the ocean

Here are some visual highlights of the last few months. 

After eleven years with our Prius, we traded it in for a new car yesterday. The Prius was a great car and we probably could have kept going with it for a while. The only major service issue I can remember was when a rat got under the hood and ate the coating off some of the wires, which we can hardly blame on the brand. I also dinged it up once on Christmas Eve when I accidentally turned onto 294 and went to O'Hare when I intended to just go to my relatives' place in Texas. Again not the Prius's fault. But honestly, it was really reliable, easy, and pleasant. 

It was, however, the size of a golf cart, and could not fit more than roughly three grocery bags as cargo. Also, I was not able to sit up straight in it, as I've realized I've never really been able to do in any of the cars I've owned my entire life. So my posture cried out for a change, and we ended up with a Honda CR-V, which actually gives me head room to spare. (And it still fits in our garage, although sort of barely.) 

It was not an easy journey. We looked at a number of different vehicles. At one place, they argued with us about what we wanted, tried to put us in a used sedan, and had to jump start the SUV we ultimately test drove. I pretended to have to take a work call and left. At another place, they pretty much ignored us entirely, which I rather enjoyed, but it didn't foster super much confidence in their commitment. But the Honda people were Goldilocksily just right, and we happened to show up just as a new CR-V was arriving off the truck. It had 17 miles on it when we brought it home. 

And now, of course, I'm kind of scared to drive it, but honestly, shit is going to happen. I'm sure rats will find something to feast on here as well, or cats, or bats, or bacteriostats. Such is life! But for now, it's nice to be able to fully extend my spine, even if I don't always choose to.

We finally saw The Odyssey last week. Not in IMAX, mind you, because the only tickets available there were either at 1:30 in the morning or six weeks from now. So we watched with the unwashed masses at our local AMC, which was just fine, thank you very much. We did have a bit of an incident where we couldn't find our seats and had to have an employee very sarcastically point them out to us after being shunted out of what were definitively not our seats by some sad-vibed ladies of a certain age, but that's to be expected. The movie itself I thought was quite enjoyable, particularly the last hour or so. The earlier parts were a bit episodic for my tastes (though I recognize that is the nature of the source material) and I have trouble buying Tom Holland as, well, anything, but I found Anne Hathaway surprisingly effective and Robert Pattinson really leaned into the terrible haircut. Not sure if I'll find another three plus hours to allocate should IMAX during waking hours every become available, but still.

In what I swear is a coincidence and not some sort of marketing tie-in, I have also been reading The Iliad. This is part of a program I have where I go back and read things I feel like someone should have made me read in high school or college, but they somehow either weren't assigned or we were only given excerpts. I did The Canterbury Tales and The Divine Comedy earlier pursuant to this program, which is sort of affirmative action for incredibly dead white men. Anyway, I'm enjoying The Iliad much more than I expected. The translation (Emily Wilson) is very lively and it's basically all action. There is a lot of explaining of genealogy and people's lands of origin that I could definitely do without, but I am a world class skimmer. And the insane violence is somehow much easier for me to handle when it is on the page as opposed to in glorious Technicolor (or IMAX). So two thumbs up for the ancient Greeks. Huge fan of their homoeroticism.

Monday I had a quick trip to DC for work. Fly in, go to a meeting for a couple of hours, fly back out. No rollaboard needed, just a laptop bag under the seat. I didn't even bring my book, as a New Yorker with 1.5 interesting articles seemed to have it covered, along with my work. It was all going to be so easy. When I landed in DC, the sun was shining, and I heard a PA announcement telling Chicago bound passengers there was room on earlier flights if they happened to be in the terminal early. "Hey, maybe that will be me later today," I thought.

It was not. The actual me got the first notice of delay while I was still in my meeting. "It's fine," I thought, "This gives me more time to answer the client's questions afterwards." Then I got the second notice. "Well, I can just get dinner at the airport before I board," I thought. Then about ten minutes into my misbegotten adventure at Ben's Chili Bowl I got the notice the flight was delayed until 9 PM. My optimism began to fade, along with my tolerance for people shouting into their cell phones in my vicinity. Within another hour, the gate attendants started openly telling people that, although our flights weren't cancelled yet, they probably would be, as they wouldn't be able to get crews even if the weather did clear. 

Which is how I ended up spending the night at an airport hotel without the benefit of a change of clothes or toiletries. Fortunately, there was a CVS two blocks away, where I was able to buy contact solution and a box of cookie dough bites to drown my sorrows. I had planned to also buy a change of clothes there, but though they had a wide selection of misshapen DC-themed t-shirts, they did not have any pants or shorts for men. (To be fair, it probably doesn't come up much.)

So early the next morning I got back into my gently-abused suit and headed back to the airport, where I crammed myself into a middle seat and tried not to panic as they announced that we would be standing on the tarmac for a bit as they were "rerouting for weather." Ultimately, we did take off, I got a lovely Stroopwaffle for my troubles, and I made it back to Chicago. My job is endlessly glamorous, it is true.