Europe Trip Part I: Amsterdam

Friday 5/19

I arrived in Amsterdam after an overnight flight during which I got maybe three hours of fitful sleep - the flight itself has a duration of nearly eight hours, but the takeoff, landing, beverage service, meal service, etc., leave little quite time to sleep. Thanks to some advance research I had no trouble finding the train to the city; however what was supposed to have been a fifteen minute ride turned out to be much longer, as the train ground to a halt about ten minutes into the trip, then just sat. And sat. And sat. The train crew would occasionally give updates over the PA, but only in Dutch, which wasn’t of any help to me. The only word i could catch was “Politie” - police. So we were stopped due to some sort of police action. Since the train was fairly empty there was no one nearby I could inquire of as to what was going on. Finally I heard a woman at the far end of the car speaking on the phone in English, saying that the train was held up because someone was on a railroad bridge, threatening to jump.

From the Dutch Rail web site: "Person on the Tracks"

So, travel adventure number one: after about 45 minutes the train finally started moving again, and the crew made an announcement (this time repeated in English) that we’d all have to get off when the train stopped at Sloterdijk Station (ironically, where I was to meet the bike tour group two days later) and take another train the rest of the way to Amsterdam Centraal Station. I didn’t really have any idea of what I was doing - would my ticket card work a second time? Where did I need to go? How do I find the right train? Well, a combination of just following the crowd and checking the station signs led me to the right train and I finally made it into Amsterdam - a full three hours after my flight had landed.

I had read about Amsterdam’s mellow cafes (distinct from the “coffeeshops”, which is their euphemism for cannabis stores), and after depositing my suitcases in a locker at the train station I headed for Cafe Cobalt right near the train station, which turned out to be the perfect little European café - complete with contented café cat. I ordered French toast (in case you’re wondering, the Dutch term for French toast is “wentelteefjes”) and coffee, needing a caffeine kick to keep me going through the day after a nearly sleepless night.

Café Cobalt

Wentelteefjes and coffee

I had downloaded a free app containing walking tours of Amsterdam. The app is a barebones affair - no audio or other media, just guidance to locations of the sites on each tour, and a description of each. I set out on the tour of historical Jewish Amsterdam. The first stop on the tour was Waterlooplein market, which started out as the “Jewish Market”. These days it’s a flea market of mostly junk - though someone looking for vintage clothes could do well shopping there. From there I went to the Jewish Museum, which traces the history of how The Netherlands was more tolerant of religious diversity than most more religious European countries during the Renaissance/Enlightenment periods and so became a haven for Jews, who also meshed well with the commerce-oriented bent of the Dutch. Sadly, like many chapters in Jewish history, the Jews were welcome until they weren’t; the museum also treats the Nazi era as well as well as something of a Jewish cultural revival today.

Waterlooplein Flea Market

Canals are everywhere in the city

Admission to the Jewish Museum also gets you into the historic Portuguese Synagogue, built in 1675 and still in use today. The Esnoga, as it is also known, has not been updated - the building has neither modern HVAC nor even electric lighting - the sanctuary is still illuminated by giant candle chandeliers.

The Esnoga (historic Portuguese synagogue)

From there I just walked and walked through the central area of the city, touching on the edge of the red light district, as well as the trendy Jordaan district. I did poke my head into a “coffeeshop” just to see what they’re like - nothing special, and surprisingly skeevy for a long-established and mostly legal industry. There are a lot of weed-related shops in the city. And lots of cheese shops. I’m guessing there isn’t a clear head or coronary artery in the whole city.

Cheese, cheese, and more cheese ...

... and lots of cannabis-related businesses

Finally, as my hotel check-in time approached, I made my way to the train station. After retrieving my backs I fumbled around for a bit trying to find the right tram to get me to my hotel - but I figured it out.

If the “Centrum” area of Amsterdam, where I had spent the day, was like Amsterdam’s midtown Manhattan, the hotel I stayed in was kind of the Upper West Side. I stayed in Amsterdam’s museum district (ironically, while my hotel was directly across the street from the Rijksmuseum, the major art museum, I didn’t get to go as tickets were sold out - the Van Gogh Museum was sold out as well, and there wasn’t a chance in hell of getting tickets to the Vermeer exhibit). The neighborhood was peaceful and artsy, but still near the action.

My hotel was quite nice, but the room was the smallest hotel room imaginable. Smaller than rooms in Manhattan. Smaller tha a cruise ship cabin. Really tiny. But it was OK - I wasn’t there to hang out in the room. 

My tiny hotel room

I walked a couple of blocks and across a canal (pretty much every walk in Amsterdam involves crossing at least one canal) to a shopping street where I grabbed take-out vegetarian ramen (not as good as the place Ted had taken us to in California, but still quite good), and a big cookie from another takeout joint (which also offered tempting vegetarian sandwiches). I ate dinner in my room and then finally succumbed to my exhaustion and got a good night’s sleep.

I didn't visit the Cannabis Museum, only walked by - if I had gone in perhaps I would have learned the reasons for the Hebrew on the sign (it says, "Welcome to the Cannabis Museum").

Bicycles are everywhere!

