House of Air

Last year Nika asked me what I wanted for Christmas and I told her I'd like something we could do together. Brilliantly, she gave me an invitation to a place called House of Air. It's a trampoline park, but not exactly what I had in mind.

The last time I remember bouncing on trampolines, I must have been in college. I went somewhere that had a few trampolines lined up side to side and we jumped up and down until we got bored. This time was completely different. These guys are to trampolines what Turkey is to baklava. After our safety briefing, Nika and I bounced into the Matrix, a huge room with a 4x7 matrix of trampolines on the floor and more trampolines angled against the walls all around.

I stepped in and bounced up and down, which worked about the way I remembered. Progressing, I tried to jump from one trampoline to the next, but landed on the padding between them. I succeeded, more or less, the second time but landed poorly and wanted to stop bouncing, which I had forgotten how to do. Failing, I fell down. Nika reminded me that I could stop by bending my knees as I landed, so I felt prepared to do tricks.

My favorite trick in childhood was the seat drop, but I didn't do so well with my first efforts. I should have been doing more stretching, because I had a hard time coming down with my torso sufficiently vertical. Knee drops came more naturally, but by the end of our hour I was doing combinations and even flips.

House of Air offers variety, however, and we migrated onto the dodgeball court, where adolescent kids pummeled us with big foam balls. After a few games we began throwing the balls more accurately and dodging more successfully, but the kids always ended up winning. Not that we cared. We were having lots of fun. Nika even thought to take pictures of the festivities, but I had hidden her phone so well that she couldn't find it. You'll just have to imagine me flying around like Batman. I should really go back, with a camera. Maybe next trip.

Driving to Hana

A couple of days ago we took Peter and Elena on a road trip. I really like to go to Hana, more for the process of getting there than for the destination itself. But it's a long drive on a narrow and winding coastal road, Alla's afraid of heights, and there are parts of the road that freak her out. It's worth it and we keep going back, but this time we decided to make it easier by finding a place to stay overnight in Hana.

On the way down, we took the usual stops at waterfalls, high coastal overlooks, rocky shores, sandy beaches, an arboretum, and a barbecue. The barbecue was special. A Hawaiian fellow set up a big open grill at one of the turnouts where we happened to stop. We had a picnic lunch with us, but the cooking chicken smelled really good. I don't remember what kind of wood the man was cooking over, but it's Hawaiian and he told us that it imparted a mesquite-like flavor. He offered me a plate of a dish called huli-huli chicken. I'd never heard of this, but I trusted the aroma and bought a half chicken. I'm glad it was half of a big chicken, and we all wished we'd bought a whole bird.

We took our hot chicken down the road to a YMCA camp. Unable to find anybody to give us permission, we sat down anyway at a picnic table overlooking taro fields and the ocean and feasted on fruits, a few cold cuts, and huli-huli chicken. We really loved the chicken, and I found a recipe online when I came home. I think it's worth trying on my own. Can we buy frozen concentrated pineapple juice in Boston? I sure hope so.

Come to think of it, my major triumphs on this trip all had something to do with food. Knowing that there aren't many restaurants in Hana, I bought some delicious chili at a roadside restaurant a few miles before town. Nobody else wanted to eat yet, and I felt pretty well off when we discovered that a good dinner would cost more than we wanted to pay. I had eaten enough to skip dinner altogether, but I didn't have to.

I'll skip the details of a long story, but Peter disappeared on the way home from our restaurant reconnaissance trip. Once it became clear to Alla and me that we wouldn't find him soon, we ran off with the money Elena had in her pocket and went looking for a grocery store. There are two stores in Hana, but neither sold anything we'd be willing to call dinner. I explained our predicament to the cashier and asked her if there weren't anyplace in town where we could buy some fish. She sent us down to the baseball field, where she said we could buy grilled ahi. Indeed we could. We introduced ourselves to Captain Brad, who had caught the fish that day and was cooking it over a gas grill. We spent all of Elena's money and came home with five beautiful pieces of fish and some salad. When we finally got to our apartment, we found Peter and Elena reunited and we enjoyed a delicious dinner together.

