Like Life – Page 3 – A Honey of an Anklet

Ready for another GoToMeeting

At my desk away from my desk, 12 weeks since we started working remotely full-time. I’ve added a larger work table, a second monitor, and a rolling desk chair since I moved in. The overhead lighting is actually flattering in this case. But that’s the end of the shaggy hair: hair salons in Montgomery County reopened this week.

Hot hot hot

The azaleas by my front stoop have peaked. (Note to self: save these pix for when I want to sell the house.)

My year in cities, 2019

Overnight stays in 2019:

New York, Manhattan County, New York
Shepherdstown, Jefferson County, West Virginia 1 2 3 4
Reykjavík, Iceland (2 stays) (and)
Brjánsstaðir, Iceland
Vík, Iceland
Höfn, Iceland
Egilsstaðir, Iceland
Mývatn, Iceland
Harrisonburg, Virginia
Martinsburg, Berkeley County, West Virginia (Thanks, as always, Charlie!)

New venues, 2019

I found some performance spaces around town that I hadn’t yet visited.

Anacostia Playhouse
Milkboy Arthouse, College Park, Md.
Mead Center Kogod Cradle
KC Jazz Club
Atlantis, Sterling, Va.
River Road Unitarian Universalist Congregation, Bethesda, Md.
Slayton House, Wilde Lake Village, Columbia, Md.
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, College Park, Md.

Bonus out-of-town space: The Village Vanguard, New York.

2018’s list. 2017’s list. 2016’s list. 2015’s list. 2014’s list. 2013’s list. 2012’s list. 2011’s list.

On deck: 19

My to-read bookshelf has spilled out into an annex of three to-read crates. Free books rescued from work, possibly interesting reads from book exchange, a few things of Leta’s that I might pick up, a good-intentions attempt to review my college calculus text (what’s a Lagrange multiplier, again?) (water-damaged from a small basement flood some years ago), a couple of doorstops for a long train journey, some finds from the AAUW used book sale, time to read Pirsig again.

A mystery: 18

In Leta’s (and by inheritance, Ann’s) effects I found a promotional notepad from the Southern Railway System, with a handy list of freight facilities on the inside cover. (Leta’s grandfather worked for a railroad.) Southern would have used that branding up until about 1980. A historian of the system might be able to pin down a date, given the list of facilities. It’s possible that 200-79 on the inside cover encodes a printing date. Yankee that I am, I used up the notepad.

On the back of the backing is the real mystery: the inscription GLV 823. A vehicle license plate number, perhaps? But what state? Who made the hasty note, and why did they use the backing rather than a leaf from the pad? Does it capture a red light runner? A hit-and-run accident? The imagination trembles.

Some ink: 10

The Fairfax County Park Authority ran a donor profile of me (looking a little bedraggled in the mugginess) in a recent issue of the catalog of classes. Flick to p. 106.

Enroute: 18

Attention Reston songbirds: Flowering Dogwood fruits are ripening on this tree at my bus stop. Feast now and avoid the rush.

Across the Mid-Atlantic Ridge: 6

Other Reports

Pro tip: As you are preparing your luggage for a flight to Keflavík (KEF), do not pack your windbreaker in your checked baggage. You’re going to need it for the short scrambles to and from the shuttle bus that will take you to the terminal. Sited on a peninsula jutting out into the North Atlantic, the air field is well positioned for the defense of sea lanes (as it so served in WW II). But the nasty cross winds make it an adventure to traverse on foot, at any time of the day.

This is the quite pleasant view from my shared balcony at the elegant Hotel Holt. Several of my guides emphasized that Iceland is somewhat allergic to city planning—hence the lack of other commercial amenities around this hotel. (On the other hand, my second hotel, the Hotel Reykjavík Centrum, was surrounded by eateries and night life.) The University of Iceland campus is visible in the distance.

Þingvellir National Park is one of the places where the rift between the North Atlantic and Eurasian Plates is visible on land. I’m standing in the rift, with the North American Plate looming above and on the left. Þingvellir was the meeting place of Iceland’s first parliament, which first met there in 930. As dramatic as the scenery might be, this place was more or less centrally located for the delegates traveling to it across the country, and the rift valley afforded relatively flat terrain.

Rifts and cracks mean interesting water features.

The atmosphere of the Njámafjall hot springs area in the highlands of the north is sulphurous. Stay on the boardwalk, and make sure you’re standing upwind!

In the East Fjords, this “golly” prospect is on highway #1 between Höfn and Djúpivogur. At left, looking north, and at right, looking south. We didn’t stop for the lighthouse at Hvalnes. Iceland needs to up its lighthouse game.