Yeah, right

Saturday 5/20

In the morning, based on my walking tour app, I decided to explore De Pijp, said to the the Bohemian part of town - a 10 minute walk from my hotel. My first stop there was the Albert Cuyp market. While the Waterlooplein Market had been for the most part used junk, Albert Cuyp was much more modern and upscale, with vendors selling prepared food, cheeses, clothing, flowers, seafood, vegetables, sundries, housewares, and more. Since my breakfast had been just part of an oatmeal cookie, my first order of business was to get a fresh, warm stroopwafel from one of the market’s vendors. A stroopwafel is a thin waffle sliced in half and spread with warm caramel, making a sandwich. At home I’ve had prepackaged stroopwafels, but I had never before had a fresh one. Excellent, though very sweet. Not exactly the most balanced breakfast, but what can you do? Fortified, I strolled the market and the surrounding neighborhood. Lots of interesting shops and international restaurants. I took a break and got a coffee at - gasp - Starbucks. Yes, Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts are common here. In fact, the very first thing I saw at Schipol airport when I walked off the plane was a Starbucks - something I found a little depressing. 

Albert Cuyp Market

Unsurprisingly, there are cheese vendors there

And stroopwafels

Flower vendor at Albert Cuyp Market

This was a surprise

I had considered doing a canal boat tour in the afternoon. Canal boat tours are a big thing in Amsterdam, but bicycles are more my speed, so I booked a two hour bike tour from Yellow Bikes. 

OK, let me talk about bikes in Amsterdam for a minute. The Netherlands is said to be a cyclist’s paradise, something I can confirm from my week of cycling there, but Amsterdam is something else. It’s a crazy Mad Max admixture of cars, pedestrians, and bikes, and the rule seems to be that the most aggressive person has the right of way. Bikes come at you from everywhere - sometimes seemingly out of nowhere. It’s an old city of narrow streets, not based on a grid, so even if you look both ways before crossing you can wind up tangled with a bike which has appeared out of an alley or side street which juts in at some strange angle. The Netherlands has more bikes than people (even though 20,000 bikes per year wind up in Amsterdam’s canals!) and lots of great bike infrastructure. But Amsterdam - sheesh! Also, most people are biking for transportation and so are in street clothes. I saw only a few Lycranauts in matchy-matchy Spandex™ riding performance bikes - though those folks were the only ones wearing helmets. I guess helmets are not a thing in The Netherlands. 

By Day 2 I had a better handle on the transit system and had no problem catching the right tram to Nieuwezijds Kok to meet my bike tour. While walking to the tram stop I discovered that my hotel was adjacent to Amsterdam’s equivalent of Fifth Avenue, home to boutiques from all the major luxury brands:  Chanel, Gucci, Hermes, Rolex, etc. I guess those stores are a tourist attraction in themselves, as people were waiting in lines for admission to many stores. I also made a note of an amazing looking bakery I passed in that neighborhood.

For our bike tour we were each issued a “Dutch bike” - heavy cruiser bikes with step through frames simlar in style to American bikeshare bikes. A lot of the Dutch cyclists ride bikes of this type, which are comfortable and stable, if heavy and slow. It was a pretty nice two hour ride. Went through some of the city’s neighborhoods and past a number of sites, including the Ann Frank House, which I had skipped on the previous day’s Jewish Amsterdam tour, since I’ve visited there before. We cruised a loop through Amsterdam’s big park, Vondelpark, which was teeming with people on what was apparently the first warm, sunny weekend of spring. And it was from our tour guide Jort that I learned the factoid about the 20,000 bikes tossed into the canals each year.

On the bike tour (helmets are not a thing in The Netherlands)

The bike tour also got me a taste of what it’s like to navigate Amsterdam as a cyclist rather than a pedestrian. At another point one of our group had a very close call complete with cursing (in English) when one of the riders on our group started moving at apparently the wrong time. You see, at some intersections there are separate signals for cars, cyclists, and pedestrians, so it can be confusing to people unaccustomed to the multiple signal system to know when to go. Also, there are cycletracks (separate protected bike lanes) which seem to always have the right of way, even over green lights on the perpendicular street - or least the people riding in them behave like they do. 

Our guide Jort points out the Picasso statue in Vondelpark

A very narrow house (the red brick)

After my tour, since I hadn’t eaten since my morning stroopwafel,  I grabbed some food at a fast-foodish Asian place. Then I headed back to the hotel, stopping at the bakery I had noted earlier to get a blueberry muffin for Sunday’s breakfast. I was due to meet my group at 9 AM at Sloterdijk and so I wanted to have a quick breakfast on hand. I sat in the hotel’s lovely courtyard and jotted down my trip notes so far, then took a quick nap.

Hotel courtyard

At dinnertime I headed out to the nearby Leidseplein, a big plaza with lots of cafes and such. It’s also the center of the city’s nightlife scene. My first goal was to find The Melkweg, a famous nightclub where John and I had hung out when we were in Amsterdam decades ago. The Melkweg has multiple performance spaces, and while the band didn’t grab me, I had thought of attending a showing of a Little Richard biopic film in their theater, but figured I’d probably fall asleep sitting at a movie and so decided against it. I picked up a falafel sandwich at a fast foodie place for dinner (good falafel!), and stopped in a supermarket where I picked up some yogurt to augment my breakfast (which required discerning which containers were yogurt and which were “kwark”, an apparently similar dairy product unknown in the US), along with a beer to round off my evening.  The last think I did was to track down and log a geocache in the neighborhood of my hotel, and then I went back to the hotel to re-pack and sleep.

