Printers Row Lit Fest 2013

I'm fond of saying that my one-day-a-year visit to sell books at the Printers Row Lit Fest is the most fun I can have as an author and not get arrested, and this year was no exception.

Photo by Rachel Madorsky

Once again, as I have since 2008, I had booked a slot for a day in the tent provided by the

Illinois Woman's Press Association for their author members.  The Lit Fest tent sales officially run from ten in the morning until six at night, but over the years I've learned that (1) people actually start cruising through looking at books from about eight thirty in the morning onward, and (2) competition can be pretty intense to get one of the tables that line up facing the sidewalks rather than the other tents.

So this year's adventure found me on the road from Wisconsin at a quarter to six in the morning, hoping to beat the rush. I got there so early, I think the "rush" was still home, asleep!  No crowds, no sitting in a long line to unload books at the tent, I was actually the first person at the IWPA tent, period. Even the tablecloths were still sitting there, all folded up, waiting to be spread out.  I took my pick of the tables, and let the morning unfold.

All set up before 8:30!!
 

As a writer, yes, I love to sell books at events like this. But boy, that is just a small part of the fun. There's the people-watching.  And the "dog watching," as occasionally folks strolled by with well-behaved canine companions.  There were a pair of silky, long-haired Dachshunds; and a big yellow lab; and a pair of Cairn terriers.  I even got to pet a beautiful, tiny, perfectly groomed Yorkshire Terrier, who was introduced as the "big brother" to a six-month-old baby in a stroller.

The weather was perfect for a change. It is an annual tradition for me to find myself fleeing from Lit Fest earlier than I'd like as rain starts to pour or tornados threaten the city, wrapping my books in plastic and racing to the car to keep them from getting wet. But there were blue skies the entire time, and no rain anywhere. I stayed nearly two hours longer than usual before I finally packed up and met fellow Wisconsin author Gale Borger for a cup of coffee to keep me awake for the drive home.


With Gale Borger

However, this being my home town of Chicago, "the Windy City," certain weather adjustments had to be made. I'd come equipped with a roll of duct tape...but the wind still proved to be a challenge. Luckily, Art Brauer had brought some bungee cords to keep things in place.

The IWPA tent was set up near a French chanteur softly singing as he strummed his guitar nearby, and my table faced the historic and beautiful Franklin Building on Dearborn Street. It was an altogether charming location!


Above the Franklin Building entrance



What a gorgeous front door!

 

The view down Dearborn Street

And, best of all, was just the chance to talk about writing and life with the folks who slowed and then stopped to visit. Some were published authors, some wanted to be writers, some were just looking for a good book to read or buy for a friend. Many life stories and tales of marriages and career journeys and setbacks and turning points were swapped on this delightful warm summer afternoon. One young man stopped by to thank me for the advice I'd given him a couple of years ago at a "live lit" event we were both reading at, which was to join the Chicago Writers Association. (I then enthusiastically passed that advice on to every young or "new" writer who stopped to chat for the rest of the day.) A gal closer to my age stopped to visit and to tell me that after listening to me chatter about blogging several years ago in a panel discussion about social media put on by the IWPA, she'd started her own blog. Some readers even dropped by just to tell me they'd enjoyed reading the books they bought from me at last year's Lit Fest.

I learned about an art fair in Michigan; was instructed on the value of providing memorable "giveaways" or trinkets at book fairs; and swapped stories of on-line dating with the author of MatchDotBomb, an entire memoir about her experiences in testing the meet-and-greet waters at mid-life after the death of her husband.

With Francine Pappadis Friedman

And wonderfully and fortuitously, I'd been trying to find some reading-based non-profit organization to donate a box of my earlier-edition books to, and discovered that the path from my parked car to the IWPA tent led right past the display for Open Books Ltd., a literacy promotion group based in Chicago. No need to run to the post office and address and mail the box, I went back to the car for the box of books and handed it off in person!

 



 

I'm not quite done with the Lit Fest yet. I got back home so late and exhausted last night that everything I brought with still needs unloading from the car. Books, cards, poster, ribbons, duct tape. (Though I did eat all the M&Ms...) But the memories of this year's Fest are sweet, and cherished, and enervating.  Can't wait until next year!!

