Icelandic Phallological Museum

Initially I promised myself that I was not going to post pictures from the Icelandic Phallological Museum in Reykjavik, mainly because it was generally silly and has the feel of one of those museums which is designed to mainly sell t-shirts and shot glasses (both of which I purchased) but these pictures also arrived unexpectedly from the great boxer shorts of the beyond so I'm sharing them (against my better judgment). It's not as if you shouldn't go when you're in Reykjavik, because it's not a bad way to kill a little time while you're getting in our of the cold or waiting for a restaurant reservation, but don't expect to be blown away (phrasing).

Yes, that's a whale's penis, and it was as tall as me.

Penises (or at least the casts) donated by a successful Icelandic football team. That's some serious camaraderie, and doubtless some of them will spend the rest of their lives living this down.

Grabbing Lunch in Iceland

Sorry for the mad rush of brief (and tedious) pictures from the Iceland trip (which was inexplicably three and a half years ago) but who knows when these mystery pictures will disappear again. I've been thinking a lot about Iceland recently, probably because as the world is ending (personally and more globally) I naturally am drawn to a place where, of all the many places I've traveled, I felt the most clearly right on the edge of the world). This is another set of pictures from the last full day, and I think it was during this unscheduled lunch that we decided to not drive all the way back to Reykjavik after all and instead just spend the day cruising around the peninsula. I'm pretty certain that I also received a text from my Dad while we were eating lunch (it was my birthday).

The Rostin Restaurant, which we were stunned to find open in the middle of the oppressive Iceland winter. Mainly we just stopped by to check out the menu, and found it open. 

And a first rate burger. Later, and oddly, I ended up recommending it to an ex-student who was going to Iceland, and he and his family ate there.

And another picture of my son staring pensively out at the ocean.

Looking the Part

And another picture that returned from the great beyond, this one of Gary during one of the many times when it was so beautiful that we had to get out of the car (knowing that we only had four hours of daylight to play with) because we could simply not get out and look around.

Of all the picture I took of him on the trip this is the one where he just most completely looks like he's a native and I just stopped and asked him for directions.

Seltun

Yes, yet another series of pictures that have returned from the ether, or maybe ore appropriately in this case they bubbled up from beneath the earth's crust. Gary and I visited the Seltun geothermal area in Krysuvik toward the end of our time in Iceland. It was a lovely, albeit rotten egg smelly, spot, which also served as a reminder of Iceland's precarious geothermal birth and existence. My memory is that there were some seismic activity when we were there, but I'll have to ask the boy. We really need to go back during a time when there was more than four hours of sunlight a day (although, truthfully, that was one of the great charms of that trip - it made it all seem more otherworldly).

Flosin Kaffihus

Or the Old Lighthouse Cafe (which was inexplicably not open in early January 2017) in Iceland. Here are some more pictures that inexplicably returned from the ether. This was from our last full day in Iceland when we meant to make it back into downtown Reykjavik but instead spent a wonderful day just bumming around the far western part of the peninsula our near the hostel where we were staying near the airport. 

Not surprisingly I absolutely love this picture of the boy staring out across the North Sea.

Football in Iceland

I just stumbled across some pictures from the Iceland trip that I thought had disappeared. Following the perverse logic of my phone sometimes the pictures simply disappear into the great beyond, but then will show up later (I think they're trying to get me to buy something) as a reminder, at which point I swipe them back. Here are some pictures from the last full night that Gary and I spent in Iceland when we tracked down a bar in Reykjavik that was showing NFL games. 

It was appropriately seedy without being threatening (like RJs).

My memory is that we were watching a playoff game, but that's the Raiders . . .

Even in Iceland football food is football food.

Five Years Ago?

I'm sure I probably posted this picture previously, but it popped up on my FB memory feed (one of the few times it ever proved useful). I can't believe it was five years ago, but why would Facebook lie (unless it was to help Trump get re-elected, of course). What is important is that it's one of my all-time favorite pictures. The boy and I had climbed up Snake Mountain, back in the day when I had a knee that supported that sort of adventure.

We look awfully happy.

Axel and G

I'm just posting a picture that my brother sent me. As my personal world was falling apart in December my brother Eric was kind enough to host me over the holidays before I left on the Trip of Mystery. Here I am bonding with his beast Axel, the Hound of the Baskervilles (or at least Carmel).

Appropriately, I was on the floor.