Outside The Melkweg

Damn good muffin

Their little free libraries are a touch more elegant than ours (this is also where the geocache was hidden)

For the bike trip, if you want to “clip in” you have to supply your own pedals - thry’ll only supply flat pedals. I had indicated that I was going to be bringing pedals, but in re-packing my suitcase I realized that I had forgotten to pack the pedals - duh! - so I sent a quick email to the trip leaders saying I’d need their flat pedals after all. Not a problem.

Amsterdam at sunset

Continue to Part II

2023 SK102

SK102 is the Chesapeake Paddlers Association's annual on-water skills training weekend. I've attended, taught at, and written about it (search the blog for "SK102" to find past write-ups)  it many times. It's a geat chance to learn kayak skills for experienced paddlers, and it's generally just a great hang. It's held on someone's expansive lakefront property at Lake Anna, where 90ish people show up, camp, and play on the water.

While rain some time during the weekend is seemingly inevitable (my 2016 writeup is title "A very wet SK102"), this year was particularly rainy. The forecast for Friday was seemingly endless amounts of dumping rain, which was a real demotivator for me. I had just gotten back from a somewhat emotional trip to Brooklyn - a farewell both to the place and to my brother who, after living his whole life in the same neighborhood, is retiring and leaving the area. I moved away over thirty years ago, but over the decades I've still maintained a connection to the borough because I still had family there, giving me reason to go back and eat at my favorite neighborhood pizza place (the celebrated DiFara's), go for runs on the Brighton Beach boardwalk, and generally walk the old streets. Now, there will be no more Aronsons left in Brooklyn. Will anything bring me back there, or is my association with the place now merely history?

Anyway, I was completely unmotivated to head out on another trip and to set up a tent and in the pouring rain. Fortunately, my friend Rob was attending the event but not camping - he is recovering from a broken leg - and he invited me to stay over in his room at the decidedly inglorious Lake Anna Motel. Encouraged by the idea of dry sleeping arrangements, I loaded my kayak gear, camping gear (yeah, I still brought it), and music gear and headed south.

Upon my arrival I found a mess, thanks to the rain. You have to remember, this event is at a private home, not a place really set up heavy traffic and when large numbers of cars show up in the rain it turns into a muddy nightmare, with car traffic chewing up the lawn like crazy. By the time I got there they weren't letting any more people park in the instructor area, and the general parking area (a big grassy field which is actually a neighbor's land) was borderline in terms of traction. I was one of the last allowed to park there - everyone else had to park along the road or at the community marina.

I engaged in a somewhat soggy version of the usual Friday afternoon instructor socializing, and around dinner time they did go ahead with the instructor briefing - though moved to the property owners' porch because of the rain. The instructor meeting is also usually a pot luck. I had been eating pretty poorly in New York (c'mon, could I say no to a NY deli pastrami sandwich? Or a couple of slices of pizza?) and so decided I'd stick to my Thermos of goop (quinoa, sauteed vegetables, and pecans mixed with Simple Greens soup) rather than be tempted by the pot luck items. I did wind up accepting some fresh fruit from the pot luck, and when someone shoved a platter of oatmeal cookies at me I couldn't resist taking one. I'm a sucker for cookies.

Instructor meeting and pot luck

After dinner, there was some (somewhat bourbon-fueled) conversation with one of the other instructors, a fellow who is quite intense while also being possessed of an affable Southern charm. This guy is former Special Forces and is also kayak racer - both groups which attract some intense people. Somehow the group got to talking relationships and he mentioned, as he always does, that he has three ex-wives, then veered into creepier territory saying his current goal was to date women his (30-ish) daughter's age. As the evening wore on this led into some amiable if unacceptably  misogynistic "guy talk" amongst the crowd, which I felt was particularly insensitive because one of the female instructors was still there. Anyway, from there somehow we went to Robert E. Lee, with the intense dude mounting a defense of Lee - that the fact that he resigned his U.S. Army commission and went to fight for the Confederacy shows that he was a man of honor. The idea that he was perhaps dishonorable for having taken up arms against his country to defend slavery he brushed aside with some non-sensical whataboutism, asking how could we criticize slavery while we condone the current situation of opioid abuse, which effectively makes slaves out of drug users. Umm, dude, did any of us say anything in favor of drug dealers? Anyway, it was a nice piece of misdirection when backed into a corner defending the people who fought for slavery.

Eventually Rob and I had enough of our Jim Crow friend, and we retired to the barebones but out of the rain motel.

Saturday, after a motel room breakfast of Via Brew coffee and a leftover muffin from my New York trip (from Connecticut Muffin - yum!), Rob and I headed back to the event location. We had taken just one car to the motel, and upon our return we found the parking situation to be dire, as everyone was being sent away to find parking along the road, in the driveways of neighbors who had agreed to let attendees park on their property, or at the marina. While the sodden ground merited parking restrictions, the rain had passed and a beautiful day was dawning. I grabbed my basic camping gear from my car and before morning classes started I had time to set up my tent, cot, and sleeping bag.

