We had a very nice Christmas week. Our family celebration was earlier than normal. We met at Ed & Lynne’s for brunch on Christmas day. It was an enjoyable afternoon.

Thursday and Friday we went to DC. We took the MARC (commuter) train down. There is a station a little north of us at BWI airpirt and a station a little south of us in Odenton. Odenton is a little further, but it offers FREE PARKING. From Union station, we took the Metro to the Willard Hotel. This is an older hotel, but fabulously elegant, and a very short walk to the White House . Hotel occupancy is low during this week, and amazing deals are being offered on the Internet. We paid about 10% of the rack rate. I admit, that price on the back of the door is completely fictional, but the deal was nevertheless amazingly good. There are advantages to having a Medicaid card. It gets me half price fare on the MARC, half price rides on the Metro, and even a discount on the fabulously priced hotel.

National Christmas Tree

Thursday we started with breakfast at the Lincoln Waffle House (good, cheap food in a funky-dump environment). Then it was on to the Spy Museum. This is not a museum where one is likely to learn a lot. But it is well presented and highly entertaining. It’s not likely we will go back, but we are glad we went once. We had lunch in a popular hamburger joint, which some say has the best hamburgers in DC for the price. Then it was off to the National Theater for Porgy and Bess. It was my first ever opera. It’s a good thing that Danita and I read the synopsis on Wikipedia. It’s unlikely I will be digging deeper into the genre. For dinner, we went to Tosca. The restaurant offers Italian food, and it is magnificent. We had fixed-price dinners. Danita started with butternut squash soup, followed by pork tenderloin. I had gnocchi, followed by black ink tagliatelle with crab meat. We both finished with chocolate cake with a liquid chocolate center, vanilla-malt cream and chocolate sorbet. It was gourmet food with impeccable service. We finished the evening off by visiting the National Christmas tree, including a “pageant of peace”, which is comprised of one small Christmas tree for each state and US territory. These 56 trees are placed in a double-circle around the Ellipse. I’m not sure what makes this a “pageant of peace”, other than the states have not been at war with each other for over a century. But it was a good time. The crowds were every bit as large as the photo indicates. The National Tree was surrounded by several model railroads, complete with villages and towns.

Friday we planned to eat breakfast at the hotel. Our first attraction doesn’t open until 10. We thought it would be relaxing to stay in in the building all morning. But the hotel breakfast was 4 times more expensive than the perfectly acceptable breakfast offered just one block up the street. It was too much for us. We put on jackets, walked a block to breakfast, then came back to our room to relax until it was time to check out.

We visited the Phillips Collection to see an excellent Van Gogh exhibit. We were fortunate to have a membership at the Walters, which reciprocates with the Phillips. We got admission to the museum and exhibit tickets for free! We were also luck to arrive very close to opening time. The exhibit has been there for several months and will remain until late January. Nevertheless, it was quite popular. It was crowded when we were there, and mobbed by the time we left.  The Phillips has quite an eclectic collection of art, including some of those very large paintings of squares. We ran into one of the people Danita works with. His wife is a successful artist. (She has had one-person shows in New York.) She was kind enough to sit with us and explain these paintings of squares. I appreciate them more than I ever did. But I still prefer traditional art.

Danita in DC. This caught my eye while we were walking in DC. I think it was the juxtaposition of the row house stores against the large modern building in the background.

The Phillips is near DuPont Circle, so we took the Metro to get there. On the way back, the weather was nice and our planned lunch place was off the metro path, so we walked several miles back. Our lunch stop had a reputation for excellent sandwiches. It was nice, the portions were generous, and the price was reasonable, but they were just sandwiches. Our last attraction was the Slacker Gallery to see a Yoga art exhibit. The Slacker is part of the Smithsonian. It is located on the other side of our hotel. Walking the entire route turned out to affect our experience at the Slacker, as we were somewhat tired. That might be part of the reason we were a little disappointed in the exhibit. Or maybe it’s just difficult to appreciate the subtlety of art from a foreign culture. Fortunately, we were able to join a docent tour. That helped us get more out of the exhibit.

