Archive for the ‘Nonclassified Nonsense’ Category

Knoxville, TN

I’m celebrating my first Jewish Sabbath. I really shouldn’t be typing on the Sabbath because that’s work, but we went driving around all last night and today, so it’s probably okay. That and I’m not Jewish.

Mary Linda and Arnold Swarzbart live in Knoxville, Tennessee and are pillars of the Jewish community, so since we arrived on a Friday afternoon, we attended Shabbos dinner with them at their friends’ house. Then we attended services at their synagogue this morning. Apparently, the service lasted a lot longer than usual because they didn’t have a reader for the Torah reading, and the Rabbi doesn’t read very quickly. The whole service is sung in Hebrew except for the sermon (which, this morning, appeared to be an amusing skit put on by the kids about the 10 plagues of Egypt). Keeping up with the transliterations of the Hebrew to sing along to is tricky, since the service jumps around the prayer book pretty sporadically. Afterward, we went into the “fellowship hall” and ate challah bread, pickled herring, and gefilte fish with horseradish (it’s one of those foods that really needs a lot of horseradish to be edible). Then we went to Harrold’s deli for the traditional after shul lunch.

This afternoon feels like a lazy Sunday afternoon except that mail comes today, and we’ve got another day of weekend tomorrow.

Young Harris, GA

We spent last night in Young Harris, Georgia with old friends of Berck’s family, Dave and Beth Brackin. They took us to the Yacht Club for Mexican Night (or, more importantly, the $3 margaritas). I put on my nicest flannel shirt for the affair, but as I discovered, in north Georgia, you don’t have to dress up to go to the local yacht clubs.

The Brackins have a very cool house that overlooks the lake (which is 10 feet low, leaving all the floating docks lying on dry clay). The entire front of the house is a gigantic screened porch. Inside looks like a mountain lodge with rooms branching off in three directions. Every wall and some of the ceilings are covered in stained pine. They’ve done a lot of renovations, transforming the kitchen into a chef’s dream and adding onto the master bath by including a shower worthy of a locker-room. Berck and I tried it out this morning after Dave and Beth had left for the college where they teach Psychology and Music. There’s a huge shower “stall” with a shower-head at each end, each attached to its own hot water heater. The floor is heated, and a room heater keeps the bathroom at a balmy 80 degrees. I want one.

We’re off for Knoxville.

Berck forgot his modem card for his laptop, so we’ll only be able to post journal entries from people’s houses who have the necessary equipment and services (and when we have the spare time) … until we get it sent to us.

It’s a month into winter, and we’re finally on our way. Our itinerary looks like this:

Atlanta
Young Harris, GA
Knoxville, TN
Memphis, TN
Norman, OK
Irving, TX
Austin, TX
Big Bend, TX
Carlsbad Caverns, NM
That Big Meteor Crater, AZ
Canyon de Chelly, AZ
The Grand Canyon, AZ
Some Petrified Forests
Moab, UT
Zion National Park, UT
Hoover Dam, NV
Lake Arrowhead, CA
Big Sur, CA
San Jose, CA
Yosemite National Park, CA
US Route 101
Portland, OR
Seattle, WA
Vancouver, BC

…or in some similar order. In Atlanta we’re going to visit our favorite pub on this side of the Atlantic, buy Berck some boots, try to find some long underwear for both of us, open a joint bank account, and … I think that’s all.

Dad’s mechanic took a listen to the Miata and said, “Your timing belt is on too tight. That’s why it’s squeaking. But not tight enough that you have to fix it. It’ll loosen up.”

So we’re off today for Atlanta. Maybe we’ll swing by your neighborhood soon!

Well, I got new lenses for my glasses today. My lenses were 2 years old, and they went from being annoyingly scratched to nearly useless after catching a .45 casing on New Years day. Turns out my prescription has changed slightly… I could still read the 20/20 line with my old glasses, but everything is SO much clearer now. Or maybe that’s just because there’s no scratches.

Yesterday, I called the local Mazda dealership to see if I could get an O-ring. They wanted $8 for it, said that the earliest I could have it was thursday, provided I went to the dealership and ordered it in person yesterday. That annoyed me, so I called my favourite Mazda dealership in Birmingham, AL. They had it in stock, shipped it to me yesterday, UPS ground. $1.50 for the o-ring and $8.50 for shipping. I got it today at 3pm.

I’ve gotten much of the car put back together. The timing belt is back on and supposedly aligned. Since the car didn’t start the first try last time I did a timing belt job, I’m rather aprehensive about this. But it’s aligned, it is! If it’s off, it would be a whole tooth off, and I can’t see how it could be. But I thought that last time too.

I couldn’t seem to explain to Joanna why I had to work on my car today, since I couldn’t finish today, and I might as well just do it tomorrow. I just needed to. I hate having it in pieces, and it’s always better to work on it sooner rather than later.

I’m worried about money. We have a good bit saved for the trip, we have a good bit in debt, and we’re spending a good bit. At least to me. I’m not sure if this all works out or if we’ll get into trouble later. We’ll be fine if Joanna gets a job when we move to Norman. She doesn’t think this will be any problem. I have my doubts about it. But things always seem to work out for her, so maybe they’ll work out for us now. Or maybe marrying me will cause her luck to run out. In any case, we’re going on our trip. We may not have another chance like this for a very long time, and we both very much want to do it. Consequences be darned….

Then there’s the matter of vehicles. Joanna’s Dad has given her his ’85 Camaro which is in great shape, but which I’m convinced will simply fall apart any day now. I’m hoping we can sell it. I’ve found a Miata which costs less than I think the Camaro is worth, but which will certainly be more reliable and cost less to operate. Gas prices went up 10 cents a gallon today… So I’m thinking it would be nice to swap the two, and Joanna likes the idea.

But we keep talking about a truck. Buying a truck to move stuff for about what we’d pay to rent one. But we’d still have to rent a trailer… And I don’t know anything about buying a used truck, and I don’t know much about maintaining one, but I’m sure I could figure it out without too much difficulty…

All these decisions.

Joanna’s Mom wanted to get fried shrimp and oysters today. Since I’m not much of a fan of either, I offered to make sandwiches from the two left over chickens that they smoked yesterday. Chicken sandwiches, with pepper jack cheese on a toasted bun, berck’s yummy peas and home-made potato chips. It was all quite good. Everyone seemed happy. I like cooking when it makes people happy, and Joanna’s family seems easily pleased.

A note about the journal comments. The system is rather neat, and we like reading comments… But if you make them anonymously and don’t sign your name we don’t know who you are, which has led to all sorts of speculation on our part. We’re not sure whether they’re left anonymously on purpose or if you guys simply don’t realize they’re anonymous. Then again, maybe it’s better if we DON’T know who’s reading.