Rob Roy

Rob Roy.  The name rings a bell.  As well it might, since I'll be hiking the "Rob Roy Way" in Scotland in another month.

But what do I know about Rob Roy.  And why is the Scotland trail named after him?  I've done a little research, just enough so that I have some idea of who the gentleman was.  But it all still seems somewhat nebulous.

Rob Roy was a member of the MacGregor clan.  He was born in 1671, and was named Robert Roy MacGregor.  Or, as the Scots put it in Gaelic, Raibeart Ruadh MacGriogair.  "Ruadh" means "red" in Gaelic, and Rob Roy had reddish hair, so I'm not sure whether "Roy" was his name from birth, or whether it was a later descriptive.  

Rob Roy and his family were quite wealthy.  He had at least seven houses scattered throughout the area east of Loch Lomond.  He was a cattle drover (or dealer), and also ran a protection racket with respect to the herds of his neighbors.  This was like insurance, except that if the insurance premium wasn't paid the "insurable event" mysteriously occurred and cattle "disappeared."  This racket was apparently quite common, and was no more frowned upon than were smuggling and shipwreck salvage among the coastal residents of Cornwall.

The MacGregors were Jacobins -- supporters of first the "Old Pretender" and then Bonnie Prince Charlie as kings of Scotland, in opposition to the successors of James II of England who had also ruled as James VI of Scotland.  After the MacGregors participated in a losing battle with England in 1689, they were banned from using the MacGregor surname, and any legal documents using that name were void.

The proscription of the MacGregor name was an outrage, of course, but Rob Roy's troubles appear to have arisen from more local problems.  His own cattle ran afoul of someone else's cattle rustling, and he became bankrupt in 1712.  His creditor had him outlawed as a result, and his property was seized and many of his houses were destroyed.

As an outlaw, Rob Roy wandered through "Rob Roy country," evading capture.  He was captured twice and escaped custody twice.  Eventually, he was pardoned by King George I in 1725, and apparently lived out the remaining nine years of his life in peace, dying at the age of 61.

He is considered a folk hero in Scotland, and the story of his life was popularized by a number of authors, arousing romantic sentiments that resulted in increased nineteenth century tourism from England to the Rob Roy country.  The very country through which I'm about to hike next month.

The most famous of the accounts of Rob Roy's life is Sir Walter Scott's fictionalized novel Rob Roy (1817).  I've somehow spent my life avoiding any attempt to read any of Sir Walter's novels or poetry, and I don't have the stamina to begin now.  (I have watched Donizetti's opera Lucia di Lammermoor, based on Sir Walter Scott's The Bride of Lammermoor.  Beautiful opera, but I don't think that counts.)

More accessible, perhaps, is Disney's 1953 movie Rob Roy, the Highland Rogue.  Maybe before I fly off to Glasgow, I'll check and see whether that film is available on Amazon.  I'm traveling with friends (fellow Americans), and I don't want my ignorance of the history of Rob Roy country to appear complete!

The spirit's willing, but ...

A few months ago -- I can't be more precise -- I tried rising from the floor with my legs crossed.  A maneuver that I've performed easily since childhood.  A sudden pain in my left leg startled me, but it seemed to ease off.  Nothing to be concerned about.

Or so I thought.  The pain became more and more frequent, centered on the inside of my thigh.  After a while, I developed a separate pain in my left lower abdomen.  I didn't connect the two problems; I instead was concerned that I had some problem -- hopefully not cancer -- in my bowels.  

Eventually, however, I realized that the two pains were connected, and seemed to merge. 

Some of us would have immediately seen a doctor, or a physical therapist.  I have my own way of handling such problems, which is to ignore them -- confident that the pain will go away if I think happy thoughts.  This time, my confidence was misplaced.  Continuing to walk daily between four and six miles did not solve my problems.  Arguably, it intensified them.

Walking itself -- for a long time -- remained painless; it was only other motions of my body that were painful.  Such as, significantly, touching my knees together.  Which is, of course, a characteristic, almost diagnostic symptom of ....

Groin muscle strain or injury!

In 31 days, I fly to Scotland for a week's hike, joining four friends with whom I've done similar hikes in the past.  At the conclusion of the hike, I fly to Milan, and thence to Lake Como for two weeks. This will be my third consecutive year hanging out at Lake Como with friends and relatives, the third year staying at the same rental house on the western lakeshore.  A significant activity during such visits to Lake Como has been day hikes -- along the lake shore and into the hills behind the lake.  

Beginning yesterday, I ceased my daily walks, in the hope that increased rest would hasten signs of improvement, signs that so far have been sorely [sic] absent.  Even if successful, this strategy will have the unfortunate side effect of weakening the leg muscles that I need for hikes in Scotland, hikes averaging ten miles a day.  

Luckily, however, this Scottish hike -- the "Rob Roy Way" -- will be one of the least demanding of the many British hikes I've undertaken over the past twelve years.  Also, it will be no pioneering expedition into the depths of wilderness.  As I've pointed out to my fellow hikers, at no point along the hike will we be far from taxi service.  If worse comes to worst, I can alternate hikes and taxi rides from inn to inn, still enjoying the evening meals and conversations in the company of my friends.

Still, after decades of hiking in foreign climes, I have to wonder whether my travels are now hexed.  Last year, a dislocated shoulder while -- humiliating to admit -- emerging from a Milan hotel bathtub.  This year, a groin strain before the hike even begins, while merely attempting to stand up.  Where does it all end?  Is my body offering pointed warnings that I should observe?  What next?  Will I be "hiking" by use of a walker?  Or merrily rolling down the trail in a wheelchair?

How can a young lad like myself end up so betrayed by his own well-conditioned body?  So I delude myself, ignoring my actual age.

The hike goes on.  The lakeshore stay remains scheduled.  More details as events warrant.

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Photo: Stock photo, not the author!

