend as a guest of honor. I could meet him then. By the time we got to the reception, held in a rather small space in a shop in the City Palace, we were all very tired and so we didn’t stay long. The reception was intended to sell these fabrics, many of them very beautiful, and Jodi, the event planner and my contact, insisted I buy something. It was not an intimate affair but more of a presentation and elaborate sales pitch. We left before the Maharana arrived (if he ever did) but I met the princess and she was kind enough to pose for a photograph with me. (Her diamond earrings were at least a half inch in diameter).
Before the reception, our outing for the day was a tour through the City Palace, a complex that includes five palaces built by the Maharanas through the years and all interconnected. The rooms were small, the passageways tiny (for security) and there were many steps and levels. The spaces were interesting and I took many pictures but by the time we finished, I was thoroughly beat and ready to go back to the hotel. But the combination of luxuries, both in the City Palace and in the hotel, has certainly made this (near) end the best,
Now for some miscellaneous thoughts and observations. Out of the group of 18 on the tour, only John and Tom and I have avoided Delhi belly. I’m not sure why. I’ve tried to be careful about what I eat and although I’ve sampled Indian cuisine, much of it really good and not too spicy, I’ve not gone overboard. The moderation may have paid off. And it’s only Friday; I suppose there’s still time for me to join those who take home their illness as a memory of this trip. Chad will certainly have a unique souvenir. Yesterday, while we were getting luggage from the bus, he scrapped his forehead on the compartment door and cut a gash about three inches long. It bled profusely. John, the plastic surgeon, treated the wound and Chad, good sport that he is, just took it all in stride. He said a scar across his forehead this late in his life didn’t worry him at all. He’d given up vanity. Back in Ranthambhore, David lost one of his hearing aids, an investment he’d just made a month or so ago. Fortunately, he’d dropped it in the bus and it rolled forward, where Anil found it. David was relieved and thrilled. William is elusive. He doesn’t seem to want to participate in our activities, often staying behind in our hotel while we make a jaunt to yet another palace or temple. Mark, the anesthesiologist from New York, seemed really nice when I first me him but has since made some comments that were weird, making me understand that I don’t really know him at all. Dennis has been uncharacteristically detached and quiet. Something may be bothering him. Or maybe he’s still feeling the effects of being sick (which is also uncharacteristic of him). And yesterday, I had a scotoma, a brilliant spot in my field of vision that vibrates in rapidly moving jagged lines and grows until it affects the whole eye. Since I’ve had these before – although not often – I wasn’t unduly alarmed and it wore off and disappeared after about an hour.
India is a country of extremes. At one end, there’s the opulence of this hotel, representative of a time when money was not an object. At the other end, there’s the cripple on the street who holds out his hand for a few precious rupees. It’s also mostly drab and gray but punctuated by the intense color of a sari or luscious bougainvillea. India is crowded and pushy, everyone trying to get into that very small space that might provide an advantage. And yet the people are mostly modest and accepting and friendly. And India is obviously very old, even ancient, its bloodlines deep and endless. I’m very glad I decided (at the very last moment) to come here. And at the same time, I’ll be equally glad to get home.
Today we’re off to a Jain temple. The bus ride is predicted to be three hours each way. Stay tuned.

I'm Tired and Dusty

It’s now Wednesday, March 3, if my calculations are correct. I’ve been in a whirlwind of activity and one of the only ways to keep accurate track of the time is to consult my weekly pill container to see which days are empty and which are still full. The last couple of places we were had no Internet connection. Hence my delay. Now, days later, despite my hasty notes as we progressed, I’m sure I won’t get it all correct. No matter. I’ll just do the best I can.
