Sittin’ here watching the Home Run Derby, which puts me just enough back into a vacation state of mind, thinking about my time away with my wife last week. There’s something magical about her family’s second house in East Hampton, NY. It’s not the la dee da Hamptons—instead it’s a small house whose basement once flooded within two feet of the ground floor, in the kind of neighborhood where all the year-rounders have a little bit of yard and aren’t embarrassed to change their own oil in their own driveways.
It’s my wife’s favorite place in the world. And I love it more every time I go. I love that her folks get out there before we do and set up cheezy 4th of July decorations. I love taking the Cross Sound Ferry between Connecticut and the North Fork…
…and then driving onto two little barges to get the South Fork. I love getting there and immediately grilling something. I love the beach (though not so much the cold water)…
…And I love waking up and having no clue what I’ll do that day, and then doing something and having a great time.
Oh, AND I LOVE TO EAT. On the 4th of July, my mother-in-law, father-in-law, my wife’s cousin and his girlfriend and his mom and dad, they all came over and BBQ’d. And I ate the following:
3 ribs
1 cheeseburger
1 hot dog
3 ears, corn on the cob
1 tomato, sliced
Bread, various
1 slice, blueberry pie with ice cream
It was gooood.
We also had the pleasure, towards the end of the week, of having our friends Katie and Joe join us, along with their six-month-old son Nico.
I took lots of pictures and videos, and now I can say that the “sounds of vacation” officially include—all in 8 seconds—the voice of my father-in-law, Gatsby shaking her collar, my wife’s laughter, and the distinct sound of my wife grunting as Gatsby jumps into her:
I also captured what I call “vacation par excellence”: Gatsby passed out in the sun and my father-in-law passed out in a hammock:
And lastly, there’s my pup’s pawprints from her first ever trip to the beach. It’s worth clicking on it and viewing the large size—the beach is there. Here’s to summer vacationers everywhere. See you out East next year.
I’m enjoying the processing of screwing up the design. Despite that though, I have to step away for vacation. Tonight I get to take three ferries—did you know that Google Maps will give you directions that include boats? I’m glad someone pointed that out to me, otherwise I’d have been looking to turn left on “North Fry.”
Meanwhile, my workplace is a mess. We’re moving too, to new offices. Boxes are everywhere; unfortunately, there should be more boxes but certain of us haven’t packed everything.
I think today is Friday. I’m going to need to ask someone soon. It was a long but very comfortable couple of flights from Boston to Milan to Florence. I only got a few hours’ sleep, but it’s bright here in Florence—even despite the clouds—so the circadian rhythms seem to be doing okay.
As I sat in the taxi that took me from the airport to my friend’s apartment near Piazza Puccini, it hit me that I forgot my journal. So while I may not be able to blog much while I’m here, I certainly want to get down somewhere my notes from today. And that somewhere is obviously here.
Boston to Milan: never heard anyone speaking Italian but the flight attendants and pilot. Counted half a dozen Sox caps. Had a nice conversation with the lady next to me. She has two adult sons—one is published in the Best American Sports Writing (of 2003, she thought), and the other who is a department head at Georgetown. She herself is an artist and instructor, and she was to lead a small group through an art tour of Tuscany.
In the Milanese airport, I discovered for myself what everyone says about Italians anyway—they really like to people-watch. There were a couple of moments when I thought I was being given the stink-eye for being anti-social, that is, for reading a magazine instead of looking around.
The Florentine airport has just reopened. It felt about the size of the airport at White Plains, New York, and one could understand why most visitors to Florence actually fly in to nearby Pisa. But the renovations—if that’s why it was closed until last two weeks ago—look excellent. Lots of stainless steel facade-ing, presumably to cover up walls they didn’t feel like touching up, and some pleasant but rather corporatey wall art. The ceilings were low and the layout straightforward, as if it were from the classic era of airports, when they were still known as airfields.
My friend, I still haven’t seen her. She’s at work for a few more hours. But her roommate was incredibly dear. He doesn’t speak excellent English, but he was excellent company. He cooked pasta with pancetta for me, and we shared some wine. He pointed out essentials on the map my friend has left me. And we managed to like each other enough that neither of us is worried that I will be here eight nights.
Now it’s time to shower and head out to get my friend some sort of house-gift. I’ve already started a photoset on the Fungible Convictions Flickr account, so check it for updates throughout the weekend and week.
I’ve gone so long without a carry-on, roll-behind suitcasey thing. I’d borrow them if I was desperate*, but if the trip was short enough—even for business trips—I’d try to use only a backpack.
But at 25, with a year and a half of professionalism under my belt, it was time. So in response to my Christmas list, my grandmother bought me the Samsonite shown here (though in baggage-claim-camoflage black). A really nice bag. Thing of it is, however, the wheels are spinners, and I’ve got to wondering about the design.
Nearly all bags with wheels—indeed, just about all of Samsonite’s—come with two fixed wheels. That design has worked great, with the only drawback being one must lift the whole suitcase if one needs to move it a few inches to the left or right. The bag I have has four spinning wheels, a feature I didn’t notice until my suitcase started rolling away from me on the sloped curb as I waited at the airport bus stop. Then on the subway, the train made a quick stop, and zip! There the bag tries to roll away again! Since I use public transit every day and am hyper-conscious of where my stuff is relative to the people around me, I’m not too concerned about turning around to find my suitcase getting off at a station without me. But it begs the question: what is the design advantage of having omnidirectional wheels on a suitcase?
Is there a market segment—in Tokyo or midtown Manhattan perhaps—that needs to parallel park its luggage? Are United Airlines serpentine check-in queues getting so compacted we need bags that can maneuver without actually turning? I suppose it’s nice that I don’t have to wait for space to clear in front of me before I can tilt a two-fixed-wheeled bag into motion, but geez, I’d much rather not have to witness gravity chuck my best Christmas gift under a Silver Line bus.
* The last time I hadto borrow a suitcase, I borrowed my roommate’s. At Dulles, security pulled me aside for a random check and also swabbed my borrowed suitcase for evidence of explosive material, which, wouldn’t you know it, tested positive for nuclear radiation. It took a very kind security guard and a very scared me five minutes to figure out/remember that my roommate had previously lived in a part of the country famous for its nuclear testing. No more borrowed bags . . . ever!