Progress on the Montlake lid

Tonight at 11 p.m., the Montlake Boulevard connection between the Montlake neighborhood (and neighborhoods to the south) with the area north of the ship canal will be severed.  

For me, this means that for ten days I'll be unable to drive north to University Village shopping center or to Burgermaster -- my go-to place for leisurely breakfasts and tasty lunches -- unless I make an absurdly long detour through congested traffic to cross the University Bridge and navigate the traffic of the University District..  I doubt that I'll bother.  As I complained on Facebook, going for breakfast or shopping for groceries at my usual venues over the next ten days would be like driving from Seattle to Chicago, by way of New Orleans.

So what's happening and why?  Unless you live in Seattle, you're really not interested in the details.  But the Montlake lid project is a portion of an on-going, multi-decade reconstruction of the State Highway 520 connection between I-5 in Seattle and the communities on the east side of Lake Washington.  

We in Montlake rose in outrage at the disturbance expected as this project plowed its way through our neighborhood.  To pacify us, the state agreed to a number of amenities, including a lid over a portion of the new 520, an extensive network of bicycle/pedestrian pathways, and attractive landscaping.

The Montlake lid work began in November 2018, and should be completed some time next year.  I drive and/or walk through the heart of the mess -- with traffic funneled through a contorted re-routing of Montlake Boulevard -- virtually every day.  Following the progress of the construction has been interesting, but its completion will be warmly welcomed.

The reason for the ten-day closing that begins tonight is primarily to restore Montlake Boulevard to its normal non-contorted route, and thus open the full extent of the lid space that will ultimately be landscaped as a park.

I've never quite figured out all the routings planned for the various lanes of SR 520's through traffic, for the surface streets in the neighborhood, including Montlake Boulevard and Lake Washington Boulevard, and for the much-welcomed pedestrian and bike paths.  Not even careful study of the map above fully satisfies me.  But, once completed, I know that all will become clear, and most of us in Montlake will happily welcome the changes.

I eagerly look forward even to simply the re-opening of Montlake Boulevard on July 24 -- not just for return to convenient access to  the north, but also to visualize more clearly -- on the ground, rather than just on maps -- where this project is heading.

Summer editing

I strolled across the University of Washington campus yesterday afternoon.  The temperature was in the low 80s, working its way up to 85.  The campus seemed relatively deserted for a Thursday -- it was either a slow time of day during summer quarter, or perhaps the university was still between quarters.

The heat, the quiet, the beauty of campus brought back student memories, memories that strengthened as I walked past Gowen Hall, standing across a walkway from the main library.  In the 1970s, the building was still called Condon Hall.  It then housed the law school.

I spent most of my days and many of my nights in and around Condon Hall the summer following my second year of law school.  Looking back, that may have been -- all things considered -- the happiest, most consistently enjoyable summer of my adult life.  

I was summer editor of the law review.  That sounds impressive, but it primarily meant that I was the only one of the incoming editors, now "3Ls" (third year law students), who hadn't bothered to seek out a summer internship downtown, and who was also attracted to the job of writing and editing.

My editorial duties consisted of editing the "case notes" prepared by hopeful applicants for law review membership from the class behind us (incoming 2Ls).  Invitation to membership on the review was based on both the quality of their case notes and their first year grades.  But the best case notes were also published in the review, once whipped into publishable form.  

Whipping them into shape -- that's where I came in.  Occasionally over the protests of their authors, with their inflated pride of authorship..

Interspersed with my editorial work, I was also researching and drafting a far lengthier student "comment" of my own for publication.  Work on my own comment probably took as much time as my formal editorial duties.  Between the two, I spent almost every day in my law review office, and in the law library for which I had a key for night time access, as well.

It sounds exhausting, but I was doing work that I enjoyed doing, and in which I felt confident in my ability to do well.  That's one recipe for daily happiness.

But back to the hot days and lightly populated campus.  Each morning I'd arrive early on the sunny campus.  The law review offices were in a "daylight basement" area with windows opening onto a walkway at ground level.  Across the walkway was the university's main library.  I'd enter my office, check the mail, open my window to let the office cool down in the morning air, and finally walk a hundred yards or so to the student union building.  

A cup of coffee and two maple bars.  I was a skinny kid who as yet had developed no concern with weight or cholesterol levels.  

Fortified and caffeinated, I'd return to the law school, enter my office through the open window, stepping lightly onto my desk and then jumping to the floor.  For some reason, this daily breach of professional dignity stands in my mind as a symbol of all of the pleasures of that summer.  Something that my law review classmates, clad in coats and ties in stuffy downtown offices, had neither the opportunity nor the desire to imitate.

All those hot summer days in my office, and all my long hours of research and writing, alone, bent over a desk in the darkened library at night, paid off.  We put out an excellent publication that year, including articles by faculty members from the UW and from other schools, comments (including my own, thank you) researched and written by us 3L editors, and well written and edited case notes from our incoming 2L members.

I have a bound copy of all our issues.  I sometimes take it out of my book case and admire it.  I sacrificed a summer when I could have been out hiking and camping, but there were many years in the future for those summer activities.

But only one summer in a lifetime as a summer editor.
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PHOTOS:
Top -- Condon Hall (now renamed Gowen Hall)
Botttom -- The magical windows into my office!

Making hay while the sun shines

The Fourth of July is upon me, and I'm unprepared.  No personal fireworks this year, although I may show up for the city's display tonight, viewed from the north shore of Lake Union.  No July 4 family gathering and picnic, although I just returned Sunday from a wonderful gathering of the clan in Idaho.  

Facebook pulled up a photo that I'd posted four years ago, reminding me of a highly entertaining Fourth with friends in San Diego, which leaves me feeling a bit alone and isolated.  Although the Fourth has never been that major of a holiday in my family -- not since the magnificent gunpowder explosions of my childhood.

No, this year the Fourth mainly serves to remind me that we're already edging past the half-way mark of 2023.  How did we ever get here so quickly?

