We took a 3 day getaway Monday – Wednesday on Solomon’s Island in Southern Maryland. It was a huge success. We stayed at an upscale B&B. We originally planned to go last week, but that was during the tail end of a nor’easter. The weather was cold and wet and raw. Fortunately, the B&B owner let us delay our visit a week. That’s just one example of how generous and friendly the owners are. We enjoyed warm, sunny days for the entire three days. We expected the breakfasts would be good. They were much better than we expected. We got a 3-course breakfast, and the food was exquisite.

On the way down Monday we stopped to see a Bald Cyprus swamp, a sculpture garden, and the Calvert Marine museum. All three were very nice. The winning attraction was St. Mary’s City. We went there Tuesday morning, expecting to stay a few hours. We ended up staying all day. The third day was OK, but not quite as good as the first two. We visited the Patuxent Air Museum, Calvert Cliffs State Park, and an Indian village at Jefferson Patterson Park. I’ll put a few more details and some pics in the website for those who are interested. We had heavy traffic on the drive home, but overall the getaway was a great hit and a lot of fun.

I didn’t take any pictures of the swamp. I don’t know how to do that. We saw a small sign that said to ask about the audio tour, so we did. The device was underwhelming. It had a tiny sound player with a Bluetooth speaker that wouldn’t pair. We had to hold the player near our ears. The presentation was almost monotone. It didn’t stop or pause when it got to the end of a site. Some of the site numbers were missing. But the information was fantastic. We really enjoyed listening. There are some things scientists don’t know about Bald Cyprus trees. The presenter did a good job of presenting popular theories and making it clear what we are sure of and what we aren’t. Bald Cyprus are deciduous conifers. I didn’t realize the combination exists. To protect themselves from freezing temperatures, they release their leaves and let the water in the tree flow back into the ground. Apparently the water level in the swamp goes up 6″ in the fall.

The Annemarie Sculpture Garden mostly has artwork I don’t understand. But the work at the entryway is something everybody can understand. If we didn’t understand the art, we certainly enjoyed the beautiful grounds and pleasant weather.

The Calvert Marine Museum was much larger than we expected. Neither of us was excited by the outboard motor display, but the rest of the museum was interesting. We went up into this lighthouse. The space is incredibly cramped. I couldn’t believe that lighthouse keepers lived in the lighthouse with their families. I would be going bonkers in just a few hours.

We arrived at St. Mary’s City Tuesday morning just as they opened. We were the only people at the printing shop, and we got all kinds of questions answered. Here you see us making an indentured contract. The wavy cut line is to prove that the contract presented by the indentured servant is actually the same as the contract held by the bond issuer.

Here’s the mandatory picture of the Dove. They actually have two reproductions of the ship. This is the newer reproduction. It’s a lot closer to the original ship. Note the sailor talking with Danita is barefoot, as are all good sailors of the era.

Of all the things we saw and did, this is one of the most interesting. These bricks look like ruins from the 17th century, but actually they are recent. There was a time when museums would build fake ruins to show what they might have looked like and to create interest, which of course helps sell admission tickets. The problem is, they didn’t say the ruins were fake. Today, the folks in St. Mary’s are much more careful to stay truthful. St. Mary’s is an important archeological site because it is largely untouched. The city was founded early in the 17th century and abandoned early in the 18th, when the capitol of Maryland was moved to Annapolis. Between then and now, the area was used as as tobacco farm. The end result is that this is a pristine archeological site for both the colonials and the Indians. Unfortunately, the Indian village at St. Mary’s was a little below the mark, the only weak exhibit in this otherwise excellent facility.

The air museum Wednesday turned out to be a kind of a dud. Pax River is a testing site, and it’s really hard to make testing interesting. They had some interesting aircraft, but their entire slant was on the testing. Docents were there to ramble on about what they did back in the day. It was OK, but unexciting.

Our next stop was Calvert Cliffs state park. Calvert cliffs is an important geographical archeological site with may artifacts and an easily studied view of the Earth’s ancient history. We expected to see numerus artifacts and examples. But there was no museum. Even worse, they did not permit visitors to walk to the cliffs. In my mind, that pretty much is what the Calvert Cliffs park should be about. The sole redeeming virtues were the nice picnic tables for lunch, and something I haven’t seen in years, and did not expect to ever see again. The merry go round works perfectly.

Our last stop was a reproduced Indian village at Jefferson Patterson Park. This museum has spent a ton of money on their museum and site. This picture is lifted from their web site. They didn’t have anybody around who knew much about the village, but from the placards and what I saw, it is an excellent reproduction. It is certainly better than the Indian Village at St. Mary’s City.