SK102 waterfront, Saturday morning

For most of SK102's history, Saturday ran as separate morning and afternoon sessions, with attendees able to choose whichever classes they wanted for each session. Since COVID, it's been streamlined - students are in either the novice track or the intermediate track, and the same group stays together with the same instructors all day. I was paired with my friend Béla, an experienced paddler and good teacher. The class size was small, only six students, and more importantly, everyone was gung-ho. In the morning we focused on strokes and general kayak information; the afternoon is spent in and out of the water learning how to rescue yourself and others. Usually a class will have at least one person who is whiny and unwilling to do the hard work of clamboring in and out of the water all afternoon, but these students were all into it! I guess anyone who actually showed up to do an outdoor activity on a rainy weekend had to have been motivated.

Béla does some on-land instruction before we hit the water

After classes were done for the day I went back to my tent where I grabbed a beer, peeled off my wetsuit, and just relaxed in the tent for a while. I think I may even have dozed off for a few minutes - but not for too long, because I still had a second shift to work.

Saturday's dinner is always provided by the event. In the old days when Brian ran it, he kept the cost as low as possible, and so dinner was the lowest quality from-the-box frozen burgers and similarly cheap sides. Since Catriona took over she's been upping the experience, and this year dinner was actually catered barbeque. I didn't eat any of the meat, but they had Impossible burgers for the vegetarians, and I also indulged in cole slaw, mac & cheese, and veggies. A fine dinner, 

Sunday's classes had already been cancelled (more rain was on the way and the owners and organizers want to get people off the property before it once again became a slick mud bath) and so a lot of people packed up and went home after dinner. As usual, I was on tap to be part of the so-called entertainment, so I hung around and performed with the other musically inclined instructors - though to a much smaller crowd than usual. Dubside even got up and sang some Greenlandic songs, accompanied by pre-recorded backup tracks he had created.

The Chesapeake Pickers Association performs

The rain was forecast to return during the night, so when the performance was done I was faced with a choice - stay over and pack out wet gear in the rain the following day, or load out in the dark and drive home somewhat late at night - but stay dry. I chose the latter. By the light of headlamp and lantern I broke down my cot, tent and sleeping back and, after loading out the music gear (thanks to Jeff W. for giving the PA a ride up the hill in the owners' golf cart!) I put the camping gear in the car and headed home. 

So, a very atypical SK102, but the organizers handled the rain-driven changes in plans well, I think our students got a lot out of the instruction, and despite the rain a good time was had by all. 

Anatomy of a gig

For those who think that the life of a rock and roll star is all glitz and glamour, here's a walk-through of a typical gig - in this case, the sold-out show Great Northern recently did at Pearl Street Warehouse in DC.

First of all, you have to get there early. Really early. We had an opening band at Pearl Street and so we had to load in and sound check first, so they could set up in front of us. We loaded in at 4 PM for a set starting at 10 PM. At least we didn't have to provide PA for this show. In cases where we do, PA setup is an hour (and a lot of extra schlepping) in and of itself.

The loading dock

Second, loading in is always complicated. For a club you usually come in some back way - through the loading dock and the kitchen, or something like that. Pearl Street shares a loading dock with another music venue, Union Stage, as well as a hotel. One of the features of many such docks is that they are usually where the establishments keep their trash dumpsters, and so they smell pretty bad. Another thing about loading docks is that they are raised about four feet so they'll be the right height for large truck deliveries. In the photo above you can see some stairs on the leading from the floor up to the dock level. That means there's no way I could wheel my gear from the car to the stage since I had to get everything up the stairs. Clyde's in Chevy Chase has a really hard to find loading dock (the first time I played there the band sent me a four page sheet of directions, complete with multiple pictures), but the dock has a cool little elevator you can load your stuff onto so you don't have to carry it up from floor to dock level. I would have been happy just to have spent my night riding up an down the little elevator. (I'm easily amused). Except that the cool elevator was, in fact, next to the usual stinky dumpsters. In contrast, Jammin' Java in Vienna has  a really easy load-in path: you can wheel right in from artist parking and it's a short distance from the stage door to the stage (they too have stinky dumpsters back by where you load in - can't escape 'em).

Another thing about loading in through some back way (in this case, through the dock, down a hallway filled with banquet chairs and other stuff from the hotel, through another door, then around the kitchen storage area, is that you get to see a lot of restaurant-sized food prep tools and quantities of food - something which fascinates me.

Gallons and gallons of hot sauce

Bar/restaurant load-ins tend to be a little easier (and maybe less stinky), but those kinds of establishments often don't have a dedicated stage, so you have to negotiate with the staff to move tables out of the way to create room for the band. Which for whatever reason they usually grumble about. And you find out things like that they have only one working outlet anywhere near the stage.