It doesn't feel as though I've had that many adventures so far this year, although by the standards of most folks I've done pretty well.  January on Maui; February riding Amtrak from Los Angeles to Chicago; April out of season on a resort in the North Cascades; last week, hiking, rafting, and visiting with family in central Idaho.  

And, especially, two weeks in May in Italy -- the Cinque Terre, Florence, and Rome.

Enough for most of us -- including me, during most of my lifetime.  But not quite enough for me now, as the realization gradually creeps over me that the future is not inexhaustible.  My future.  If I want to do something, I'd better do it soon.  Despite my claim that I'll live to at least 110. 

All of which leads up to my revelation that the month of September will be spent outside the country, in something of a modified version of September 2022.

I depart for Scotland on August 27, where I'll meet up with my friends Jim and Dorothy, and with Jim's brother and sister, for another Scotland trek.  This time, we'll be  hiking the Rob Roy trail from Drymen (near Loch Lomond) to Pitlochry (in central Scotland).  This is another of a number of unguided hikes I've done in Britain, beginning with my hike along the entire length of Hadrian's Wall in 2010. 

As with all these British hikes, the same company has already reserved accommodations for us each night, and has arranged to have our baggage transported from one B&B or small inn to the next while we are on the trail, carrying only a light daypack.  It's a genteel way to backpack, traveling through a genteel countryside -- somewhat different from the more rugged hikes of my younger years, storming through wilderness and carrying our food and tents on our backs.  But then, I'm a more genteel sort than I was in younger years!

We'll be hiking for eight days, with nine nights accommodations reserved.  Hiking in Britain is always fun, the scenery and history are fascinating, and the diversity of the sleeping arrangements, with hearty breakfasts included, is always exciting.

At the conclusion of the hike in Pitlochry, Jim and Dorothy will return home, but their brother and sister and I will travel by train to London, where we'll stay a night and then catch a plane to Milan the next morning.  In Milan, we'll meet up with John and Anne's respective spouses, hang out for a couple of nights in the city, and then proceed north to Lake Como.

Yes, this will be my third consecutive year on Lake Como, staying each year at the same wonderful rental house, right on the western shore of the lake, about five miles north of Menaggio.  The five of us -- all of us repeating our Como stay together last year -- will stay for a week.  Then for the second week, I'll be joined by my sister and by my brother and his wife.  Just the four of us, for a Sibling Vacation on Lake Como.

These two experiences -- Scotland and Lake Como -- should make up for any supposed lack of excitement during the half of the year just completed.

If not, I may spend a week in Thailand in October, visiting a nephew and his family.  That's another story, a possibility not yet decided upon.  But, as Hillel the Elder famously asked, "If not now, when?"

Each day a leaf falls withered from the tree
Whose leaves make up the life of thee and me,
⁠The leaves are counted and the last is there—
Ready to fall before thy destiny.

--Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Our own private Idaho

Yeah, I know.  You thought your favorite correspondent, essayist, blogger, whatever, had died.  Or, should I say, passed away.

But no.  It's just been a continuation of my post-pandemic inability to sit down and focus on any writing of any length longer than a Facebook entry.  Not because of any kind of Covid brain fog, but just because the isolation enforced by the pandemic is no longer present to encourage such concentration.

Actually, I have just recently recovered from my first and only bout of Covid.  Symptoms for five weeks, approximately. No worse than a bad cold, and in fact I spent my two weeks travel in Italy under its curse without realizing the reason that I was coughing so much and napping so often in the afternoons.  I'm grateful that masks and great care kept me from contracting the problem for the first year, and super grateful for  the shots and boosters that make a potentially deadly disease now no worse for me than a "bad cold."

But I no longer have Covid as an excuse for my mental laziness.  And you'll have to wait one more week to see if my writing bug starts biting again.  I leave tomorrow for the depths of Darkest Idaho, for a family gathering.  A world where political views are revolting, but the people are personally warm and friendly.

My family is a liberal anomaly existing uneasily within that environment.

As you know from earlier posts, my sister lives near Challis Idaho, which lies between Stanley and Salmon, if that helps you non-Idahoans.  The primary reason for this week's gathering is that my nephew Denny, who has been teaching for several years in Chiang Mai, Thailand, will be vacationing back in the States with his wife Jessie and his daughter Maury.  Maury has just completed the equivalent of American eighth grade, and starts high school in Chiang Mai in the fall.  She is American born and mainly reared, but -- I'm told -- by now speaks Thai as fluently as she does English.

My brother and his wife are driving up from Los Angeles, and there will be others present, but I don't recall exactly who. 

Challis is always fun to visit, winter or summer.  My sister has horses to ride -- I think she now has seven -- and a big house on fifty acres of woodland and pasture, with a just-completed one-room cabin hide-away, where company can lounge about and live off her family's hospitality.  We are bonding -- as if we needed it -- over a group rafting trip on Saturday.  I return to Seattle on Sunday.

So, here is my second blog entry for June 2023.  It doesn't really count as an essay, and probably is of no interest to anyone but my future self when I try to reconstruct the year 2023!  While you await something more meaty, more substantive, from me -- have a nice summer, y'all!

Return from Cinque Terre

Past life regression: A method that uses hypnosis to recover what practitioners believe are memories of past lives or incarnations.

--Wikipedia

I had a birthday celebration planned, for May of 2020.  Thirty persons joining me.  In the small town of Levanto on Italy's Ligurian coast, immediately to the north of the Cinque Terre National Park.  But the Covid virus had other plans, and by March 2020, we were all confined to quarters. 

Three years later, and we're all traveling again -- statistics show we're traveling with a vengeance.  Someone called it "revenge travel."  And that missing birthday blast kept preying on my mind.  How much did I miss out on?

No way I could round up thirty friends and relatives for another go at Levanto, but that needn't stop me from exploring Levanto -- and the Cinque Terre -- for myself.

And so, on May 10 -- three years almost to the day after the Birthday Celebration of 2020 that did not occur -- I boarded a plane in Seattle and set off for Rome.  