Our trip home was uneventful. Bob Bauman once told us that some MARC train riders who use the Odenton stop own “clickers” that start their cars remotely. They brag about the range of their “clickers”, which lets them star their cars almost as they exit the train. They run off the train, jump the fence, and race to their cars in an extreme rush to get out of the lot. This behavior is induced, Bill said, by a very small access road with a long red light that creates a long line of cars, all trying to exit at the same time. He painted a picture of parking lot gridlock and an interminable wait. Our car’s clicker won’t remotely start our car. We walked sedately to the car, pulling our suitcase behind. We did experience a line leaving the parking lot, but the line wasn’t long and neither was the red light. We saw no frantic clicking, or fence-jumping, running, or gridlock. The train was so full that some people didn’t get seats. Maybe they’ve improved the access road. Or maybe Bill was quoting an urban myth. It’s too bad, because it was a great story.

The temperature outside is starting to warm up. It looks like this will be another beautiful day, sunny and warm (over 50 degrees). It’s a perfect time for a bike ride. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

House Cleanup Party

I am writing this on Sunday, 12/22.

Here’s a bonus picture of house cleanup day at Bud’s last month. Bud’s in the front. From left to right in the row, it’s Lynne, Addie, Danita, Ed, Suzanne, Joe, Pete, Rebecca, and me hiding in the back. (If you can’t see the people, click on the picture to make it bigger.)

After a normal work week we had an amazing weekend. Saturday was near 70 and nice. I decided there were too many stressed drivers and didn’t ride. But we did have a private “Solstice Party” with the usual accouterments. This, of course, was solely to be in sympathy and support for the Solstice party at Kathryn’s community.

Highlandtown Train Garden

Sunday was even warmer but it was rainy. Our umbrellas were not much use in keeping us from getting soaked when we left Church. Nevertheless, we had a great time. We went up to Reisterstown for a new breakfast place. The food was quite good. Then we visited the Glen Avenue train garden, the Baltimore Conservatory,  and the Highlandtown train garden. Both train gardens were as good as ever. Both had evidence of how technology is moving into every corner of our world. Glen Avenue had amazing electronic signs with elaborate color designs and flashing patterns. Highlandtown had a drive-in theater playing “The Polar Express”, thanks to somebody’s very small computer.

Baltimore Conservatory

The Conservatory had amazing Christmas displays, with Poinsettias of every color, size, and leaf texture, including to “Poinsettia trees”. They also had their own small train garden. The orchid room had an amazing display of different orchids. We found out that the conservatory has a volunteer that spends all her time growing orchids and rotating them through the display area.

It’s so nice to have some time to relax and enjoy ourselves during what can  be a busy season.

I hope this finds everybody ready for Christmas and doing well.

I am writing this on Sunday, 12/8. There are no pics this week.

The weather this week has been quite variable. A few days ago, the high was in the 60s. Today the high will be freezing. The forecast calls for *s*n*o*w*! and *i*c*e*!! Of course the news media is making the winter weather sound as bad as possible. I certainly enjoyed the weather earlier this week. I was able to do a 2-hour bike ride with a good number of hills. It’s a fairly rigorous route. At the end, my back was still fine. I was quite pleased. I think the PT he helping my back recover at an amazingly good rate. I was also able to go to Yoga class Tuesday and did well there.

We have a new helper in the clubhouse and she is having troubles getting the computer part of her job under control. She’s always wanting to start over and do things another way. That is not a good sign. I’m working with her, but it’s going to take a while. In the mean time, I’m spending more time keeping an eye on things, making sure data is backed up, etc. One of my frustrations: I installed remote access software so I could access the computers when they aren’t being otherwise used. Obviously, to do a remote access, the computer has to be left on at night. So far, this is not a skill that our new worker has mastered.

We had one neighborhood party this week, on Friday. Danita went and I stayed home. It was a Christmas Clubhouse decorating party, where everybody runs around in mass confusion looking for places to put all the decorations. Danita decorated and had free pizza. I read a book and got a to-go hamburger from Red Robin. Each of us thought we got the better deal.

Saturday we went to Church for an Advent presentation. Fr. Joe Breighner gave the talk. He has a rich background in counseling, presenting retreats, and writing columns and books. He even had a weekly show on the Baltimore country music radio station, weaving his Christian thoughts with country music. We both enjoyed his talk immensely. After that, we got some lunch on the way to Bud’s old house. His real estate agent helped him get the floors refinished and some painting done. We met at the house to check out the work and discuss the listing price. With a little luck, the house will have a sign in front of it next weekend. Then we went home to hunker down and prepare for the *s*n*o*w*!