Mondays at the Food Shelf

Earlier I commented on how having the Food Shelf remain open during the pandemic has kept me sane. It's funny how something that began as a once a week thing turned into me serving on an advisory panel and also volunteering all three times a week when we're open: Thursday evenings, 5:00-7:00, Friday mornings, 8:00-10:00 and Saturday mornings, 8:00-10:00. It's now morphed into a four day a week gig because Hillary, a friend of a friend, often calls me on Monday with extra produce from the Intervale. Sometimes I head out alone, but more often I text my great friend Steve and it becomes an adventure, always including coffee and sometimes lunch. We drive into the Intervale, let ourselves into the fridge, find the pile of boxes with our name of them, sort them, figure out if we can actually store all of it, then transport it to the Food Shelf where we let ourselves in (it's an off day and we're locked up) and store it away. Truthfully, it's usually the best day of the week. In the midst of a global pandemic it's wonderful to give back, even a little bit - as my faith reminds us, it's all about small kindnesses.

The excellent Dr. Wehmeyer helping to organize the produce at the Food Shelf.

Great produce from the good folks at Digger's Mirth in the Intervale.

Success!!

Getting Your Hair Cut During the Pandemic

This is turning into a separate thread - the new normal during the pandemic - although I've avoided the temptation to creation a separate label for Pandemic. A couple weeks ago I was actually able to get in and get my haircut for the first time since the end of February, and even then it took around a three week wait for a slot to open up. The only open slot was on a Thursday evening, but I went to Orbit which is about a hundred feet down the road from the Food Shelf so it didn't mess with my schedule too much. And, yes, we're wearing masks, which, despite the incessant whining of the Anti-Maskers, not that big of a fucking deal.

I've often asked stylists why they don't snap pictures of their clients at the end of the cut for future reference, and they always look at me slightly suspiciously.

Working Out During the Pandemic

I've found that I've been devoting more than a few posts to the New Normal of life after the zombie apocalypse, and here's another one. Naturally all the gyms were closed for months, and thus I really fell behind working out (with the exception of going for daily walks, which really eats at my knee). For around a month I joined colleagues from work at a 7:15 a.m. Zoom core class with light weights, and I actually enjoyed that. However, eventually the gyms began to reopen. I was more than a bit hesitant to go back, of course. Normally I work out at the Edge, and three of their five locations reopened (the other two simply didn't have the open spaces to allow for social distancing - especially the one I normally go to because of it's bizarre winding structure). In the end I decided to return to the Edge location out in Williston, but even then I wasn't too certain if I was going to workout - and was prepared my first day to simply turn around and leave. However, at least so far, I'm very happy with the approach they're taking. They moved everything into the large indoor soccer field, and every machine and weight station is about eight feet apart. I wish more of the folks working out would wear masks, but at least so far it's OK, and I'm happy to be back (and already feel better physically).

The Actual 60th

And I definitely can't believe that I had not posted these pictures before. This was the actual night of my 60th birthday, the entire point of the Trip of Mystery, which means I was in Swakopmund. It's so utterly strange to think about now, but in regards to my personal life but also the global pandemic (although, hell, three months later Steve and I were somehow miraculously shepherding fifteen students to India and back). My personal life was collapsing, which included the present but also the future, and suddenly my past seemed a lot more foolish as well, and I was in far southern Africa in one of the most beautiful and isolated places on the planet. I'm so happy that I finally made it to Namibia, and the sadness that I may never make it back is almost tangible.

The calendar in the Swakopmund Guesthouse, which was a very lovely place to stay if you're headed to Namibia.

Believe me, it was even more delicious than it looks.

Apparently everyone in Namibia somehow magically knew it was my birthday. Here's an impromptu and heartbreakingly sweet rendition of Happy Birthday.

And, of course, I was having dessert.

Not a bad view from the restaurant, looking out across the bay and towards the massive sand dunes in the distance.

Not Australia

It seems like I'm always promising to get caught up with all my blogging, but inevitably am always desperately behind on my blogging. I'm oddly crazy busy at the moment, but I'll make a concerted effort to get some stuff up this week. With that in mind, I was scrolling through my phone and checking out pictures and came across these two. They were taken on the way down to Sossusvlei, and the thing that jumped out to me is how they could easily be mistaken for the Australian Outback. I guess that's not particularly surprising since they both feature a lot of desert and a lot of emptiness.

Come on, how Australian Outback does this look? I feel like we're on our way to that ill-fated picnic at Hanging Rock.