This week was quieter than last. We ordered bedding for the new couch and new floor mats for all the bathrooms. Most of what we ordered has already been delivered. The balance should arrive in a few days. We had one of our favorite food trucks. Greek on the Street makes some if the finest gyros in the area, and they are the only place we know of to get Greek Fries. (French fries with fetta cheese. Yummy!) We enjoyed a lively dinner with the Jonses. Mom seems to have her blood pressure under control. We’ll get further information Friday. Our week-long nor’easter finally ended. The bike saw a few more miles this week.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

The new couch came on time. I’ve assembled my share of Ikea furniture, but this time after unpacking everything and looking at the directions, I felt overwhelmed. Ikea partners with a company called Task Rabbit. I went to the link, said ASAP, and ZOOM! a clean young man with a backpack full of tools arrived the next morning. I had my pick of people. Each had a brief bio and list of experience. The guy did a great job. Task Rabbit folks do other things also. If you need something done, you should give them a look-see.

Mom had a zillion doctor visits. She seems to be settled in with a modification to her meds. She has a follow-up in a couple of weeks.

JaMM came down so Jiajia could attend a seminar in DC. We spent a day with Mark and Mira Friday. Then we went to the Natural History Museum Saturday. The museum was crowded and noisy, but Mira did pretty well. Then Mark & Jiajia found an amazing restaurant for lunch (with the help of a little serendipity). If I have the story straight, a Spanish chef offers a Peruvian – Chinese fusion menu. Whatever. The food was fabulous. And it was only a few steps from the Metro. Double win!

We wrapped up the week with a BSO concert this afternoon (Mozart Piano Concerto 24 and Dvorak Symphony 7). It was great music well played. We had a good time. When we started attending Sunday afternoon concerts, I had a hand full of places where we could park for free. The spaces were taken away, one by one. This was our first concert where I paid for parking in a garage. I have to admit, it was nice not to have to walk very far in the rain.

Unfortunately, the Ravens let out just before the concert was over. Ravens fans sat in cold rain watching their team lose 20 – 23. So 70,000 Ravens fans (out of 70,000 seats) joined 2,000 music lovers (out of 2,400 seats) trying to all get out of town at the same time. As disgruntled as they might have been, Ravens fans were mostly courteous on the road. Nevertheless, it was a slow drive home.

This is the 40th year for the Meyerhoff. It led me to some sad thoughts. 40 years ago, Sergiu Comissiona, Joseph Meyerhoff, mayor William Donald Schafer, and governor Harry Hughes built a $25 million music hall. Today, the BSO is downsizing. Nobody is thinking of building anything of substance in Baltimore. Irrespective of vacant commercial real estate and strength of the economy, we just don’t have leadership that capable.

Enough of the downer. There are some cute baby pics on the web site for ya. I hope all are doing well. By the way, that “house” in the pics is a piece of art. If you look closely, it looks a little off. If you walk past it, you would swear the house is moving. I don’t have any idea how they did that.

Mom’s computer didn’t work. The symptoms clearly pointed to the button cell battery. I replaced the battery and did a quick test. Done! – Not. If the problem isn’t the battery, it has to be the motherboard. The rather expensive motherboard. I started look for a new computer. I saw that Dell was having its semiannual sale. Usually, they take 10% or 20% off on selected computers. This time, it was $1300 off of a business-class laptop that was very nicely configured. I couldn’t believe it. Over 60% off. The new computer should be in this week. Mom will have the best computer in the family at an extremely attractive price.

Mom had a bout of high blood pressure. She ended up in the hospital for several hours. It was late at night when they released her, so they got her an Uber. Charlestown has the logistics for hospitalizations down pat. They could install a monorail from Charlestown to St. Agnes and make very good use of it indeed.

Our neighborhood had a big shindig for the construction crew. They’ve been working on our buildings for the last three years. They’ll be finishing up in a few weeks. We had very good BBQ (four meet choices), hamburgers, hotdogs, potato salad, baked beans, mac & cheese. In case that wasn’t enough, several people brought deserts. Danita found a box mix of brownies for sale at $1.25. They were fancy brownies with a sweet topping. They disappeared quickly.

Mom’s computer started acting up. The symptoms indicated she needed a new CMOS battery, but the computer was only 3 years old. I tried pretending the problem would go away, but it wouldn’t. So I removed about 25 tiny screws of 5 different sizes, removed three major components, manipulated dozens of plastic snaps, and inserted a new CR2022 (about $1.25 retail). I’m out of practice, so it took a few hours and some intense language. The good thing is, Dell puts their service manual on the web. Thanks to having the manual, I knew exactly what I had to do. Everything is working.