Let’s see. I guess I left you all in Agra after a day at the Taj Mahal, et al. Late in the day, we stopped at one of those shopping places where I’m sure your guide receives a cut on anything one buys. The boys from Lexington, Kentucky, bought two rugs, about six feet square and encrusted with semi-precious stones. Tom said they were for their cabin by the lake. They were $8,000 each, representing a nice commission for Anil, our guide, who steered us there. Some cabin! The only other noteworthy happening was notice by our guide to Dennis that his email account had been breached. One of his sisters had tried to email him and found something peculiar. She phoned the tour office and they emailed our guide. Investigation revealed that the hackers had sent a message to his entire mail list saying that he had been robbed in London and needed funds wired to a certain place so he could return home. It took a while for him to straighten that all out. At dinner that night, I had a nice conversation about movies with William, who teaches a course in the history of cinema at the University of Houston. You might like to know that CASABLANCA is not his favorite movie. He prefers SNOW WHITE where, he says, one identifies with the heroine but falls in love with the prince.
At the end of this day, I was very tired and it occurred to me that his may have to be my last trip this arduous. Walking and climbing steps and getting off and on the bus and being ever vigilant for that perfect photograph has worn me out. Maybe my cruise as a gentleman host was not so bad.
Sunday, February 28: Agra to Ranthambhore to stay in the hunting lodge of the late Maharajah of Jaipur and visit Ranthambhore National Park, which used to be the private reserve of the maharajah. Along the way, we drove to Fatehpursiki, a city founded by Akbar, the third Mogul emperor and son of Humayun, whose tomb we had already seen. The palace and town was built from 1569 to 1575 and later abandoned. It’s now a World Heritage Site. Although not well-educated, Akbar was a very prosperous and clever emperor who tried to bring all the best of many traditional religions together under one faith, something like Akenaton, in Egypt, before him. He founded his capital where he did because of a priest who lived there. He had three wives: one was Hindu, one Muslim and one even Portuguese, combinations that “married” him to many powers in his world (at about the same time in history that Elizabeth I was avoiding marriage for much the same reason). The site is magnificent, all dry construction and far too complicated to describe. You’ll just have to see the pictures.
On the way to the train to take us to Ranthambhore, we stopped for lunch at a mansion from the days of the Raj, a place called Laxmivilas, that has been turned into a hotel. At the sight of food, David got sick and, along with several others in our group, spent the lunchtime in the lobby of the hotel in what we laughingly referred to as the fainting room. Something about the bacon at breakfast we think.
The train ride to Ranthembhore didn’t improve anyone’s stomach. The trains are dirty and the stations common places for vendors and beggars who tear at your heart with their infirmities and their pleading eyes. Often, a mother will be carrying a small child who holds out his hand for a few rupees. Or the deformed beggar on a make-shift platform on roller skates will move up to you and tug on your pant leg. It’s quite wrenching but we’ve been told to ignore them or they will just persist. And if you give them anything, more will flock to you to ask for the same thing. It’s one of the qualities of India that detracts from its charm.
Built in the early 1930’s, the hunting lodge is all art deco in feeling, with round lines and ridges and a verandah overlooking a croquet court. There was a billiards room and a library and a paneled dining room. One could easily imagine being Claudette Colbert or Clark Gable, guests of the Maharajah. I got lucky and drew the Maharani’s suite, all marble floors, a sitting room and a huge bathroom big enough for a cocktail party. The lights went out several times but that didn’t seem to matter.
Monday, March 1. We made our first, early morning foray into the national forest in search of the elusive tiger, the main object of being at this location. There are only about 1400 tigers left in India; 41 of them are in this national park. But the park encompasses 151 square miles so trying to find a tiger in this dry jungle is like looking for the proverbial needle. Finally, coming down off a steep ridge, someone spotted a striped object off in the distance and it was a tiger, taking a dump. Not very majestic, but seeing is seeing. I tried to get a photograph but it wasn’t easy. It’s surprising how well the animals are camouflaged to blend in with their surroundings. Later in the day, we went out again, this time not so successfully. But we saw many deer, of several kinds, and many birds, some of which would come right up to light on your hand. I have a great picture of one on Don’s hat. Sitting at a watering hole, watching the animals feed before dusk and hoping (I guess) for a tiger to come out of the jungle for a kill was somehow very spiritual. Like being in the bush in Africa, I found it calming and eternal, natural, a connection to all that is.