By this point I had already been summarily dumped so these seemed like the natural spot where I was going to end up spending my days.

Yes, I Can Hear You, Clem Fandango!!

When I came back from India (with 11 minutes to spare) I hunkered down in the basement of my truly excellent friends Kathy and Phil. Beyond getting to spend all that time with them, which oddly flew by, I was also introduced to the British TV series Toast of London. If you haven't seen it, shame on you. It's very funny, and typical of a British show, routinely inappropriate. There's a recurring gag where Steven, the terrible actor who mainly survives by doing voice-overs, is interrupted by a character called Clem Fandango. It goes something like this: CF: "Steven, can you hear me, this is Clem Fandango . . . [followed by some insane request]" ST: "Yes, I can hear you, Clem Fandango!!" with the slow burn always lead to an explosion. It shouldn't be as funny as it is, but I laugh every time. Almost every time I'm on one of the endless Zoom meetings that pass for a career and social life now someone will innocently ask, "Can you heart me?" Which always leads me to explode, in mock exasperation, "Yes, I can hear you, Clem Fandango!!" Mainly these innocent souls then stare at me, quite rightly, as if I were a lunatic. I then introduced the show to my old friend Jack Schultz, and, well, the inevitable shenanigans ensue. Jack and Dave and I always always meet on Monday evening for the Brass Mule Happy Hour (a bar of ill-repute that Jack and I frequented in our misspent youth). I used to schedule the meeting using Google Meet, but then Jack started scheduling it using Zoom so that we could each post our own Clem Fandango inspired background. Dave just stares at us in sad resignation.

"Yes, I can hear you, Clem Fandango!!"

"Yes, I can hear you, Jack Schultz!!"

Starting Over, Again

As we get older we think, foolishly, that eventually we'll figure this all out. And, of course, we don't; maybe we simply figure out how to deal with the emotional carnage better. So, the results aren't actually any better but we just recover more quickly. Anyway, after December's Great Dumping - which precluded the Great Pandemic and the Great Isolation - I began to put my life back together again. I've settled in Bayberry Commons, which is technically in Burlington but about a ten minute walk to downtown Winooski. Actually, the short walk down to the restaurants of Winooski was one of the biggest reason why I took the apartment - that and the 24/7 gym onsite and the heated pool - obviously, all of these reasons went out the window when the zombie apocalypse broke. Oddly, the thing that I thought was a nice side slight bonus, the fact that every apartment automatically came with a great washer and dryer, has turned out to be the best part of the deal. It's a small one bedroom, which, again, before the ZA, didn't seem like much of a problem because for some reason I have a ton of friends and I didn't figure I'd be home much anyway. Yes, like most of my plans, it all went awry quickly. I'm warming to the place, and as the world starts to re-open I think I'll like it quite a bit. It finally inspired me to print off and frame a bunch of my pictures from overseas, so it's all starting to look quite homey.

This is what I woke up to on 9 May, moving day. #YankeeHellhole

The move-in was actually very painless. I don't own that much stuff - and I have way too many friends - so the process of unloading the moving van took less than twenty minutes.

I think the bed was about the only substantial thing that I carried out of the chaos of the breakup. It did require that I buy the requisite ton of Bed, Bath & Beyond stuff (to my shame, I have a BB&B account).

Ah, it looks better already.

The desk will eventually get moved into the bedroom and will be replaced by a number of bookcases. The walls are now largely covered with amazing pictures of places I won't be visiting any time soon. And my friend the esteemed Kevin helped me buy a big TV and DVD player so my entertainment needs are met. I almost got the two bedroom, and I'm sure I'll regret it down the road, but the world is full of so much uncertainty right now that I couldn't quite pull the trigger.

The Virtual Chess Garden

We finally finished our two month run of Top 10 Book talks. Truthfully, I wanted to keep going but I ran out of volunteers. Happily I was able to schedule a talk by my dear, dear friend Sarah Cohen. We bonded years ago over a discovered shared love of Charles Dickens. I introduced her to Brooks Hansen's The Chess Garden, and I think we're still the only two people who like it (we get misty-eyed every time we discuss it). Fortunately I was able to schedule Andy and Heidi (and obviously Sylvie Maple) Burkhardt and Sean Leahy, old friends from the Champlain library who have now moved on to the Midwest as a surprise for Sarah. Naturally, she cried - and I cried. I miss them all terribly.

Based on his response, and the general joy of everyone else, I think someone (could be anyone, really) may have been giving Andy some grief . . .