Of course, the snow came later than predicted. We made it to Church this morning. There were a few tiny ice drops just as we got in the car to come home from breakfast. We were caught flat-footed. We haven’t procured our emergency storm supplies yet. Fortunately, we have plenty of wine left over from Thanksgiving. Danita’s hoping she’ll have to go to work late tomorrow.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

I am writing this on Friday, 11/29.

We are certainly thankful to hear that Glen and Tao are both out of the hospital. Our Thanksgiving was less exciting than that. While brushing my teeth Monday, my back had a major spasm. I spent most of  the day laying flat on my back. Fortunately, I was up and about by the time I had to to drive to the doctor’s appointment at 4:30. Doc gave me a muscle relaxant and a referral for PT. By Tuesday morning, I felt much better. Never has a doctor accomplished so much by doing so little.

Gymnastics

The Reeds showed up Tuesday. Fortunately, they had decent weather and little traffic for the trip up. We had some nice family time and one of Danita’s great dinners. Jul especially liked the potato salad.

Resting the Back

On Thanksgiving, Elizabeth and I spent a little time in the morning resting our backs. Then we got things rolling (thanks mostly to Danita). The weather forecast for Wednesday was awful. We decided to see Disney’s new movie “Frozen” in the morning. We had an unexpected cartoon before the movie. It started out just like an old Mickey Mouse cartoon, complete with a small display in the middle of the screen. It quickly morphed into a full-screen color cartoon that was quite funny. Then we went over to the clubhouse to watch a DVD movie in the afternoon.

Pre-Turkey Trot

Jul signed up for a 5K Turkey Trot in Catonsville Thursday morning. Bryon has been practice running with her and decided he wanted to try a 1 mile run. Mark decided this would be a good time to strut his stuff. Pat, Elizabeth, and I went down to cheer them on. Here we are in the gym, waiting for the race to start.

Jul and Bryon at the start

Here’s Jul and Bryon at the start of the race.

Turkey Trotting Mark

And here’s Mark strutting his stuff.

Turkey Trot Celebration

Unfortunately, the temperature was pretty cold (mid 20s). It was way too cold for Elizabeth. So instead of greeting the great runners at the finish line, Elizabeth and I did our celibrating in the gym. In the mean time, Pat was to meet Jul and Bryon at the 1-mile mark to take Bryon and let Jul finish the 5K. Unfortunately, we never found the finish line. Mark saved the day by running backwards after finishing his 5K and meeting Bryon at the mile-and-a-half point. All’s well that ends well. Everybody had a great time.

Elizabeth, Bryon, Addi, Suzanne

Bud, Ed, Lynne, Pete, Joe, and Suzanne and Addi represented the Schmauses at dinner. We had all the trimmings, including saurerkraut. Ed & Lynne brought a pecan pie and a pumpkin pie for desert.

Parachute Game

After dinner, we played the “drop a parachute from the balcony” game.

Shooting Parachutes

It didn’t take Mark long to add interest to the game by trying to shoot the parachutes down.

Friday, we enjoyed the DVD “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” at the clubhouse. The Reeds left after lunch, planning to stop in Richmond overnight to enjoy the Christmas lights at the Botanical Gardens. We enjoyed the company a lot. But it was also nice to get everything back to normal. Overall, it was a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Now that my back is feeling almost normal, I have my first PT appointment on Monday. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

I am writing this on Sunday, Nov 24. There are no pics this week. This will be a short note.

The haulers came as scheduled. It took them 2 hours to pack everything into their truck and drive it away. Bud and Danita are already receiving pictures showing the progress on redoing Bud’s floors.

Danita is well into the Thanksgiving cooking, preparing and freezing meals that will be used immediately before and after Thanksgiving. We’ve had one major change to our plans. Tao is suffering from kidney stones and therefore Ryn and Tao will not come. We’ll miss them, and we wish Tao a speedy recovery.

Mom reports that Glen is back in the hospital with pneumonia. We wish Glen a speedy recovery also.