Monday was the holiday called Holi, a celebration of friendship and the richness of the harvest. It’s a time when people drink too much and (oddly) throw colored powder or paint on each other. We saw many people with pink faces and smeared clothes. Anil told us that sometimes the paints used last for months. He and Puram organized a little Holi celebration for all of us by giving us a Nehru outfit of cheap cotton and inviting us out on the lawn to smear powered color all over each other. It was silly, but fun, and we all got into it. The before and after pictures are priceless.
By this time, more than half of us were sick. Even Dennis, who can eat and drink anything, fell prey to this bug and spent the day in bed. Andrew, our HE guide, said he’d never had this kind of sickness in India. Fortunately (knock on wood) I’m one of the lucky few who have remained unscathed.
Tuesday, March 2, we said goodbye to Hollywood and moved on to Jaipur, a city of two million, built about 1787 by the Maharajah of Jaipur and laid out by his architect in wide boulevards and, unlike other places we’ve (I’ve) been, in straight lines. What a relief after the winding narrows of other old cities. Jaipur is called the Pink City because in 1883, when Prince Albert Edward, the British crown prince, was to make an official visit to the city, the Maharajah wanted to show special courtesy to the British crown, and so ordered that all the buildings in the city be painted pink, the color used at the time on maps to denote British colonies. The tradition remains. The effect is startling. After checking in at one of the six palaces still owned by the royal family (but now leased to the Taj hotel chain), we visited a textile mill, which was really a showroom/shop for printed fabrics. After being in the textile business, I found all this quite interesting. And of course, the guys bought lots of scarves, bedspreads, etc. We came back to the hotel looking like a caravan.
Wednesday, March 3 and I’m getting up to date. Hooray! Today we went to Amber, the traditional seat of the Maharajah of Jaipur. The “fort,” as it is called, is spectacular. Built high on a ridge, it looks a little like Lhasa and is actually a fort and palace. We all took elephants up the steep incline to the entrance to the fort, with mahouts commenting so that we would smile so the photographers lining the route could get a good picture (we were expected to buy at the end of our tour). Again, a description of the inside would be pointless. It’s too grand and immense to capture in words. The views of the inside, and the valley the fort commands outside, were incredible. Like much of India, that’s the only word that accurately captures the feeling.
Anile has wanted us to get the real feel of India so we left the cocoon of our bus to walk the streets in the spice market. The sounds and smells, the crowded cacophony of it all was almost overwhelming. I got lots of great shots but the camera gets heavy and I was very tired by the time we got back to the hotel.
On the way back, we stopped at the Observatory, constructed by the Maharajah in about 1787. It’s an outdoors place where there are many kinds of sundial/type constructs that tell time, the phase of the moon, astrological signs and other time/space oriented facts. It was quite advanced for its time and I couldn’t help but wonder how all these renaissances in the arts and science happened in so many places in the world at approximately the same time. Was mankind just entering a new phase? And if so, what caused it?
After the observatory, we toured the City Palace, the current home of the current Maharajah. We didn’t go into his living quarters, of course, but entered many spaces – the open courts, the pillared pavilions – traditional to these “forts.” In one space, the place where the maharajah conducted his audiences, the walls were carved and embedded with concave mirrors so the whole place would be dazzling in the eyes of those who attended. We also saw the two largest silver containers in the world, huge jugs that contained water from the Ganges, and carried by the maharajah when he first left the country for an official visit to England. What one can do when money is no object!
India has worn me out. I’m tired and dusty. And I haven’t been very articulate in this account. My apologies. Tomorrow it’s on to Udaipur. Anil says he’s leaving the best ‘til last. We’ll see. Stay tuned.