At every gig, you're going to run into someone cranky. Often it's the sound guy; in this case it was the manager, who was on our case for us to move our cars out of the dock before we had even finished unloading. When I went out to my car to move it, there was a woman from Union Stage (the other club) there working to consolidate the vehicles in the dock. She asked if I could move my car over to the side of the dock, behind our drummer's car. I said "sure". But as I was starting to move my car, the Pearl Street manager barreled up to me and said emphatically and impatiently that I need to get my car out of the dock. I told him that the other woman (who as far as I could tell, had as much jurisdiction over dock real estate as he did) had told me something different. He said, "Do you not understand what I'm saying? YOU. HAVE. TO. GO. PARK. IN. THE. GARAGE." Nice way to interact with your artists.

We knew in advance that we'd only be able to leave one car in the dock, and we had decided in advance that I would be the one to get the spot, since I had the most equipment, but the drummer's car was there, by now blocked in by a big Sprinter van, and he was nowhere in sight, so I lost my spot to him. I had to go down into the garage, where I spent twenty minutes circling for a spot because the place was swarming with fans going to see Keshi at The Anthem, Thuy at Union Stage, and of course, Great Northern at Pearl Street! I made it back just in time for sound check.

Setting up onstage

Clubs usually feed the band before or after the show. I remember possibly the worst was The Carlyle Club in Alexandria. This was a place with a steak and seafood menu, but they didn't serve us that food - instead they ordered cheap takeout pizza for the band. To add insult to injury, since they used their green room (backstage area for the band) as storage, we had to eat our cheap pizza on the floor in a service hallway. Maybe the best band food I've ever experienced was a BBQ joint which brought out a huge buffet of everything left in the kitchen at the end of the night. Pearl Street treats the band decently, if not super-fancily. They provide what is actually a pretty nice green room, which they stocked with water, soda, and some beer. (we had been promised only Miller Lite but in fact they provided some better beer). There was also a bowl of corn chips with salsa, and some pretzels - luxe! With Great Northern there is precious little backstage debauchery. Our super-fan Sue sent back her famous (family-friendly) cupcakes to add to our feast, and someone else sent back what were purported to be special cookies - but as far as I know, no one in the band touched them.

The rare green room that isn't sticky and sweaty

- clean bathroom, too

Dinner backstage

I never know what clubs are going to serve the band so I often bring my own food as a backup. In this case, my car wound up so far away in the garage that I really didn't feel like running back to it for my food and so made do with what they served, which was a buffet-style spread of hamburgers (don't eat 'em), tater tots (don't eat 'em - but I cheated and ate one!), fried chicken nuggets (don't eat 'em), falafel patties (yay!) served unadorned, and salad (yay!). I had a falafel patty, salad, and my one tater tot for dinner. 

But the gigging experience is not all bad - you get to see your name in lights, and in the case of Pearl Street, walk around restricted areas of the club because you've got a cool backstage access sticker.

Our name in lights!

I can go back here. Sorry, you can't ...

... 'cuz I have this cool sticker and you don't

Sorry, you can't come in

Standing in the green room doorway, looking towards the stage.

Having an opening band (or "Supporting Act", as they say in industry parlance) is a mixed bag. It gives you a chance to hang out with your friends in the crowd and relax backstage while the other band plays. But it does mean getting there extra early, and it's twice as many people and twice as much gear to squeeze in.

Our "supporting act": Honeyfunk

Hanging out with friends and checking out the opening band

Backstage with the legendary Ron Holloway, who regaled us with stories of playing with Dizzy Gillespie and Sonny Rollins 

Then comes the magic moment. The lights come up. The crowd goes wild - their screaming is unbelievably loud. You come out. Security moves into place to keep the fans from the stage. Girls swoon. The crowd becomes just one pulsating mass, perfectly in synch with the energy you're sending from the stage. As Jackson Browne put it, you "wander 'round backstage. Till those lights come up and we hear that crowd and we remember why we came." (1) 

Onstage

There's magic synergy as tune after tune comes pouring out. And then, before you know it, it's over. To quote some more from Jackson Browne, "Let the roadies take the stage. Pack it up and tear it down." (2)

Except we don't have roadies. It's us, crawling around the floor unplugging things and coiling cables into the wee hours. Worse still if your show happens to be on springtime daylight savings night, as ours was.

"Pack it up and tear it down"

So you get home at 2 or 3 AM and (if, like me, you don't have a garage), you first have to haul all the gear into the house. For me I'm usually still buzzing with energy when I get home, so I sit around for a while - maybe have a snack - before finally at last crawling into bed with some groupie - oops, I misspoke - I mean to get some well-earned sleep. And gig night is finally over. Until next time.

(1) Browne, J. The Load-Out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Load-Out. 1977.

(2) op. cit. "The Load-Out"

Two Vignettes

 Vignette 1

On Presidents Day I went on a bike ride with some Freezing Saddles teams. The ride was led by some young, strong riders, so it was a little fast, but those of us in the back still just about kept up. At the end of the ride we stopped for lunch at a delicious vegetarian taco place in Georgetown. Despite it being mid-February, the weather was nice enough that the ten or so of us ate outside on the patio. My cycling friend N was on the ride. She is a breast cancer survivor who chose not to have any reconstruction. After we finished our tacos she reached under her cycling jersey and from her bra cup pulled out a baked sweet potato wrapped in plastic, which she proceeded to unwrap and eat. She explained that since she "has only one boob", she uses her other bra cup as storage on bike rides. I love that she is totally casual about the whole thing, like pulling a sweet potato out of your bra is just the most normal, natural act. It certainly didn't lose her any points with the other cyclists. When N matter-of-factly explained the situation, another woman at the table, who had been working to entice N to join her for an upcoming randonneuring ride (randonneuring is crazy ultra-long distance riding - 120+ mile rides) exclaimed "Oh, you'll fit right in with my group!"