One of the major attractions of the Cinque Terre that we  had advertised in 2020 was its hiking opportunities.  Hiking in May, when the weather would be at its best -- sunny, warm, but not hot.  Unfortunately, as I left Seattle, the forecast was for cool temperatures, with a better than fifty percent chance of rain virtually every day I was in Levanto.  Not promising, but I promised myself that I'd be flexible, that I'd adjust to whatever weather the Gods of Irony should throw at me.

Also, I flew off with a bad cold and a hacking cough.  In fact, I had, after three years of evading Covid-19, finally been tackled as I left the country.  But I didn't know that until I returned to the States and tested myself, surprised at the longevity of my pesky "cold," and at my odd need to nap for an hour or two every afternoon.

But I digress.  I arrived in Rome on Thursday, May 11, and spent two nights in the Eternal City, visiting favorite haunts about town while waiting for my body to adjust to a new time zone.  On Saturday, I departed by train to Levanto on one of Italy's excellent high speed trains.  As planned, I then spent the next six nights in Levanto, which served as my base for exploring the Cinque Terre (which the Italians sometimes call the "5-T').

Levanto is a pleasant small beach town, stretched out between two headlands along the Ligurian coast.  I stayed in an excellent B&B -- free plug: Villa La Marguerita -- located some distance from the center of town where most other hotels can be found.  But distances are small in Levanto, and the B&B was within easy walking distance of both the train station and the beach/"downtown" area.  Only eleven units, nice garden, quirky architecture, friendly staff, and good breakfasts.

My first full day, as predicted, it rained.  Hiking guides I read in advance had warned against hiking into the hills when the ground was wet, because of the danger of slipping on the smooth wet rocks.  I exercised at least adequate caution, and decided to make an "urban" visit to the first Cinque Terre town south of Levanto -- Monterossa.  Monterossa is a fairly long town, squeezed between the sea and the hills, and divided by a headland into a "new town" and an "old town."  I hiked around the headland, visited the old town, and returned over the top of the headland.  This hiking/walking was all rather tame, but interesting.  It rained lightly most of the day, but I had a light rain jacket, and I'm from a state where hiking in the rain is not considered bizarre.  The town had an interesting history, and, in good weather, good beaches -- but was not particularly scenic.

The next day dawned bright and sunny, and I was eager to hike.  I chose the trail from Levanto itself back to Monterossa, climbing up and over a large headland separating the two.  The hike took about three hours, and was rated as moderately difficult by the guidebook I was using.  It was quite steep climbing to the top of the headland, and steep descending into Monterossa, but was hardly a difficult walk for anyone used to hiking.

The third day, rain was threatened but never arrived.  More critically, there were major disruptions to the train service.  I chose to visit Vernazza, the next town south after Monterossa.  A small town, with brightly painted buildings clustered around a boat harbor.  Highly scenic, a great place to have lunch and interesting narrow streets to explore.  But after eating, walking, and people-watching, not much to occupy me except wait for the next train.

The fourth day, I had hoped to visit both Manarola and Corniglia, but the train problems didn't allow enough service to reach both towns.  But Manarola met all my expectations of what a Cinque Terre town should be like.  The town is built around a main avenue that winds from the train station down to the harbor.  You learn that this main avenue is actually a concrete cover over the creek that has formed the deep valley in which the town is located, a creek that was open and crossed by small bridges until after World War II.  Many good restaurants, at one of which, at the harbor, I had lunch.  The sides of the canyon are very steep, and the houses appear stacked one on top of another.  From below, or from the opposite canyon side which I climbed, these houses appear to be a solid mass of construction.  It's not until you investigate on foot that you discover that the wall of homes is honeycombed by small, cobblestone streets, often barely wide enough to walk through single file.  

I prowled around, and happened on the Church of San Lorenzo near the upper end of the canyon, with its tall, adjacent bell tower.  

The fifth day was another beautiful day, and the most enjoyable of my days in the Cinque Terre.  The trains were back on schedule -- running about every half hour -- and I took the train from Levanto to Corniglia.  The train arrives at a station at sea level, of course, but the town itself is perched 275 feet above, and is reached by a long series of stairs and switchbacks.  Once I reached the town, my plan was to hike back into the hills, ending up back at Manarola.  This hike was slightly more challenging than the earlier one, with a certain amount of exposure to heights in places as it wound its way through terraced grape fields.  The trail continues north, working its way back into the hills until it reaches the town of Volastra.  From Volastra, the route is mostly paved -- steep, but easily negotiated until you find yourself at the outskirts of Manarola.

The views from the Corniglia-Manarola trail are magnificent, and it's impressive to look down at both small towns, far down beside the sea, almost as though one were flying overhead.

My five days in the Cinque Terre were completed, although only four of the five "lands" had been visited -- I had to save Riomaggiore for a later trip.  The next day, I took the train to Florence, where I had a spacious  room in another small hotel, this one in the San Lorenzo area, not far from the Duomo.  Florence has a special place in my heart.  It was my first experience with Europe when, as a college junior, I spent six months studying (and traveling) at my school's overseas campus.  I know the town quite well, but I never grow tired of wandering its streets.

Then a return for a final night in Rome, before flying back to Seattle.

It was the Cinque Terre that was the focus of this trip, of course.  Although traveling solo, I wanted to get some idea of what I had missed three years earlier -- I anticipated a form, I suppose, of "past life regression."  The weather this time was atypically cool and wet, and I suffered throughout (but not badly) from my "cold."  I don't overlook the irony that I tried to duplicate a visit that had been doomed by Covid, but did so while for the first time unknowingly suffering myself from a mild Covid infection.