We have a black couch/sleeper in the basement with a pleather covering. The pleather was not very good. It shed zillions of BPBs (Black Pleather Bits) even when nobody touched it. There were always BPBs around. We finally found and ordered an acceptable replacement. With a new couch coming, it was time to disappear the old. 1-800-Got-Junk. Came to our rescue, leaving a trail of BPBs behind. As soon as they left, I got the vacuum out and vacuumed intensely. Then we emptied the play room. I waited until Danita was going to be gone for a few hours, then I Bruced the floor. Twice. I made sure there were no BPBs anywhere. The next day, I went downstairs to do some stretches and found 4 more BPBs. Danita is highly allergic to Bruce. But Danita was out for several hours and everything would have been fine. If she hadn’t fallen asleep in her TV chair. She wasn’t feeling the best the next morning. Today, Danita is better and I haven’t found any BPBs for several hours.

We had fun getting rid of the couch. Our neighbors had some chairs they wanted to get rid of. We sat down and called Got Junk together. Apparently very few neighbors get together to call Get Junk. Everybody we talked to was very accommodating, but it was clear they had never done this before. For example, the driver couldn’t figure out whether he should call our neighbors while is was parked outside my house, telling them they would be there within a half hour. In the mean time, our neighbors came out to find out why they hadn’t been notified the truck was on the way. We had lot of laughs throughout the process.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Henry’s funeral obviously dominated the week. The support we received from family and friends has been awesome. All the arrangements worked extremely well. For the last many months, Henry said he wanted to be with his sisters. I’m sure he’s happy to finally be with them again. The last of our house guests went home Saturday morning. Our house chores are caught up. Life is quickly returning to normal.

Today we are making good use of a rainy day. Danita is Henry’s executer. She spent most of today getting herself ready to talk to our lawyer.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We were fortunate to have family with us the day Henry died. JaMM were up for what they thought would be a couple of days of family fun. Ed & Lynne were able to stop by after visiting with Henry. We are truly blessed to have a wonderful family. I put some pictures on the website. Click the link above if you are interested.

Danita’s dad Henry died earlier today. He has been very ill for a number of years. His death was expected. By great good fortune, Mark, Jiajia, Mira, Ed, and Lynne were all at the house. We were able to talk with the rest of the family by phone. We have agreement on the arrangements, but with the holiday, we won’t be able to address the details until Tuesday.

Henry – Faith and Family

Mom’s printer has had lots of issues over the last months. It finally gave up the ghost. We decided a laser printer would have fewer problems. I found a very nice Canon for $100. I could have put the old printer in the trash, but the county recycles electronics if you take them to the landfill. Thinking about it, I realized the landfill is within biking distance. The printer was too big for my panier bags, but I figured out a way to lash it to the frame. It was a fun ride. Bonus highlight: a small detour took me by the best snowball stand in the county. Chocolate raspberry with marshmallow. Yummy. I wonder how many times cyclists deliver recyclables to the land fill.

I use my smart phone for GPS guidance when I ride. It has a map and display as do most GPS units. But there’s no place to mount a GPS on my bike where I can see the display. I found a program that gives audible directions as I ride. It’s a really cool feature. I wear the phone in a pouch around my neck and follow the verbal directions. On the way home from the dump, I came to a turn and realized the GPS wasn’t prompting me. My phone (a Google Pixel 5a) was completely dead. I knew the way home, but obviously I need a working phone. This one was less than a year old. I called Google and was very impressed. They gave me the magic key sequence to restart the phone. Everything was fine. The agent told me that the phone shuts down if it gets too hot. It was a hot day, but we have had hotter. The other possibility was that the phone decided to install the Android 13 update, and it collided with the GPS app, causing it to get terminally confused. The term “smart phone” is a misnomer. It’s used for texting, computing, web surfing, GPSing, gaming … in a pinch, it will even work as a phone.

I updated our community website today. This was a major update. I hate large updates. Something always goes wrong. This time they added new security features. None of the people who post information could see, add, or delete the documents and pictures that are posted on the website. That’s extremely secure. It took me two hours to find the new settings. What a waste of time.

We’re looking forward to company for the holiday. JaMM should arrive this afternoon. It will be fun having an infant in the house. Danita’s cooking up a storm. There just might be pictures next week.

It was a quiet week. We’re looking forward to the ice cream social this evening. Come and get a ice cream sandwich, cone, or similar treat. You have to buy a house in the neighborhood to attend, but other than that, it’s free!

I hope this finds everybody doing well.