Presidents Day Ride Group

Vignette 2

At a recent Great Northern performance, someone came up to me and said that at first he couldn't tell if it was me or Marty (another keyboard player in the local jam band scene) because I was wearing a hat like Marty wears. Well. First of all, I am a hat guy, and I was a little offended to have been described as looking like Marty because I was wearing a hat, not looking like me. Secondly, it is clear that I am wearing a porkpie, while Marty favors a Trilby (sometimes referred to as a stingy brim fedora). Buddy, if you can't tell the difference between hat styles you shouldn't be commenting on people's hats.

Which does raise the question of why keyboard players are hat people. Four keyboard players cover most of the waterfront in the local jam band scene: if you go out to see a local band playing Grateful Dead music, chances are good that the guy in the keyboard chair is going to be Will, Marty, Murph or me. And we're all hat-wearers. Marty with his Trilbys, Will with his porkpies, Murph with his bowler or cap, and me with a range of styles. I mean, it's not 100%. Lee of Allman Others isn't a hat guy, nor is Shep, and so on. But still ... 

In my case it has to do with the fact that I play head down a lot of the time, and if I'm not wearing a hat people are just seeing my shiny little dome. More generally, while guitarists and bassists get to strut their big, um, instruments, and drummers are back there dynamically hitting things, playing the keyboard is not all that visually different than paying bills. You're essentially sitting at a desk typing on a keyboard. I could be up on stage entering data into TurboTax and it wouldn't look much different. Maybe we keyboardists sense that we're not entertaining to look at and use wardrobe to spice up our stage appearance a little bit.

 

Thai Massage - maybe?

Some friends got me a gift certificate to a Thai massage place for my birthday. They figured I might enjoy Thai bodywork, which is an admixture of massage, Twister, yoga, and wrestling. I waited until after the holidays and finally made an appointment for my massage last week.

The brochure which came with my gift certificate listed three massage options: Traditional Thai Yoga Bodywork ($139 for 90 minutes), Signature, which is described as a blend of Eastern and Western techniques (also $139), and Signature Deluxe, which is Signature plus hot oil ($140). When I called to make my reservation the woman with whom I spoke insisted that there were only two options: Traditional Thai and hot oil. She asked the amount of my gift certificate and when I told her "$139" she said, "oh, that's the amount for Traditional Thai - that's what I'll put you down for". There was a bit of a language barrier in our conversation and I just couldn't get across to her the ideas that (a) I wanted to understand my options before choosing one, and (b) if appropriate I would come up with the one dollar to cover the difference between my gift certificate value and the cost of the Signature Deluxe. Eventually I gave up and just accepted her choice of the Traditional Thai, since that option was interesting to me anyway.

It was cold and rainy the day of my massage, but I was greeted warmly when I showed up. The first thing they have you do is change into these funky Thai pajamas. Then they give you a foot bath - not really my thing, but not a negative, except that it was really hot. As I soaked I told Tina, my masseuse, that this was my first time there and I didn't really know what to expect. She looked surprised, saying that the reservation specifically asked for her. I said no, unless my friends who got me the gift certificate somehow specified it - but it was hard to see how that would have worked, since when I made the reservation I wasn't asked for any sort of gift certificate number or other identifier. But it didn't matter - fate had brought the two of us together.

In my Thai massage PJ's

Tina asked me what I wanted her to work on, and in reply I said that I didn't really have any specific issues. She then asked, "You want relaxing?", to which I answered yes - who doesn't like relaxation? This turned out to be a big mistake, since once she heard I was interested in relaxation she made up her mind that the hot oil massage was what I wanted, a position from which she could not be dissuaded. As with when I made my reservation, I tried to explain to her that I wanted to better understand my options before deciding, but everything I said was met with an identical response that hot oil was what I wanted. I have experienced this kind of stonewalling before - mostly from people from other cultures. I have no basis for saying this other than my own experience, but I think Americans' idea of negotiation (current politics notwithstanding) is for both sides to state their opening positions then immediately begin to look for common ground, whereas in some other cultures the approach seems to be to stick to your initial bid for as many iterations as possible, hoping to get the other party to concede first. I experienced this in the past when I shopped in Itaewon in Seoul, and again here - no matter what I said, Tina would repeat the exact same response that what I wanted was a hot oil massage. And she indeed won the negotiation - after a few laps of this I shrugged and agreed to the hot oil massage.

In short, the massage itself was quite enjoyable and, dare I say, relaxing. It was closer to a Western massage than I had been expecting: a little rougher, with use of elbows and such, but none of the walk on you and twist you like Gumby stuff I had been anticipating. I did very much enjoy it. And I got a $140 massage for only $139 - score!