I'm sure that the 2020 gathering would have been successful, if held, just because of the kind of people who would have been there, and the chatting and catching up we all would have enjoyed.  Many, perhaps most, of the participants would have been hikers, and we would have found many enjoyable hikes to pursue.  But a large minority were not hikers, and after my visit I'm not sure there would have been enough of interest to absorb those people for an entire week.  I note that many or most guides suggest a visit of two or three days to the area.  The towns are dazzlingly scenic -- especially Vernazza and Manarola -- but, as noted above, once you've seen them, and had a leisurely meal, there might not be much else for the non-hiking visitors to "do."

But I may be pessimistic.  Being bored shows a lack of imagination, and I think most of our guests were sufficiently imaginative to keep themselves amused, and were mature enough not to require being force-fed "fun" as on a cruise or at Disneyland.

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PHOTO -- Manarola. Taken from high up on the opposite side of the harbor. 

"Sunny" Italy

My long awaited flight to Rome, and thence to the Cinque Terre, leaves Seattle on Wednesday at 6:18 a.m.  I had my packing list -- full of hiking gear, shorts, t-shirts, and other paraphernalia -- drawn up over a week ago. 

I'm now doing last minute packing list revisions.

I've been keeping my eye on the Italian weather, and unfortunately the country is in the midst of a long spell of wet weather.  The nine-day forecast shows rain, with occasional thunder showers, every day from the day I arrive until May 18 -- five days before I return home.  And I'm offered no reason to believe that those final five days won't be equally wet.

I spent the spring of my junior year of college in Florence.  It probably rained at one time or another, but my memories are of one warm, sunny day after another -- reading for classes in our little garden with a view of the Duomo in the distance.  Today's weather forecast leaves me feeling misled and betrayed.

The cliffside paths in the Cinque Terre -- which I read are brilliantly scenic, with views far below of the sea and of the small villages on the shore -- do come with a caveat.  They are, every one, steep at the start and at  their conclusion -- and they are built on rock which becomes very slippery when wet.  Hikers are advised to save their hiking for days when the paths are dry.

But when in my two weeks will they be dry?

I stay only six nights in the Cinque Terre -- the remainder of my time will be in Rome and Florence.  But those six days, my days of hiking, were my reason for traveling to Italy at this particular time.  My vacation has been built around those hikes.

One must be flexible.  Certainly in the big cities there are many things to do that don't require perfect weather.  But I'm not so sure about the Cinque Terre -- I'll just have to wait and see.

A fellow hiker who has hiked with me on other trips has little patience with my complaints.  She, essentially, tells me that I have high class problems.

Hmmm ... wine, cheese, pasta, espresso, gelato, tiramisù .. is there really a problem here?

She may have a point.

I'll try to survive the horrors of a wet Italian vacation on a rainy shore, and return to Seattle with a smile on my face.  Seattle -- a city that's anticipating an 88 degree Monday next week.  That's a little too sunny for this Pacific Northwest lad.  By contrast, I may find a gentle shower or two to be refreshing.

Examination of conscience

 I came alone and I go as a stranger.  The instant which has passed in power has left only sorrow behind it.  I have not been the guardian and protector of the Empire.  Life, so valuable, has been squandered in vain.  God was in my heart, but I could not see him.  Life is transient.  The past is gone and there is no hope for the future.  The whole imperial army is like me: bewildered, perturbed, separated from God quaking like quicksilver.  I fear my punishment.  Though I have a firm hope in God's grace, yet for my deeds anxiety ever remains with me.

So wrote Alamgir Aurangzeb (1618-1707) in a letter from his deathbed to his son.  Aurangzeb was the Muslim Emperor who presided over the Mughal Empire as it reached its greatest power and glory, stretching from what is now Afghanistan, over virtually the entire Indian sub-continent, and across Bangladesh.  

Unfortunately, for his peace of mind, he lived long enough to see the Empire be built begin to collapse.  The vast expenditures necessary to subdue southern India drove the Empire to near bankruptcy.

I had been reading once more William Dalrymple's City of Djinns -- one of four Dalrymple books that I have read and discussed on this blog -- when I decided to check and see what else he had written.  I discovered The Anarchy.  It's a highly ambitious work.  I already feel I've been instructed on the full history of the Mughal Empire. but I see on my Kindle that I'm only eleven percent of my way through the book.  What else lies ahead?  I'll find out, but it may take awhile.

I mention the book so prematurely now simply because I'm so impressed by Aurangzeb's deathbed confession.  A man who has finally conquered all  of the world worth conquering, at least from his point of view, views his life's work as probably a form of vanity -- an accomplishment not only threatened by ruin, but, considering its cost in human suffering, perhaps one that should never have been undertaken.

Life, so valuable, has been squandered in vain. ...  I fear my punishment.

My first reaction, perhaps, was to seek analogies in our time.  The Ukrainian war hasn't yet run its course, but regardless of outcome, will Putin someday wonder what he was seeking, and why, and questioning its cost in the human suffering he caused?   Will Trump wonder to himself what it was all about, whether whatever he thought he wanted was worth sacrificing the human joys of friends and family?   Well, probably not, but, as always, Trump is unique.

But then I thought about us common people, those of us with no interest in or pretensions of Imperial Glory.  Don't we nevertheless wonder along with the Mughal Emperor?  Have our precious lives also been "squandered in vain"?   Don't we respond viscerally to the Episcopalian prayer:  "I have left undone those things which I ought to have done; and I have done those things which I ought not to have done; and there is no good in me"?  If we are honest with ourselves, as we near the end of our lives, don't even the best of us feel some response to that pessimistic appraisal of our lives?

By coincidence, I read today my 2020 discussion in this blog of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's historical novel The Leopard (1958), the story of the life of a nineteenth century Sicilian aristocrat.  At the end, as the priest approaches to administer the last rites, he muses about what to confess:

Not that he felt himself innocent; but his whole life was blameworthy, not this or that single act in it; and now he no longer had time to say so.

He tries to recall all the happy times of his life.

I'm seventy-three years old, and all in all I may have lived, really lived a total of two ... three at the most.

I draw no conclusions.  I don't insist that everyone ends his life disappointed at his life's futility.  I don't know that I believe so myself.

