Should be blog-free for the next couple of weeks as we take off for Toronto and then as soon as we come back I'm off to Maui for Scott's wedding. But it won't be any different from the last couple of blog-free weeks, which were caused by nothing other than sheer laziness. It's the summer, whaddaya want?



A week ago Saturday, Grandma Bartlett died, so I did want to go on about that a bit. She was 92, and still looked to be in decent shape when we saw her in June, although she was about as thin as she'd ever been and not too mobile, but still could carry on a conversation and got out of the house for one thing or another. As a grandmother, she always was in the shadow of Grandma Pearce to us, since we spent a lot more time with the latter and she was a lot more hands-on than Grandma B ever was. But you could talk to her, she wasn't unapproachable or anything, and unlike Grandpa Bartlett you could understand what she was saying. Some of my cousins had non-Bartlett grandparents who were even less cuddly, so by comparison Grandma B came out ahead and was probably closer to them.



When I was seven and Jill was four we stayed at the grandparent Bartlett's house while mom was in the hospital to have a baby. For some reason there had been some lobbying by somebody to have us stay there rather than at Grandma P's (haven't gotten to 1970 in the diaries yet, so don't know why for sure). At the very least it may have simply been that their house was much handier to the hospital for Dad. It wasn't a very big house, and Grandma Dodds was still around then, too, so I was sleeping on the couch in the living room (which I think is basically where Dad slept growing up), don't know where Jill was. Couldn't sleep at all, then the call came during the night that Mom had had a miscarriage, and I laid there awake while from five feet away Grandma B called some of the relatives to tell them the news. It seemed like the middle of the night, but it may just've been late in the evening.



Much has also been made in recent years of that same stay, I think, when I took a walk around the neighborhood and got lost. Grandpa B liked to go on walks around the area, I may have even gone with him, and since the streets in that part of town were basically a grid I soon got the hang of it and set out on my own, each one a little longer than the last, until one time I got to a street that didn't meet up the right way and got turned around and that was it. I had the presence of mind to knock on somebody's door, and both grandparents and probably Donna came to rescue me in the car. Don't know why this story has become folklore, other than the fact that it used to be okay to let a seven-year old roam the neighborhood, plus Mom can't get over that I sought out help and didn't just crawl into a hole somewhere.



So Grandma Bartlett's passing signals the end of an era, although there wasn't much of that era to begin with. Dad would've said she was the last of the Mohicans, and only in the last few months did she start to come up with some new stories from the old days, as unlike Grandma P she was never one to talk about family history much.

Had the opportunity this weekend to watch "The Seven Samurai" on DVD rented from Netflix. This was a rare chance to be a film auteur, since we typically don't rent old movies, although we do get the occasional esoteric (i.e. "Memento") or foreign (i.e. "All about My Mother") selection. In the old days, we'd go see something like this in the theater, either at the Brattle or Coolidge Corner or the Somerville Theatre. It's long, it's black and white, and it's in Japanese, what more could you want? I picked it out because on imdb.com it was the only movie in their Top 10 that we hadn't seen. Some of the other selections are questionable (does Shawshank Redemption really deserve #2, when Lawrence of Arabia is #24 and Bridge over the River Kwai is #48?), but they're all good movies. Next on the list is #12, Dr. Strangelove, which I've never seen in its entirety.



Anyway, Seven Samurai is kind of small scale for an epic, in that it doesn't involve a huge setting like Casablanca or Ben Hur or Lawrence of Arabia, but it does have a significant number of distinctly realized characters, and given the running time of 3 1/4 hours there's plenty of time devoted to each of them. Also, since the first part of the movie deals with the acquisition of the seven samurai, you get introduced to the characters at a gradual pace, rather than all at once. I listened to a little bit of the commentary track where some film historian was pointing out a lot of the devices that Kurosawa uses in shooting the movie, but it all boils down to no shot is wasted, and yet none of it is self-consciously cinematic or artsy (like Fellini) so that you can watch the movie and not even really notice the skill that has gone into it.



I also like how the major battle scenes are played out in real time, with no stirring background music blaring away. The movie itself needs some restoration, and there are some odd jumps that suggest that there were originally other scenes that never made it into the finished version. There is little philosophizing or pontificating during the movie, yet at the end you're left with a lot of food for thought about how the farmers made use of the samurai, and who were the winners and losers, if any (other than the bandits, of course). Now I can say I've seen a Kurosawa movie, so I suppose we'll have to watch another one some time.

Well, we're back from our whirlwind trip to NYC. At least it was a whirlwind until we got on the Cross Bronx Expressway and sat in traffic for over an hour, then got out around Stamford and sat in traffic again for an hour, making a 3 1/2 hour trip last about 5 1/2 hours on the way back. But once the kids passed out in the back seat everything was fine.