We didn't eat so well on the way home, but we finished with a beautiful sunset over numerous surfers. You can see the last rays of the sunset below:

At the beach

Alla and I took our friends Peter and Elena to Kapalua Beach, our favorite of the ones nearby. I remembered that I liked it, but didn't remember all of it's good points until we got there. We knew it would be pretty, the water would be calm and warm, and the sand soft and wide. I forgot, however, how much is happening under the water there. I spent far too long trying to inflate an air mattress, and when I finally went for a swim I rediscovered a wonderful world of colorful fish swimming around the coral just off shore. I swam back and forth in swim goggles, fascinated by the variety of life underneath me. I don't know much about what I was looking at, beyond broad categories. Fish, of course, in many varieties, and sea urchins and two kinds of sea cucumber. I stayed in shallow water because I haven't got any snorkel gear with me and couldn't dive to investigate the deeper stuff. I'll rent some snorkel gear tomorrow.

As I swam slowly back to my starting point, I lifted my head out of the water to check my bearings. Just ahead of me, I saw a black hump above the surface. At first I thought it was a swimmer in a wetsuit. Then I decided it might be a seal because it didn't move like a human. I put my face under water to see if I guessed right, and discovered that I was looking at a sea turtle. We looked at each other, about an arm's length apart. I didn't want to crowd the guy, or scare him, so I stayed still. The turtle put his head down and swam lazily toward me. As he approached, he submerged to stay just out of reach but he was close enough I could estimate his length. I think he may have been about four feet long, or 2/3 of my height. I watched and watched as the turtle doubled back and settled himself on the sea floor under an outcropping. Once he settled down there, it's unlikely I would have noticed him had I not known where to look.

I returned to shore. We had just settled down in a shady spot with our books, when Alla noticed that a couple of young women near us were speaking Russian. I looked and listened. Presently some others came to join these Russians, and there were four attractive young women and one lucky guy. I came over to ask him how he got so lucky to be the only guy among all those pretty women and learned that these were a few of a group of people from Ekaterinburg who had come to a destination wedding. They had arrrived a day ago after spending about 24 hours en route. I chatted for a while, returned to my book, and came back to chat some more. I particularly enjoyed talking with Svetlana, a Deacon at a major economic university . She wondered if I might be qualified to come as a guest lecturer, but I am not academically qualified. Peter, however, may be, and he's definitely got some interesting insights to share. It's too bad he doesn't speak Russian, but Elena offered to come along as his translator and we are all hoping for the best. At least we're having a great time imagining it.

Relaxing

Actually, I've been pretty relaxed. We had a huge hurricane last week, but where we live there's no chance of a tree falling on our house and we're nestled among a bunch of buildings about the same height so the wind mostly went over our heads. As the storm whipped itself toward its peak fury, I decided I'd better buy a bottle of milk before the store ran out of the stuff. Alla begged me not to leave home, certain that I'd meet my demise on the street. I went anyway, but her concern heightened my awareness of the tall trees twisting and turning overhead as I walked toward the corner store. I wondered if I could really run away from a falling branch if I even noticed it breaking off, and decided that maybe I didn't need to go down to harborside at high tide after all.

I'm grateful to say that we sustained no damage (beyond some already-weathered furniture covers on our roof deck.) Friends weren't so lucky, but all things considered I think Boston made out much better than cities in coastal New Jersey and New York.

I did look forward to relaxing, however, because Alla has been a little wound up. She doesn't like travel nearly as much as she likes being at interesting destinations. Right now we're en route to Maui, in the Hawaiian Islands. Alla packed her suitcase two days ago. Somehow she finds it difficult to decide what not to bring, so she likes to start early in order to have time to reflect on her luggage and add important things she remembers later. This means that she never forgets anything important, but sometimes things get doubled up or lost underneath something that proved to be extra and unused. I tried to stay out of that process as much as possible, but I can never steer completely clear.