But certainly for some people -- people whom we may all envy for their accomplishments -- experiencing such disappointment does seem unavoidable.  Maybe a tendency toward severe self-criticism is genetic?  Maybe some people, outwardly successful, have actual reason to judge themselves harshly?  Aurangzeb himself murdered and executed freely, and ruled his Hindu subjects oppressively.

But at least, he ended his life with humility.

How to change a flat tire

I guess it's just one of those things that happens to everyone now and then.  Yesterday, I hopped in the car with the idea of taking a dirty blanket to the cleaner's -- about five blocks away.  The car made strange noises, and kept pulling to the left.  

On the highway, I would have immediately diagnosed a flat tire.  But the tire hadn't been flat the night before, and I was puzzled.  After getting my blanket checked in, I took a look at the car.  The right front tire was so flat that I'd been driving on the rim.  I slowly drove back to my house, parked in the driveway, and resolved to think about it the next day.    

Yes, rather than immediately tackle the problem, I procrastinated.  And having no car, I walked 45 minutes to reach breakfast this morning. 

If it's not one thing, these days, it's another. Right?  

Although I've had my little Toyota Corolla for twenty years, I'd never had to change a flat tire.  I knew there was a jack and a lug wrench in the trunk.  And under the flimsy floor of the trunk, I discovered the spare tire, sitting in about three inches of water.  Don't ask.  

I rolled up my sleeves, metaphorically, and loosened the lug nuts.  Before jacking the wheel off the ground, I suspected it would be a good idea to first remove the spare from the trunk.  The tire, as is typical, was secured on a center pole, and pinned down in place by a wing nut.  I twisted the wing nut  Ol' Brer Nut, he don't move, he don't say nuthin'.   I tried pounding the wings with various blunt instruments.  No luck.

I had no tool that would move the immobile wing nut.  I reviewed the twenty steps of "How to Change a Flat Tire"¹,  an excellent and exhaustive on-line, step by step manual tackling the title question.  None of the steps addresses the critical issue of how to remove the spare tire from the trunk when the wing nut is stuck in place.

I had seemingly reached an impasse.

At the back of my mind were tragic memories of the day, as a 16-year-old, that I received my drivers license.  To celebrate, I took my younger brother for a spin through the countryside surrounding our home town.  In our dad's Buick.  I quickly, of course, blew out a tire.  While my brother watched with narrowed eyes, I breathed deeply and tried to be calm and competent.  I removed the jack, placed it under the body of the car near the affected wheel, and jacked 'er up.  The jack indeed rose, but the wheel remained, fixed solidly to the ground.  I noticed that I had placed the jack under the soft metal of the fender, which was folding up like an accordion.  

But wait, there's more.  While I was removing the spare from the trunk, I had laid the car keys inside the trunk for safe keeping.  After the jack fiasco, I slammed the trunk in frustration.  

The tire was flat, the keys were in the trunk.   In those days, there was no clever little lever under the seat for opening the trunk.  It was quite a walk to the nearest pay phone to summon parental assistance.  It was not a comfortable conversation.  My brother listened, hanging on every word.  There were no spare keys.  The car had to be towed to a dealer, awaiting for several days arrival of the appropriate key.  

My brother's thirteenth birthday arrived a day or two after the flat tire fiasco.  Unfortunately, our folks had -- for reasons I don't recall -- placed most of his presents in the trunk for safe-keeping.  They weren't available after his birthday dinner, when the cake and ice cream were served.

He gazed at me again, with hooded eyes.

That emotional trauma has always left me uncomfortable contemplating the possibility of flat tires and their consequences.  As I was today.  

But tell us, you plead -- how did you get the spare tire out of the trunk?

I telephoned a professional, of course.  For a mere $169, he was on the scene within an hour, and within minutes had the tire changed, a feat that I suspect most drivers could accomplish themselves with their eyes closed.  By that time -- to me, at least -- it was worth the cost.

Luckily my brother wasn't there to watch.

------------------------------

¹https://www.bridgestonetire.com/learn/maintenance/how-to-change-a-flat-tire/

Don't mess with the Mouse

"Mickey Mouse" has to come to mean wimpy, soft, weak.  It wasn't always so.  My first acquaintance with the Mouse was in a little compact book entitled "Mickey Mouse, the Mail Pilot."  Published back when private pilots often flew the U.S. Mail, Mickey ran into a gang of bad guys -- very bad guys -- holed up in a dirigible.  Things looked bad for Mickey for a while, but he kicked their butt.

Now Mickey is locked in combat with a smoother villain -- one with degrees from Yale and Harvard, a governor who wants to turn America into a larger version of what he's doing to Florida.  While America begins to turn away from Donald Trump, this fellow hopes to win national office by out-Trumping Trump.  A Trump who speaks in complete sentences.  An ingratiating Mussolini.

I'm not sure how attacking the world of Disney fits into his plans.  I suspect it doesn't.  But like his Trump mentor, this guy has a thin skin, and he can't stand losing.  Rather than lose a fight he himself gratuitously started, he'll kill the goose that lays Florida's golden eggs, and his own goose as well.

Because beneath Mickey's easy-going facade, the Mouse is a fighter.  A happy warrior.  And a winner. 

As the Mail Pilot book concluded:

"Ya know, Minnie," said Mickey, as they walked happily homeward, "flyin' the mail has taught me a lesson I'll never forget!"

"What's that, Mickey?" asked Minnie.

"Whenever you have a job, no matter how hard it is," he replied, "or how much you hate to do it, just buckle down an' remember, the mail must go through!  Before ya know it, th' job's done -- an' ya feel just swell!"

Hey, I'll lay my money on the Mouse over the Yalie.  Go Mickey! 

Traveling mindfully

A Chinese poet many centuries ago noticed that to re-create something in words is like being alive twice.