We got into the city right on schedule Saturday morning, ditched the car, checked in and were on the street by about 11:30 am. We hadn't eaten lunch yet, but wanted to get over to Battery Park and queue up for the ferry, so we just noshed on hot dogs and/or soft pretzels while we stood in line. Because we brought four umbrellas with us, it never rained. The Statue of Liberty has been closed since 9/11, not sure what they're waiting for to open it up again, as you had to go through metal detectors just to get on the ferry in the first place. Even the museum at the base is closed, but no one is worried about the gift shop and snack bar, as they are still open. It was a little hazy but still got some good photo ops there.



We took the ferry then over to Ellis Island, which I don't know was even open when Beth and I were in that neck of the woods 15 or so years ago. The kids were, not surprisingly, bored stiff by the place, but it was kind of neat, would've been more interesting if they weren't around or more agreeable to the history lesson. By the time we got back to Battery Park it was already 4 pm and everybody was hungry after their non-lunch, so Beth chased us down a cab and we went up to Soho to a little hole in the wall place that specialized in crepes that we got our of the Fodor's guide. The kids were so hungry they snarfed them down without any fuss. Then we walked down to Chinatown to a bakery-type place for dessert. Beth wanted to try one of these "bubble drinks" that has tapioca in it to give it sort of a lumpy texture. Chloe drank some, Justin was repulsed by the sensation, though. Beth tried some weird red bean paste dessert thing and ended up throwing most of it out. It was all pretty cheap, though, so it didn't make much difference.



The kids were now on to this idea of taking a cab places, realizing that we'd been holding out on them all these years. So the whole way back to the financial district they kept asking "can we take a taxi?" But we didn't, so that we could walk around part of Ground Zero, which is now a huge construction site. Having been in this part of New York only once before, the impact of the trade center's absence is necessarily limited, since I don't remember what it looked like when it was there, but the size of the site gives you an idea of how big it was, and walking around the streets brings back all those pictures from tv of the devestation after they collapsed. Some of the buildings right next door are still completely shrouded in scaffolding, one even has a large fissure in the middle floors where they're reconstructing the building from the inside out. We took a few pictures, and spent a little time there, because I figure it's only going to look like this for a while longer, and once the new buildings go up, I think it'll be harder to visualize what it must've looked like then.



Everyone was completely exhausted by the time we got back to the hotel, even though it was only about 7:30, so we just watched tv for a while and finally the kids passed out. The next morning I was up and out by 8 am or so for a run up the Hudson Park that goes along the West Side Highway, which is actually a pretty good route in that it's completely flat and there's no traffic to negotiate that time of a Sunday morning anyway. Did about five miles, by the time I got back everybody else was ready to go. It was raining when I went out but was just overcast by the time I got back, so we decided to forgo the umbrellas since they'd been useless on Saturday. Going down to breakfast we saw Paul Sherwen get on the elevator and spoke with him briefly, he was very friendly. We ate at the restaurant in the hotel, amongst a bunch of people from various teams, none of whom I recognized, but could tell by their team shirts and their physiques. Saw Frankie Andreiu as we were coming into the hotel Saturday night, but I don't know if he was there for OLN or for something else.



After breakfast we checked out but left the car and the bags there and walked towards South Street Seaport. By this time the sun was out and it was a gorgeous day. Didn't have enough time to do much else before the race, so we staked out a spot on Water Street, just past the start/finish line to watch the festivities. Went through the tents and picked up some free sports drinks, t-shirts, caps, etc. During the race Beth tooks the kids singly or together to different places just to break things up and for bathroom breaks, etc. The race itself was pretty good, not a huge crowd considering its New York, but respectable. Marty Nothstein finally gets a win, I'm not sure how old he is now, if this is as far as he's going to get or if he's got aspirations for the European scene.



Just as the race ended, almost down to the second, it started to rain in torrents. We ducked into Au Bon Pain at the end of the block for a little while, then when it looked like it was letting up we made a dash back to the Seaport for a late lunch, only to get caught in another deluge. We stood under the FDR for a few minutes, then sprinted through the pouring rain to a microbrewery, where we got sandwiches and the kids got fish and chips and I tried the beer sampler. No more than 10 minutes after we got there it stopped raining and the sun came out. had enough food to tide us over the rest of the day, and got back to the hotel about 4:15 to collect our stuff and our car and hit the road, only to get stuck in traffic before we were even out of New York, but that was a minor thing for what was otherwise a fun weekend. Even saw Tyler Hamilton going into the hotel bar while I was waiting for the car to be brought around. Now if only I'd had a couple of days to recover before coming in here. Oh, well.