My back was doing better, but still sore. I was able to do a few things. I even got a couple of short bike rides. Suddenly my back got much worse yesterday. There was no reason for the setback that I can tell. Fortunately, I’m still capable of switching the fireplace on. That’s a good thing because it’s gotten quite cold here. I feel so bad, I might call the doctor tomorrow.

I hope this finds most of you doing well, and Tao and Glen recovering rapidly.

I am writing this on Sunday, Nov 17. You can see the pics at www.quarkleaf.com.

Rebecca and Pete clowning around

This week was a concerted effort to finish Bud’s move. Danita and I spent all day Friday and Saturday at Bud’s house. Danita sorted through stuff, deciding what to keep and what to get rid of. (With healthy input from Bud, of course.) I moved stuff around. I didn’t do as much as I wanted, because my back was bothering me quite a bit. Thursday, I stuffed my car with the last of Bud’s stuff. I had the trunk, back seat, and passenger seat completely packed. I drove over to his new apartment. It took 4 trips with a cart to get it all moved into the apartment.

Rebecca and Suzanne

Sunday, all the Schmauses — in descending age order: Bud, me, Danita, Ed, Lynne (Ed’s wife), Lynn (Danita’s sister), Joe, Tonie (Joe’s girl friend), Pete, Rebecca, Suzanne, and Addi — went to Leona’s anniversary Mass, then we went out for an excellent breakfast. After that, we all went to Bud’s house. Ed and Lynne rented a truck. Pete and Joe both had stuff stored in the basement, which was moved to the truck. Ed had a few tools in the basement. Several family members took some things they wanted. All the junk furniture was taken out to the curb for bulk pickup, metal recycling, regular recycling, or trash pickup. All of this is on Monday. By the end of the day tomorrow, all of this stuff should be gone, gone, gone. Rebecca took a group picture. If I get a copy, I’ll update the blog and let you all know.

This leaves quite a bit of decent furniture and lots of “stuff” in the house. Riderwood recommended some haulers, who take everything left in the house, donate what they can, and throw the rest away. The haulers work with four charitable organizations, including Habitat of Northern Virginia. That makes it a lot easier to let the stuff go. I’ll go over to Bud’s house one last time at 9:00 Wednesday to let the haulers in. That will be just in time to let the painters go to work starting Friday.

Suzanne and Addi playing on the bulk trash pile

A few other things happened earlier in the week. My neighborhood has a list of frequent visitors. These are people placed on file so they can visit after 8 PM without the guard having to call the family to get permission to let them in. I learned that they didn’t have a good way to generate a usable list for the guard. I suggested adding it to our database. They agreed. I got that coded up. I’ll be installing it next week.

I tried riding a little bit. I only got 4 miles. My back is in too bad a shape to permit riding. Hopefully, now that all this moving stuff is done, I’ll be able to get back to riding in a week or so.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

I am writing this on Sunday, 11/10. There are no pics this week.

Bud moved as planned. Danita did a fabulous job of organizing what would move and what wouldn’t. Everything went perfectly. Bud slept at Riderwood Friday night. Now the focus is getting the living area of his house empty so we can get painters in to do their work. The big decisions are made (such as which pots to move and which to leave behind). Now there is a sort of everything that’s left behind — especially papers. I can help by carrying sorted stuff around the house and putting it in various piles (donate, trash, take to Riderwood). Danita and I spent the last two day’s at Bud’s old house. We will also be there all day Monday. We hope that we will have the sorting of the living area done Monday. Then we’ll give Bud a week to move stuff around between the piles. We’ll  be back Friday to start working on the basement. Next Suday everybody will be there. We’ll go to Leona’s anniversary funeral mass, then have brunch. After brunch we’ll move stuff out to it’s designated destination. I’ll send Bud’s new address and phone number soon. We don’t have confirmation on his new phone number yet.

Early last week I got a little careless and hurt my back. I missed Yoga Tuesday. My rule: don’t attend yoga if Mountain Pose is a challenge.(That’s standing on both feet in good posture.) By Friday, I was feeling pretty good, and went on a Cycle2Health ride. It was 15 miles to the ride start, 30 miles for the ride, and 15 miles home (60 miles in all). The weather was windy and cool but otherwise good. It was an area I hadn’t ridden in before. It was the end of the fall foliage season. At the end of the ride, I joined the group for lunch at a pub. It was much more than I normally spend on a biking lunch, but the food was quite good. Overall, it was a great ride.