Fifty Shades of Cold

The weather forecasters were calling for the arrival of the first real blizzard of winter, and I was putting my first batch of Christmas cookies in the oven that morning. The holiday was less than a week away, and I figured that if I really focused, I could spend the next three days doing last-minute shopping, baking and wrapping, and still come up for air on Christmas Eve.

As usual, I had taken it right down to the wire, counting on and parsing out the last few days before Christmas, calculating that with three days “free” from the office before the first of the kids came home, I would have plenty of time for last-minute stuff like shopping for trinkets and chocolates to fill Christmas stockings, wrapping presents, making cookies, making the kitchen presentable.

And as usual, the best laid plans…

The snow started falling heavily by mid-day while the cookies baked and I finished decorating the balsam fir in the living room. My little Honda only clears the ground by four and a half inches, so I’m always cautious about driving over large snowballs, much less piles and drifts of the stuff. Early into the storm, I figured on staying put until the driveway was plowed. I blithely calculated that that I had plenty of food in the house and plenty of stuff to keep me busy in case I was snowed in…but an actual emergency still seemed like an exercise in abstract thinking.

But…living out in the country, one gets used to the idea that the power could go out when the weather gets bad, and by mid-afternoon I started the drill I had become familiar with after years of tornado warnings and high winds and ice storms. Really, the kids had grown up knowing that any time there was a hint of bad weather, I would insist on filling the bathtub “just in case.” And these always turned out to be false alarms.

Old habits die hard, though, and after the cookies had cooled and been put away, I began to methodically prep for hypothetical disaster. I ran the bathtub tap first, filling the tub more than half full. As the water gurgled out, I set to hauling in several bags of firewood, stacking them in the wrought iron rack beside the fireplace. I even detached one of the garage doors from its automatic electric opener “just in case.” I scrubbed and polished the glass fireplace doors until they squeaked, and then got the fire ready to start, with pine “fatwood” sticks balanced on strips of cardboard, then covered by small pieces of firewood that would catch a flame easily. What the heck, it would still be there to light on Christmas Eve when the kids came home!

I made sure that most of the candles were on the fireplace mantlepiece, away from where the cats could tip them over or set their tails on fire (don’t get me started on that story or how I could even think it a possibility…). I even dug out a tall glass and metal pillar candle arrangement I’d bought at a hostess party and never used, placing it in the middle of the kitchen table. There was no way the cats could get close to that flame, I reasoned. I put fresh batteries in flashlights, and made sure that my favorite “boat flashlight” was also on the kitchen table where I could find it in a hurry. I don’t own a boat, but for under five bucks at Walmart you can buy one of these huge plastic lamps that can light up half the yard, and the battery is included. And it’s so big it’s impossible to misplace.

Prepped for disaster, I relaxed and took another look outside. The floodlights cast circles of light into the darkness, and the snow blew in swirls and sheets from the rooftop down past the bay window. Without looking at the reflective fiberglass stakes stuck in the grass to guide the guy who plows my driveway, it was impossible to tell where concrete ended and lawn began. Judging by the white swells and drifts, there was no way I was driving anywhere until the plow came through.

The cookies packed away and the tree finished, it was finally time to relax! I turned off the lights in the kitchen, and turned on the lights of the Christmas tree. They glittered off the pretty iridescent plastic icicles that had been a holiday fixture for years, and softly illuminated the ceramic birds and other woodland creatures jockeying for space with familiar blown glass fruits and the assortment of antique glass ornaments I’d recently scored at a garage sale. I settled into my “couch groove” on the left side of the recliner sofa, as deep as anything Homer Simpson could brag about. Then I pulled a fluffy blanket across my lap, and reached for the TV remote on a nearby table. As I began to channel surf, both cats jumped into my lap and settled in contentedly for a nap. And then, with no sound or flicker or warning, the power went out and the house and the world went utterly dark.