Anyway, here we are. We might be the only people on the plane with no affiliation to Microsoft. Everybody else, as far as we can tell, is receiving this vacation as an award from that company. They all seem to have those fancy new Surface tablet computers and/or Windows Phones or at least some sort of computer running Windows 8. One wife of a Microsoft employee confessed that she uses an iPhone. I'm using an Android tablet. There are plenty of Kindles on the plane too. Apparently it's not heretical for a Microsoftie to have a Kindle.

Anyway, everybody is feeling jolly. When we get off the plane, we'll have warm, sunny weather and warm starry nights. And at least most of us won't have to work for a few days. It sounds pretty relaxing indeed.

Getting ready for the storm

The weather forecasters think three different storms are about to converge on us at once. I guess that means the end of our pretty fall colors. We’ll miss them. Autumn has progressed very slowly due to unusually warm days, and we’ve been spending lots of time outside. It’s been great, and we knew it couldn’t last forever.

This morning, as soon as dawn broke, I looked out to see if the storm had arrived yet. I saw a little wind, but nothing worse. I wanted to get Alla out for a bike ride before I left for church, so I launched a strategic plan. Since she likes to sleep later than I do, I shaved and got myself as organized as possible before waking her up. “Do you want to go for a ride?” I finally asked.

Alla answered something sleepy and barely intelligible. I showed her the sky, suggesting that I could still see a little blueness. She saw only gray, but consented that the wind didn’t look too bad. She thought about it. I reminded her how much we’d enjoyed the afternoon walk she dragged me out for yesterday and she decided to be a good sport. Off we went.

While well over half the city’s leaves had already fallen from their trees, the remaining ones seemed even brighter. No doubt our orange bike glasses had something to do with it, as did the gentle morning light and the lateness of the season. We gasped and exclaimed as we rolled down the Emerald Necklace. The city seemed almost abandoned and we decided to take a bigger avenue we’d normally avoid. Historic buildings peeked out at us from behind the less-leafy trees until we made our way to the Arnold Arboretum. I finally got out my phone at the Arboretum and took a few photos. We understood once we stood still that we were watching the end unroll. Leaves cascaded down on us and the wind speed increased. We rode home in a headwind, and from time to time we couldn’t see pavement at all under the accumulating leaves. By noon, a light rain had started, and I’m pretty confident that the fall-color season has effectively ended.

I am hoarse

Johnny's Freshman boat. He's the one on the right.

Every year I go to watch crew races at the Head of the Charles Regatta. I don’t really care who wins, but I bring a megaphone and yell at lots of boats just because I enjoy it. I generally cheer for the local teams, and for whatever team seems to be doing better than expected. And I always cheer for Princeton. Long ago, my cousin’s son rowed for Princeton and his boats tended to win lots of races. He even got invited to join the U.S. National Team, but he moved on to “real life” after he wasn’t selected for the Olympic team. I still watch rowing, as I have since long before Johnny rowed his first Head of the Charles.

Yesterday Alla and I focused on the social aspects of the regatta. We watched a few races, but spent considerable amounts of time testing free food samples and hob-nobbing with some of the many visitors this event brings to the Boston area every year. Alla was excited to pose with a model Lufthansa plane in her hands, and the stewardess sent her home with a rubber ducky dressed in a Lufthansa uniform. I was excited to dig through the bargain bins at JL Racing, a manufacturer of sport clothing. Rowers tend to be tall and lanky, and this is a pretty good way for me to find athletic clothes that fit (or almost fit.)

Today I came back to the river straightaway after church. I stopped at the Radcliffe boat house and bought a bagel for a dollar, and received a big dollop of cream cheese for free. Then I looked for a free salad from Olivia’s, but they’d already run out so I finished my lunch with some new sports recovery drink and a couple of sample Lara Bars. Fortified, I sat down on the bank of the river and got out my megaphone, binoculars and program. I yelled at lots of boats and made friends with a couple of grandparents waiting for their granddaughter. The grandparents didn’t know anything about crew races, so suddenly I was an “expert.”