I might go back some time to experience the actual Thai Bodywork massage. If I do, maybe I'll even ask specifically for Tina.

MLK Bike Ride

 Since first becoming a bike commuter in 2015 I have frequented the BikeArlington "Coffee Club" groups - cyclists who meet in the morning for coffee on their way to work (or these days, just meet then ride home again, plenty of people no longer commute to an office every day). Since the pandemic I have attended less frequently, as without a commute I can't always motivate myself to get out the door at 6:30 AM. Anyway, on Monday holidays the coffee club gathering starts later, moves from its normal location to Lazy Mikes in Falls Church, and is known as "Monday Pancakes". None of which is quite germane to this story, except to say that SteveO planned an MLK-themed bike ride for the day. The ride would start at Lazy Mike's at the end of Monday Pancakes, but there were other places specified where one could meet up with the group along the route, as follows:

Ride details:
Depart Lazy Mike's: 9:50 am
(intermediate pickup points, estimated times):

• Bluemont caboose - 10:15-10:25
• MVT at Crystal City Connector - 10:45 - 11:00
• etc.

I chose not to go to pancakes - other things to do in the AM, plus I knew I would be eating dinner out and don't like to eat multiple restaurant meals in one day (too much fat, too many calories ...). Instead, I showed up at te Bluemont caboose just ahead of 10:15. A few minutes later another rider pulled up at the caboose. It was Chris R, who can see the bike trail from his house. He said, "they've already gone past here - I saw them go by from my house a few minutes ago." Just then Nadine showed up, also intending to meet the group at the caboose. The three of us spent a couple of minutes grumbling that if someone posts a meeting place and time for a ride, they should honor it - and then we decided we'd follow after them (we knew they were headed for the MLK Memorial). If we caught up with them, fine; if not, the three of us would have a nice ride of our own.

We did indeed catch up with the group down near Crystal City. While SteveO had completely ignored the stop at the Bluemont caboose (grumble, grumble), he did briefly stop at the Crystal City Connector. We caught the group there and continued together to the MLK Memorial.

Me, two Chris's, and Nadine at the MLK Memorial

At the memorial we gave SteveO a hard time about the fact that he had blown off the Bluemont meeting point, which he attempted to make our fault. He said, "well, you know is someone lists a flyby time that you should be there at least five minutes early." But it wasn't listed as a flyby time, it was listed as a ten minute window, and there is no such understanding about needing to be there early (which we were - just not early enough). He also tried to slough off responsibility by saying that he didn't even remember what time he was supposed to be where anyway - again, not really a valid defense for a ride leader. I like SteveO, but I think I lost a little respect for him on Monday.

As expected, the MLK Memorial was crowded on MLK Day. Slowly, members of our group began to drift away. It turns out the plan was to regroup outside the nearby bathrooms, though that hadn't been well communicated across the group of 15-ish cyclists. Thankfully, someone spread the word and we made it over there before the group left.

From there the ride continued over Douglas Bridge into Southeast DC where the plan was to visit a mural of Martin Luther King painted on the side of a convenience store on Martin Luther King Avenue. Except the mural was no longer there. After having been vandalized (who would vandalize an MLK mural?) it had been painted over. SteveO knew this, but he had already planned the route, so we rode there to see a grey wall where once upon a time there had been a mural. We also had another incident along the way where SteveO - the guy who knew the route - was riding near the back of the group so a bunch of people missed a turn. Thank goodness for cell phones. He texted the people and they soon returned.

SteveO talks about the blank wall

As we approached the convenience store we had ridden around two police cars which were blocking off traffic on Martin Luther King Avenue. We didn't think much about this - someone mentioned that there was a parade, but we didn't see any signs of it. At that point we probably should have just have doubled-back the way we came, but SteveO decided to push ahead with his planned route up Martin Luther King Avenue which would eventually take us back over the Anacostia River to the Navy Yard area and a planned lunch stop at BlueJacket Brewing.

Except, as I have already mentioned, we were on a parade route. As we rode we caught up with the parade. First it was a drum line and some twirlers off on a side street. We had to go up on the sidewalk to get around the onlookers, but the full parade-iness of the situation still didn't hit us. Then we started catching up with floats and marching bands. Now, this is a very home-grown kind of parade, so it wouldn't have been completely out of line for a group of cyclists to have been part of the parade, except for the fact that roughly 100% of the parade onlookers and participants were African American, and we were roughly fifteen mostly white people with our fancy bikes and "kit". Apparently, some parade-goers did mistake us for participants and even asked what group we were with. No one seemed to mind that we were there, but we did stick out like something of a sore thumb. 

We pressed on up the parade route, riding past a Coast Guard honor guard and their RHIB boat, some more bands, and other floats. It kept getting harder and harder to make progress as we got deeper into the parade and its crowds. Finally, we gave up and turned right onto Stanton Road, hoping to go a block and continue on a street parallel to MLK Avenue - except Suitland Parkway runs through there and messes up the street grid, so we turned north onto Sheridan Rd. and had to cross the parade route again. We continued on Sheridan Road and made it to Anacostia Park. At that point we could see the Anacostia River Trail but couldn't quite figure out how to get to it. We tried one street, which turned out to be a dead end. We backtracked. We saw a road leading into the park, but it was gated. Someone tried the gate - it was open! - and there were no "keep out" signs, so we went through the gate, gingerly rode past the Park Police headquarters, and - voila! - made it onto the Anacostia River Trail at last. From there it was a quick hop over the river to Navy Yard.