By the end of the day today, my back was sore again. I’m pretty sure I will miss Yoga again next Tuesday.

Last week I wrote about cutting the cord. When I actually called Verizon to cancel our service, they suddenly had some lower cost plans available. We decided to switch to a plan that has the same internet and phone service, but the TV is local channels only, with no “on demand” programming. Our monthly bill is substantially reduced. We keep our home phone number, and get all the Baltimore and DC channels. I’ve been working on improving our home network because Danita’s computer doesn’t get a very strong Wi-Fi signal in the TV room. I ordered some stuff and should get that all squared away sometime next week.

Finally, I think I might have fixed the Email problem with my web site. I guess I’ll find out pretty soon, because I’m about to hit the “Publish” button.I hope this finds everybody doing well.

I’m sure bundling has been around for a long time, but McDonald’s certainly perfected it. Buy a sandwich and a Coke, get the fries for free. What if I don’t want the fries? (Or the salad, or whatever other substitute they offer). What if I want a Coke and hamburger? I feel like I’m getting ripped off. In the case of McDonald’s, it turns out to be to my benefit. I’m better off drinking water.

Verizon FIOS offers TV, phone, and Internet. Buy all 3, get one free. Danita and I could live with the bundling. But that’s not enough for Verizon. Three years ago, the bundle was $99 / mo. The price is exactly the same today. Except the price we actually paid 3 years ago was $115 / mo. Today, it’s $133 / mo. Verizon announced they’re adding another $8 / mo (which is really closer to $8.50, when sales tax is included). Enough! I decided to see if we can cut our costs.

Using our cell phones instead of the home phone is a no-brainer. When we started, pre-paid cell service was $1.00 / minute. That quickly went down to $0.25 / minute. Then it went down to $0.10 / minute. With a 1-year card costing $100, we will never use 1,000 minutes. Using the cell phone instead of the home phone adds a grand total of … lets see … calculating … carry the 1 … $0 / mo.

TV is more confusing. Going on-line, I found all kinds of advice. Buy a box (anywhere from $35 to $120), buy a monthly subscription (Hulu+, Netfix, Amazon Prime, etc) and give up the TV subscription. Except that for all of these options, we wouldn’t see all the shows we currently watch. The main issue for us is CBS, which blocks their most popular shows from Hulu+. But I noticed that all the networks we watch are offering all of their shows on their own web sites, completely free. So the best way for us to cut the cord is to carry the laptop downstairs and connect it to the TV. If we don’t want to get up to start the next show, we can get a longer cable for $10. That’s a heck of a lot cheaper than a $100 box and a $8 / mo subscription.

I think I’ll get a better chance of talking to somebody on the “A” team if I wait until normal business hours. I’m calling Verizon tomorrow. I’m thinking we’ll cut our monthly bill in half. We’ll see.

We’re looking forward to a good time this afternoon. Duane Sabiston has an art opening. It should be fun.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Sunrise over New Orleans

The last full day was better than I expected. I “slept in” until 5:30 (as usual). We ended up watching the sunrise over the river. Our room in the Sheraton is very nice, as one would expect. But I just can’t get over this amazing window we have. It’s a floor-to-ceiling window about 4 feet wide. I can walk up to it and almost look straight down the building. Couple that with our amazing view and the perfect weather, and it’s just breathtaking. (That black mound you see at the bottom of the pic is my feet, propped up on a foot stool.)

I decided that I would head downriver, visiting the CBD and Warehouse district for the morning; then take the St. Charles streetcar to the Garden District. I started out with a NOLA breakfast which naturally included grits. I’ve eaten crawfish, collard greens, and several other new foods. But in the past, I was never able to eat grits. I asked them to put the grits on the side. My breakfast included a large bowl of grits, which I was quite surprised to find I liked immensely. I ate them all, and scraped the bowl.