I’m not an expert, however, and this year I had been puzzling over why it appeared to be so hard for the coxswains in the long boats (8’s) to steer. Nobody near me knew much more about the sport than I do, so I felt free to leave when I finally got tired of sitting in one spot on the ground. I walked back to my favorite viewing spot, on the Anderson Bridge near Harvard’s Weld Boathouse. Soon I discovered that the tiny woman beside me has had considerable experience as a coxswain, including on the Charles River. She explained to me the ideal route from the Weeks Footbridge to our bridge, optimizing a short course and the fact that you really-really want to be pointed in the right direction when you get between the bridge piers. When some boats got congested between the piers I asked her if she’d slow a boat down in order to avoid contention in a tight spot like that. “Oh yeah,” she replied. “In a race, the rowers are a lot like animals. If you get them spooked it can throw off the rest of the race.” Needless to say, she was a wonderful conversationalist.

Crew people tend to make great company anyway. There’s something about getting up super-early in the morning to sit in a boat with the same people day after day that sorts out folks who can’t get along with others. It makes for a very pleasant spectator environment too. You end up with a lot of gregarious people egging each other on. In the end we scream and yell a lot and we tend to come home hoarse. It’s lots of fun.

Weekend in Maine

Last week Alla noticed an ad for a lecture in Camden, Maine. We’ve never been in Camden and the lecture sounded good, so off we went. According to Google Maps, it’s a 3½-hour drive to get there, but somehow we managed to spend all day at it. The problem involved shopping. Alla and I both hate to shop, so we don’t do it very often. We had a little list of things we’d been meaning to buy, so we stopped at some of the factory outlet stores along the way. One stop proved especially successful: Alla really needed a new pair of casual pants, and she found an excellent pair at Lucky Jeans. She liked them a whole lot more than the pants she had on, so she left the dressing room in her new jeans and told the clerk she wanted to wear them out of the store.

As she rang up the sale, the clerk realized that we had a little problem. Lucky sews anti-theft tags into their clothing and the clerk normally de-activates them at the counter. Alla might have to take off her pants for this. Fortunately, the store manager knew that they could de-activate the tag simply by folding it in half, which the clerk accomplished while Alla sat on the counter. Seeing me staring at my phone, Alla warned the clerk that she was about to become a public figure as I took this photograph for my blog.

After all stops for shopping, lobster sandwiches, walking around and rubbernecking, we got to Camden as the sun began to set. Had I known how much I’d like Camden and the view from our balcony, I would have shopped less and driven more directly. It’s a harbor town on a rocky bay, set at the bottom of colorful hills. The oldest buildings date from the early 1800’s, and the downtown architecture still looks quite historic.

After Saturday’s lecture, which we both enjoyed, we climbed Mount Battie. Alla complained a lot during the climb because we expected open vistas all the way up, but the trail took us through woods until the very top. We could have driven up, and I had to entice her to complete the hike by promising that we could beg a ride down if she didn’t want to walk back. She took me up on my offer, and we ended up riding with a really interesting couple. They had overheard us speaking Russian and the guy told us that he’d not long ago spent two years in Kazakhstan. He was a Peace Corps volunteer, and he spoke pretty good Russian. His poor girlfriend suffered in smiling silence as the conversation suddenly veered clear of her language. I think at least the rest of us felt like we got back to our car too quickly, and would have enjoyed talking more.

We got some rain on Sunday, but mostly while we were at church. We made good use of the rest of the day and didn’t leave the area until nearly sunset. This time we very nearly drove directly home and confirmed that Google Maps hadn’t lied: it really was only 3½ hours of driving. We want to come back, and the Town of Camden hopes we will. They sent us home with a colorful free magazine describing what a wonderful place it can be even during late autumn and winter. Alla is studying said magazine even as I write this.