The group (minus a few who had already peeled off) arrives at BlueJacket

Neither Nadine nor I were really interested in hanging out for lunch. She's still not dining indoors at restaurants, and I know the menu is composed of nothing but bar food that's not on my diet, so the two of us took a quick snack break outside then headed for Arlington. Our ride home was pretty uneventful, except for having to stop to take layers off before we made the climb from Rosslyn. It was an unusually warm day for January, and we both knew we'd overheat on the steep hill up from the Potomac into Arlington if we didn't remove some of our layers. Nadine's style is to wear loud, colorful, and generally clashing bike gear, and she had kind of outdone herself that day in level of clothing loudness and clashing; however, she hesitated to take off her bright orange safety vest because she felt that without it her outfit would look too loud. I assured her that nothing was going to make that outfit look any louder (well, I didn't quite phrase it that way).

Back home we went. As a friend said to me during the ride, "SteveO's rides are fun because you always come home with some chaos story to tell." Indeed.

 

First paddle of the year - Duck Season

For the last few years I've bought access to Bull Run Marina, which is a public facility but with essentially members-only access. You pay an annual fee to get the key to the locked entry gate. I go there only in the winter, which makes the annual fee ($65 for a parking pass plus $25 for the key) a little bit of an extravagance, but it's still a lot cheaper than golf or skiing, and it provides me with a very protected place to safely kayak in the winter. Plus, the parking pass is valid at a number of other regional parks, so I generally get my money's worth out of it.

I headed there today, an unseasonably warm (high of 60 degrees!) early January day. I would have kayaked yesterday, New Year's Day, but I had a gig in the evening and didn't want my fingers all tight from having paddled. I expected the place to be empty, but there were quite a few cars there, plus people passing through on the hiking trail which crosses the facility.

I headed up the creek and immediately realized I was out of paddling shape - it took me a little while to find my paddling groove. The water was quiet. Not much wildlife, though there were a lot of kingfishers around, a few of the smarter turtles had figured out that this was a great day for sunning themselves, and I did see one eagle. I was wearing my contact lenses, which leave me with slightly fuzzier distance vision than when I wear glasses (I wear contacts infrequently so my eyes just aren't used to them). At one point I spotted an egret by the shore - bright white and standing motionless as they tend to do. I paddled slowly, taking care not to disturb it (egrets and herons are particularly skittish). It allowed me to approach it and when I finally got close I realized it was actually a white plastic bag hanging from a branch. Like I said, my vision with contacts is less than perfect 😳

Out on the water!

I started hearing gunshots as I was paddling. The creek passes along the boundary of both the Fairfax Rod and Gun Club and the Bull Run Shooting Range and so gun noise isn't unusual - though this was too loud too soon. I realized what was going on when I rounded a corner and saw some hunters in a motorized duck blind (a heavily camouflaged boat) sitting and waiting with their decoys out. I was glad I was wearing my usual garish collection of bright colors - yellow boat, bright orange dry suit, orange PFD, orange paddle. As long as I stand out and look other-than-duck colored I'm pretty safe. I passed a second group of hunters, These guys had cool motorized decoys which would occasionally flap their wings (actually the wings would spin, but with my poorly corrected vision the effect was pretty good). I presume birds fall for it too.

At one point I pulled over to the shore to check something and in the distance I saw a deer bound by. I swear, it was an albino deer - or at least a very very light-colored one. It looked like some sort of magical creature - a Harry Potter animagus animal, or something. It went by so fast I wasn't sure what I saw - maybe it was just the white tail that looked so white - but I it looked to me like a magical white deer. I swear, wearing contact lenses is the best - I can imagine I saw all sort of things 

Not far past the abandoned car which marks the turnaround for a five mile paddle (how did that thing wind up in the woods?) I spotted something I had never noticed before - a dirt road leading down to the water. On a low bluff above the spot there was a level site with a picnic table and a fire ring. It looked to be a campsite with water access. I got out and looked around. I was getting excited about having discovered this little campsite, but after looking on the map I'm pretty sure it's private - on the property of the Rod & Gun Club property. Bummer. Since I was already ashore I took a break and ate one of the last of Valerie's Christmas cookies before relaunching and heading back. Here's the location of the road/campsite.

The mystery boat launch/campsite

Cherry Pecan cookies

On my way back the duck hunters were all gone, but I did spot a single decoy which had been left behind (I should have grabbed it as a souvenier!) and I ran into one guy still loading his camo boat onto its trailer back at the marina. In general, Elmer Fudd's progeny aren't particularly friendly to kayakers, but this guy was very personable. He even helped me load my kayak onto my car. He said the hunters leave at about that time of day because the ducks stop coming by then.

Not a real goose

My total paddling mileage was five and change miles - thought it felt like much more. I think I need to start doing some paddling-focused workouts.