There I go being tardy again. This week at work has been zany, as we try to compress six weeks worth of testing into two weeks in order to appease the egos of those who said it would be done by August 15. Surprisingly, it by and large went pretty well this week, but logged a lot of hours in front of the computer, making it less attractive of an option in the evenings, even though the TdF is over.



Tomorrow we're off to New York for an overnighter so I can take in the NYC bike race on Sunday. We're even staying at the team hotel, maybe we'll catch a glimpse of Jonathan Vaughters or something, oooh. Last year's edition was tempting, since Lance was there, but it's just as well we didn't go as it was about 100 degrees that weekend. This weekend has a threat of rain, but nothing too awful.



Here it is nearly three weeks since we got back from Chicago, and I never did recount the Chicago part of the trip. We convoyed up to Jill's house with Mom and her car on Thursday the 3rd, had about five minutes there before it was time to all pile in and head for the city so that the Mom and Beth could take the girls to tea at the American Girl store. Jill had Ashley and I had Justin and we had a couple of hours to kill, so we went across the street and went to the observation deck of the Hancock building. Justin has been interested in skyscrapers lately, and he was still free, so we went, it was kind of hazy, but I hadn't been to the top of a tall building probably since the Empire State building in 1986. After that we let the kids browse the childrens section at the Borders next door, and by then the tea was over. Chloe had brought both her American Girl dolls so Alexa could borrow one, and Grandma Linda got them each a few things, plus chloe had some gelt of her own to burn on the stuff, but, fortunately, not enough for a whole new doll, which is what she wants.



Meanwhile, Scott and Shelley were driving in from Columbus and got stuck in traffic, so by the time they were just getting into the city everybody in our group was done and ready to head for the hills. Bob ended up meeting up with them and going out to dinner at Harry Caray's, but the rest of us headed west and stopped at Eduardo's for the pizza pilgrimage. The rest ended up back at the Lemke abode and we stayed up late visiting. The fourth of July we headed downtown for Taste of chicago, minus Mom, Jill and Ashley, so we all fit in one car. We got there right at 11 when it opened, so it wasn't too hot or too crowded. By the time we were done eating at 1:15 or so it was extremely hot and extremely crowded, such that most of the offerings didn't sound that appetizing any more, other than ice cream. We came back to Bartlett and hung out for the afternoon, ordered out for dinner, then shot off a few fireworks in the backyard that Scott had smuggled in from Indiana. Most of them fizzled. So we went to the town fireworks display, which was quite a show and a big hit with the kids.



Saturday there wasn't much of an agenda. At some point we were going to take the kids to the mall to have a group photo taken, but Ashley never did take a nap, so Jill chickened out. We took some pictures of them all in the front yard, and Justin was typically more difficult than the two-year old, so Mom never did get a good shot all of them at once. We haven't gotten ours developed yet. That afternoon Scott whipped up some elaborate burger recipe from Bon appetit which took until mid-afternoon. Ordered out for dinner, although no one was particularly hungry, and just kind of hung out, got the kids in bed at a reasonable hour, talked about Hawaii a lot.



Sunday Bob Scott and I drove with Shelley to Elgin for an 8K road race, which turned out to have only about 100 participants. I had a bad feeling about it, although conditions were pretty good, not too hot or humid, and the course was mostly flat, but while I logged a respectable time of 56 minutes or so, I came in dead last. Actually Scott did, but he was just pacing me. Bob was about a minute ahead of us. We got back, and turned around and drove with Beth and the kids to Granger Indiana to visit the Stonehills for the afternoon. They've been wanting us to come visit for ages, so we took the extra day to make the drive out there. It turned out to be kind of a rainy afternoon, but we just hung around visiting and catching up while Hannah played with the kids. Karen let me play her Bosendorfer piano that Bill got her for a graduation present last year. She also grilled us some burgers and dogs for lunch (Bill was initially delayed by a Sunday morning surgery), and then Bill fired up the grill again at dinnertime for steaks. I wanted to leave by six but it ended up being close to 8 by the time we made our farewells, and drove through off and on torrential rain the whole way back, including a major traffic jam going into Chicago that stretched out the trip to three hours (instead of 2 1/4 it took to get there).



So it was a good trip on the whole, looking forward to seeing everyone again in Maui. Bob has just this week arranged for Scott's bachelor party in Vegas, but I'm abstaining from that one since it's only a few days before we leave for Toronto, plus these trips are costing me plenty already I don't really have the extra dough for another one, and Vegas isn't exactly my idea of a good time, since I've already seen the Liberace Museum. They'll have plenty of fun without me, I'm sure.