B24 Liberator

Then I was off for a quick stop at the WW II museum. That’s where my plans fell apart. It’s overwhelming. If you are ever in NOLA, make sure you see this museum. It is new, modern, large, and attractive. It is filled with all kinds of WW II artifacts immaculately restored to brand-new condition. It tells a quite complete story of the war with movies, posters, “war boards”, and display cases. I know a lot about the general history of WW II, but there was enough detail that I learned quite a bit more. It has a Tom Hanks movie “Beyond All Boundaries” complete with a huge screen (larger than IMAX), snowflakes, flashing lights, buzzing seats, small screens that pop out of the stage floor, and miscellaneous hardware that comes down from the ceiling. In spite of all the gimmicks, the movie tells a cohesive story with an emotional impact. It has an interactive submarine exhibit that simulates a US sub battle. (I was the torpedo firing officer.) As usual in really great museums, I saw and overheard people who were experts discussing various weapons or items that were on display. The thing that had the largest impact on me was the personal histories. They had several stations where they had selected 4 people to offer a 2-minute personal history on an event or time in the war that was being discussed by the exhibits in the immediate area. I couldn’t resist listening to each person’s history. Here’s a cool thing. My bike tour guide told me his ex-mother-in-law was one of the people who had a history in the museum. A company in NOLA designed and manufactured the landing craft used for amphibious landing, as well as PT boats and several other small watercraft. I found her history and heard her story, along with all the others. I finally got overwhelmed in the afternoon and went back to the hotel.

Cochun Butcher Halloween Display Case

Of course I needed lunch. Just 2 blocks from the museum is a very nice restaurant called Cochun’s. Those in the know walk behind the restaurant and eat lunch at a less formal place called Cochun Butcher. This place has world-class sandwiches. I enjoyed mine immensely. (Pulled pork, swiss cheese, and grilled onions — what’s not to like?) It’s a good thing we’re going home, because looking around, I noted that everybody else’s sandwich look at least as good as mine.

Danita and I joined up for dinner. We had a Muffaletta sandwich — something that is peculiar to NOLA. Danita didn’t care for it very much. I thought it was OK, but nothing special. We decided the music scene on Tuesday is probably not a lot better than on Monday. So we got a bottle of wine. We’re spitting our attention between our magnificent view and “Iron Man”.

Last night’s dinner was great. I had crawfish and collard greens (both for the first time). Both were excellent. Danita had very good crab-salmon patties.

This morning, while Danita went to her seminars, I took a historical bike tour of the Frubourg-Marigny district (just downriver from the French Quarter). We rode crazy-cool bikes with “handlebar mustache” handlebars. There was one forward gear and coaster brakes (peddle backwards to stop). They had very wide saddles with soft springs. The tires were an inch and a half wide. These were perfect for touring the city. The tour was excellent. The guide was a nice guy, knew is history, and presented it coherently and in  an interesting manner. It didn’t hurt that we had perfect weather. I was surprised to learn how old the buildings are in this district. Most of the houses were built with barge lumber. Before steam ships, it took great effort to go up the Mississippi. As a consequence, people who wanted to move goods downriver built barges out of wood. When they got to NOLA, they broke the barges up and sold the wood. The people in NOLA used this barge wood to build their houses. Our guide owns a creole cottage in Frubourg-Marigny. he stripped off several layers of various coverings and ended up with interior walls that were either barge wood or exposed brick. It was a perfect morning and early afternoon. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pics. My phone was in my backpack, which I left with the bike shop while on tour.

That was the end of the good times for today. Danita and I met up at the room at the end of the day. For dinner, we went to a small “Cajun-Italian” restaurant that was supposed to be the most romantic restaurant in the city and have excellent food at a reasonable price. This place is upstairs from a Jazz bar on Frenchmen Street, which is were the city’s best music is supposed to be. The price was reasonable. But the place was not at all romantic and the food was pretty bad. We started with a salad (romaine lettuce with a rather poor Italian dressing). The entrees had plenty of meat, but that was all they had. The sauces were over seasoned and very salty. The place was noisy. It took an incredibly long time to get the food. When we finally got out, we walked up and down “music ally”. The bands we heard weren’t very good. Of course, it being Monday night, several places were closed and I’m sure the best bands weren’t playing. I was thinking of grabbing a drink when we got back to the hotel, but instead of a quiet bar with tinkley music, they had a projection screen with the World Series on. All-in-all, the evening was a bust.

Oh, well. It was a perfect day, and we’ll have another evening tomorrow.