--Frances Mayes, Under the Tuscan Sun

A typical April walk in Seattle.  Flowers flowering, and buds budding.  A bit colder than the usual April afternoon.  A light breeze against my face.  Dark clouds, threatening rain that never arrived, at least until hours after I arrived home.  

I was half enjoying the sights, and half letting my mind wander -- planning future travels, doing financial planning (not unrelated to those same travels), mulling my own mortality ...

Whoops!  Where did that come from?  An unwelcome intrusion of thoughts, maybe, but it led to some rewarding contemplations.

I breathed in deeply the crisp air, directed my focus to the springtime beauties of the neighborhoods through which I was walking, and realized that a time would inevitably come -- not tomorrow, but sooner that it would have seemed five years ago -- when walks such as this would be only memories.  I might well find my life narrowed and -- at best -- confined to an assisted care facility.

I thought of my mother who lived in such a facility -- a very nice one -- for about three years before her death.  Like me, she had been something of a walker, at least, certaintly, around our home town.  But her walking was now restricted to the quiet, beige halls of her facility -- beige and maybe intentionally bland and non-threatening.  And certainly non-stimulating.  Nature was whatever she could see outside her window.  We took her for a drive one day, and parked overlooking the Columbia river.  "It's beautiful," she exclaimed.  As it was, but not so beautiful that we had ever thought much about it.

Which, I realized, is how I was reacting to the amazingly varied and attractive sights I was striding past today.  Beautiful, sure, but so what?  It's always beautiful, even in the dead of winter.  And I do appreciate that beauty, but I should appreciate it more intently.

"Mindfulness" in today's jargon.  Paying attention to what you see and experience.  Before it's too late.

In three weeks, I'm traveling alone to Italy.  Mainly to the Cinque Terre, with some additional time in Rome and Florence.  And, yes, I plan to return to my practice of keeping a travel journal.  Such a  journal has two purposes: first, to preserve memories for future enjoyment, and second, to encourage yourself to really see what you are looking act, to feel what you are experiencing, to appreciate the uniqueness and complexity of people whom you meet.

A travel journal is not a new concept for me.  I've kept journals during many travels, beginning with scribbled summaries of the day's activities as an undergraduate, and progressing to lengthier reflections on my recorded  activities as I grew older.  I later typed up a number of those travel journals, which I've  never ceased to enjoy re-reading over the years.  

My only regret is that I didn't record my impressions and feelings about every one of the many trips and hikes I've taken.  The journeys that I did journal seem random -- some, not surprisingly, were trips when I was traveling alone, and had more incentive and opportunity to write.  Nothing makes me more at ease when dining alone  than scribbling away in a notebook between courses.  I recently re-read a journal I kept in 1999 of a trip to Central Europe; my entries written during meals in Prague and near Budapest vividly reminded me not only of the surroundings I was observing, but also of my pleasure in writing about it while writing about it  and -- to be truthful -- in being observed writing.  

But I also have written fairly detailed journals on trips where I was traveling with a large number of friends and/or relatives, such as family trips to Italy and canoeing in France.  When I felt like writing, I could always find time, although those journals tended to be more often summaries of what had occurred over the past day or so, lacking the immediacy of thoughts about my surroundings even as they were observed.  While sitting in a Czech café, for example, or while sitting on a boulder staring down at a bubbling creek near Dresden.

In any event, I'll be alone in Italy, with only my hiking shoes and my journal to keep me company.  I hope to be "mindful," hope not to be one of those who have "eyes to see but do not see and ears to hear but do not hear..."  And, even more, I hope to be reflective.

It's my hope that, once my journal is written, and self-edited, and finally typed up, I'll discover -- as the ancient Chinese poet suggested -- that those two weeks in Italy have, like magic, been lived twice.

Springtime drudgery

So.  We're more than three weeks past the vernal equinox.  The Easter Bunny has come and gone.  Passover is past.  As is the Ramadan fast.  But, however you mark the beginning of summer, summer's still a long ways off.

So what comes next?  Ah, yes.  As the earth stirs, and new life springs up, we hear on the horizon the buzzing of the wily lawn mower.  Time for the first mowing of 2023.

My lawn, like my hair, had been getting increasingly shaggy the past couple of weeks.  But I always had a good excuse for not mowing.  Yet.  You simply don't mow while it's raining, and it's been raining or drizzling off and on almost every day since said equinox.

And when it hasn't been raining, the lawn has been drenched and boggy and unsuitable for mowing.  

But yesterday it was sunny.  Not real warm, but sunny.  And today it was a bit warmer, and still no rain.  But my little iPhone weather app predicted rain tomorrow, and off and on for the next week.  Good growing weather for grass.  Once before I kept telling myself that conditions weren't ideal for a first mow.  Let's wait until the grass was thoroughly dry, and until the air was comfortable for outdoorsy activities.  

I finally had to borrow a friend's weed-eater to cut down what had become a virtual hay field, before fine tuning the job with a mower.  Never again, I vowed.

And so, this afternoon -- as the sky remained mostly clear and the lawn dried off,  I did it.  Donned shorts and old tennis shoes.  Warmed up the old gas mower.  And tackled the lawn.  It was still a bit damp and clumpy, but mowing it was hardly a Herculean task.  One of those things you needlessly dread and put off, but find easy once undertaken.  And then kid yourself that this had indeed been a major accomplishment.

Grass lawns are odd.  They are pretty in the spring.  In the summer, around these parts, most of us let them turn dry and brown.  And in the fall, they regain their greenness after the first good rain, but look tired and bedraggled until the following spring.  In most of the country, they are a shameful waste of water, although that's rarely a problem around Seattle.  

But why do we plant a crop that grows rapidly, and then regularly hack it down to its roots?  I at least leave the cuttings to enrich the soil, but most of my neighbors dump their harvest into one of their several recycling bins to be hauled away by the city.

