We have gotten to our new (temporary) digs in the Boston area, and so far so good. The rest of the trip was lovely, featuring more visits with people of whom I get to see woefully little and less of the random tourism. All in all, a fair trade.
I am having a little bit of Other Coast culture shock; the weather here is muggy, there are thunderstorms, the buildings are all sturdy brick and Victorians, and–well, the whole place has a whole Boston-ness to it that I’m having trouble quantifying. Something sharp and clean, like the taste of peppermint. It’s altogether likable, just a different flavor than the 11 years of slow(er) California living that I’ve had since I last dwelled in New England. The whole thing is kind of a trip; I’m hearing music that I haven’t heard in about that long in coffee shops (Melissa Etheridge, Phish), and maybe it’s just about being back in the kind of environment populated by undergrads, but I can’t remember the last time I saw so many backpacks covered in earnest, message-bearing buttons. It’s a good thing! It’s just different than what I’ve had, lately.
We’re slowly getting oriented, trying to figure out where the good food is, making contact with people we know who live in these parts (respectively or together), and starting to get back in the gear of getting to work. I have an anthology manuscript due to its publisher in, oh, two weeks. There are a lot of loose ends to be tying up on that front.
Graceland was fun, of course, but ultimately a bit disappointing. I was just expecting something, well, bigger in terms of both the size and scope of the tacky and the glitz. Great Late Elvis jumpsuit display, though.
Nashville: yay. The Country and Western Museum and Hall of Fame was really spectacularly done, and the Grand Ole Opry was pretty swell, as well.
One of the stinky things about my professional training is that you meet all these wonderful, amazing people, and then they finish their schooling and scatter off to the four winds to rabbi. One of the great things about my professional training is that if you happen to be wandering out in one of the four winds, there’s almost always someone to visit. We spent a wonderful, totally lovely, exceedingly swell Shabbat with two dear friends living in Chattanooga (thanks again, R and M!!) and their most excellent dog Shefa. We’re in Asheville, NC now (having driven through the super-pretty Smokey Mountains), and I am stuffed to the gills with vegan burrito and kale (Asheville is some pretty seriously hippie turf–I’m writing this from the vegetarian restaurant of my dreams) and are about to hopefully hook up with a friend who’s rabbiing here.
It’s North Carolina, it’s a lovely Sunday in late June. I have no complaints.
Wednesday night on Beale Street is Biker Night. (The Harley kind, not the Critical Mass kind). Evidently this is the night of the week where they let bikes onto this no-cars thoroughfare, so hogs of all stripes and sorts were lining both sides of the streets, and their owners were out in full force.
I don’t know if this is a Wednesday-night-only occurrence, a just-during-the-summer thing or if it happens every dang night, but Beale Street had blues coming from every nook, cranny, and alley–not just in the bars and clubs, as I expected, but set up outside, all up and down the street, like a street fair par excellence. And it wasn’t just “blues.” It was serious, dirty blues that means business. At twilight. In a park. Where a person like me could get her boogie on. For this Chicago native, it was ecstasy.
Did you know that people eat alligator? In Memphis, it is fried in strips like french fries. It was enough for me with all the pulled pork and fried catfish. This just put me over the edge of the treyf-o-meter.
Surprised by God: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Religion.
Ruttenberg, Danya (Author)
Aug 2008. 256 p. Beacon, hardcover, $24.95. (9780807010686). 296.709.
Ruttenberg, who was recently ordained as a rabbi, decided at the age of 13 that she was an atheist. Then in the late 1990s, she experienced a spiritual awakening, taking what she describes as “a winding, semireluctant path through traditional Jewish practice that eventually took me to the rabbinate.” Ruttenberg writes that for her the work of the religious life has been about reconfiguration and reintegration, determining which parts she has outgrown and which could grow with her. The author, who lives in Los Angeles, lived for some time in Jerusalem. A tremendously satisfying memoir of spiritual awakening from the author of a variety of books and periodicals, including Encyclopedia Judaica.
— George Cohen
We’re in Little Rock now, which is supremely cute–its riverfront market area is, anyway. We’ve been strolling on President Clinton Avenue, and wandered into the Clinton Gift Shop, which includes paper dolls of the whole Clinton family (kind of scary, actually.) We camped last night in the Ozarks, which was very, very beautiful–very foresty and wet. Around dusk there were a slew of lightning bugs, which I haven’t seen since I was a kid. Happymaking.
The last few days have included the Painted Desert, a petrified forest, a meteor crater, (all gorgeous, humbling, amazing), and God-bless-it Cadillac Ranch, which makes me totally, irrationally happy. There’s also been a lot of fantastic Wild West fakery and Texas kitch–including The Big Texan Steak Ranch. I’m going to be ordering cold salads anywhere I go around here, so why not do so in a place that’s amusing? And, indeed, four husky guys from Oklahoma were having a go at the free-72-oz-steak-dinner-if-eaten-within-an-hour challenge. We left when they were at the 30-minute mark, it looked like at least a couple of them were going to actually complete the thing.
Today is all about driving.
In other news, long, long, longtime lesbian activists Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon have gotten married. The photos are just wonderful.
What I have to say about the fact that my husband made me go to the Atomic Testing Museum: He is so going to Graceland. On the tour. And he will like it.
Hoover Dam was nifty, but it was too hot to run around and investigate properly. Most of what was exciting about today was the pretty pretty scenery everywhere. Arizona is purty.
Tonight we’re sleeping at Grand Canyon basecamp, and we’ll be camping inside the park tomorrow and for Shabbos–with plenty of water.
We set out yesterday on the Big Grand Adventure of Driving Really Far, aka taking our time relocating from the uttermost west (LA) to the slightly further east (Boston).
I still can’t believe that I’m leaving California after 11 years. I also can’t believe that I was a California resident for 11 years. But I was, and it was mostly great (tax rates nonwithstanding) and it’s sad to leave. On the other hand, I’m quite fond of the East Coast, and am certain that many good things will happen there, too.
We started off the day late–we had to load up the car, do the walkthrough with our landlord, run a few errands and the like. Our first order of business was to go out and give our feet a little dunk of Pacific Ocean. I got to say goodbye–for now–to this great body of water that has been my friend and teacher for the last decade-plus.
Now I have to go make friends with the Atlantic.
There was then a nice glut of LA traffic getting out of town (who are you people and where were you going at 2pm on a Wednesday?) but we finally got out into the pretty and the desert, through Mojave and Joshua trees, past purple mountains magesty (fo’ reals) and into the pretty desert. We were greeted at the Nevada border with, classically, a glut of tacky, blingy casinos and ads for things happening down the road.
We stayed over in Vegas, because neither I nor my sweetie had ever been, and hey, you gotta see it once, right? Well, no. But he wanted to go, so I consented. It is every bit as blinky and shiny and gaudy as I imagined, and not in a way that I, personally, enjoy. It was kind of like Eilat on steroids, but without the reason you go to Eilat (ie the sea.) Sure, the interior of some of the casinos are kind of hilarious in their decadent outrageousness, but I confess that I don’t really get the point of it all. Anyway, my sweetie and I wandered around for a bit, but we got pretty bored of sin city pretty quickly. What can I say? I prefer mitzvot.
Today will include the Hoover Dam, a weird museum my sweetie wants to check out, and on to the Grand Canyon. This is so the American trip.
More next time we have a few minutes’ wifi access, and hopefully crankiness of photo editing figured out by then….
ETA: Having about 30% success uploading photos. Better luck next time, but at least there are a couple up now.