I would love to allow my small allotment of land to grow wild.  Trees and shrubs, growing without plan or discipline, with narrow paths leading into small clearings where I could go and ponder the clouds and nature's abundance and great philosophical issues on a warm summer day (yes, we have such in Seattle, but we don't like to talk about them to non-residents).  Let the blackberries return, offering up their abundant crops.  Make friends with the wandering deer and occasional bear.  (Well, racoons, maybe -- my lot is only 40 feet wide.)

Waldon Pond is my ideal landscape.  Not Versailles. 

Guilt-tipping

On numerous occasions, I've sung the praises of my favorite hamburger et al. franchise in Seattle.  I'll call it "BigBurger," but you locals all know who I mean.  BigBurger's a local chain, but I'm only familiar with the one nearest my house.  Unlike others in the chain, my local outlet isn't a drive-in.  It's a sit-down establishment, although you can also order at the counter, pick your order up at the counter, and take it elsewhere to eat.

Until the pandemic arrived in Seattle in 2020, I was a daily BigBurger customer, showing up each day for either my breakfast or my lunch. Beginning in March 2020, I went through 350 days of torture, fully documented herein, during which I was barred, or barred myself, from eating out.  Not until the 14th day after receiving my second Pfizer immunization did I triumphantly return to BigBurger, and order my favorite breakfast.  That breakfast was immortalized in a blog post in March 2021.

At BigBurger, the food was decent, the prices were reasonable, and I felt comfortable reading at my table while eating.  No one ever tipped.  In fact, before the pandemic, I overheard a manager explaining to an employee that tipping was not encouraged, and that to compensate, the business paid above average wages.

It was too good to last.

During those halcyon days, the person at the register took your order, tapped or swiped your credit card, and the order was complete.  More recently, however, the register began generating a paper receipt that you were required to scrawl your signature on -- contrary to the trend elsewhere of eliminating paper receipts.  These receipts ominously had a line where you could add a tip.

I scrawled a version of my signature, ignored the tip line, exchanged greetings with the employee, and walked to my table.  As did -- so far as I could tell -- most customers.

Then, a week or so ago, the nightmare began.  BigBurger installed iPads, facing the customer, connected to a pad where the customer taps his own card.  Tapping your own card arguably makes the transaction faster.  But the iPad?

The iPad is a large screen, with large buttons identifying the percentage of tip you "choose" to leave.  The lowest figure on such a button is ten percent.  I think the highest percentage on a button is 25 percent, but I've been too stunned by the entire concept to look closely.  There is another button with which you can "customize" the size of your tip.  And a tiny button with tiny letters spelling out "No Tip."

These infernal machines have been in place now for a week or two.  Until today, I've relied on good hand-eye coordination to hit the tiny button.  Today, I gave in -- promising myself this was an exceptional day -- and hit the ten percent.  But I was not happy.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm a decent, although not extravagant, tipper.  When I attend a full service, sit-down restaurant, I routinely leave a twenty percent tip -- whether the service has been good or mediocre.  I refuse to use tipping to somehow offer a performance evaluation of the restaurant's staff.  That's their management's job.  I tip because I know that the wages of not only the server but of many of the unseen persons in the kitchen have been scaled down, to take into account the tips they anticipate from their customers.

Tipping is a terrible way to compensate staff, and I hate it.  When eating out in Europe, I happily pay the same amount as a mandatory service charge, although even there I wonder why the restaurant doesn't just up the prices, say 15 percent, rather than tacking on a 15 percent service charge.  Probably because the competition does not do it, and they assume that prospective customers pick their restaurants based on menu price, and are, moreover, unaware that a service charge will also be forthcoming.  A questionable assumption.

Minimum wage in Seattle is $18.69/hour (or $16.50/hour, if tips are sufficient to raise the total above $18.69)..  At least historically, BigBurger has paid above minimum wage.  I'd be happy to see their employees make more money.  I'd be happy -- well, accepting -- of higher menu prices to pay for those higher wages.  

But I'm not happy to be asked to make a voluntary, individual donation -- under a certain amount of psychological duress -- to achieve that goal, in effect subsidizing the meals of those sitting around me who refuse to do so.   

I'm irritated enough that I've found myself asking myself why I don't just stay home more often and make my own sandwiches. 

Carmina Burana

Many years ago, I attended -- in four consecutive nights -- Wagner's entire Ring Cycle.  Looking back, I admire my stamina -- practicing law by day, and watching lengthy operas each evening past my usual bedtime.  

I obviously enjoyed it, because the very next year I repeated the experience. 

The four operas contain beautiful arias and stirring orchestral music.  They also contain unusually long stretches of recitative, which is a sort of sung or chanted conversation.  I knew, of course, the basic plot of each opera, and had read portions of the lengthy librettos.  But even so, it was difficult to know exactly what the singer was singing during each aria, and impossible during the recitative.

My youthful period of attending operas regularly was short-lived, but I later realized that many opera houses had begun projecting the English translation of the libretto over the stage, analogous to the showing of subtitles during foreign movies.  My first experience with such "supertitles" was at a performance of Wagner's Tannhäuser by the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 2015.  It was a revelation.

A similar revelation was last Saturday's performance of Carmina Burana by the Seattle Symphony, joined by the Seattle Symphony Chorale and the Northwest Boychoir.  I was quite familiar with the music, having heard it frequently both on radio and from my own LP.  It was ok, I felt.  It did go on and on, although the music was interestingly different, at least on first hearing -- a twentieth century take on music discovered in manuscripts from the high middle ages.  I wasn't really excited about hearing it again -- but I had a season's ticket.  Rather than waste it, I went.

The choral singing -- in Latin, Old French, and Middle High German, according to the program notes -- was translated and displayed in superscripts.  And the superscripts made all the difference in the world.  The music made sense, once I understood what was being sung, and considered the context.  The performance is an hour in length, but it was never boring.  

Credit also to the excellent singing by the two choruses, and to the singing -- and acting ability -- of the three soloists.  After listening to the Swan's solo lament at being roasted and served at a banquet, I'm not sure whether I will ever feel comfortable eating turkey again at Thanksgiving!