“Crap!” was my first thought. Though, I then thought smugly, I was ready for it, wasn’t I? I tipped the cats out of my lap, and found my way around to the candles and books of matches on the mantle nearby. I lit the candles one by one, and the room once more came into view. I even lit the pillar candle in the kitchen, and it proved to be a charming sight. It was nothing you could read by, but the silhouettes of moose and pine trees that surrounded the tall candle gave off a rustic, woodsy air. Then I lit the fire, tossed in a few more logs, and settled back on the sofa until rescue could come in one form or another.

That was at six o’clock. The fire needed feeding about every hour. By eight, it was rip-roaring blazing, and I was starting to get bored. I hadn’t planned far enough ahead to charge up my Kindle and the little book-light that went with it, and I didn’t want to waste flashlight batteries on reading a book with actual pages. The cats were pleased as could be and purring loudly, with a warm fire and a warm lap. The dog, Lucky, stretched out under the recliner footrest where he could keep a watchful eye on us all. I, on the other hand, felt more and more irritated and restless and cranky by the minute.

How the heck did the early settlers do it, I thought? Needlework by candlelight? Early bedtimes? Math lessons scratched out on the back of shovel with a lump of charcoal by an oil lamp? I’ve always said that I would have made a lousy pioneer and would have been kicked out of the wagon train for whining at the first river crossing…but this totally sealed my conviction.

On the plus side, I discovered that my cell phone still worked. I checked in with the man in my life who happened to be caught in the same storm twenty-five miles away. He gallantly volunteered to drive his small car through the blizzard to keep me company and bring me supplies. I protested, and insisted that he stay put—not only were the highway conditions absolutely treacherous, even if he got to my house in once piece, there would be no way his car could cut through the drifts in my long driveway. I was absolutely sure that I’d be fine.

We hunkered down to wait things out in our respective digs. The decorative ceramic clock on an antique shelf in the living room chimed nine o’clock. I threw some more wood in the fire, and decided to call it a night. I couldn’t read, I couldn’t watch TV, I didn’t have a battery-operated radio to listen to…and with the snow and wind still pounding against the house, odds were that the power wouldn’t be restored very soon.

I set the alarm on my cell phone for an hour and fifteen minutes, stretched the recliner as far back as it would go, and pulled a couple of lap blankets up to my chin. Two cats immediately jostled for space on my mid-section, and I was glad for the warmth. I drifted off to sleep.

When the alarm went off, I saw immediately that the fire had burned down nearly to embers. I stoked it up again, and then repeated the alarm-recliner-blankets-cats cycle. The next time I woke up, I saw again that the fire had burned down to the point that it took a good effort to stoke it back up. This time I tweaked the system, and set the alarm to go off just an hour later. Recliner, blankets, cats, snooze…

By three in the morning, my good humor was starting to wear thin. And despite my best fire-tending efforts, the temperature in the living room was starting to drop a degree or two. After I stoked up the fire yet again, I made my way to the bedroom to find some warmer clothes. I dressed by flashlight in my warmest sweatpants and pulled a fleece high-necked sweater over a couple of shirts. Then, turning to find my shoes, I accidentally knocked the boat flashlight from the bed. I heard glass break as it hit the floor, and the flashlight was dead. I made my way back to the living room by the flickering firelight, and shoved a mini-flashlight into my pocket.

At five in the morning, I finally shoved the last stick of wood into the fireplace and closed the glass doors. There was little use in counting on the power being restored in the next hour, and I suited up for a cold trek to the garage. Hat, parka, mukluks, gloves, carry-bag, flashlight. It felt strange to step out into the night without the familiar floodlights on the house and garage. Where it drifted up against the garage, the snow was up to my knees. And the snow just kept falling.

I pulled up the smaller door (finally, foresight proved right!), and began to search the racks for the driest pieces of wood I could find. I hauled two bags inside through the darkness. Across the street, I couldn’t quite make out whether there were lights at my neighbors’ house…or if my tired eyes were playing tricks on me. On my final trek for more wood, I heard the sound of a powerful truck motor, and turned to see the outlines of a snowplow illuminated by headlights. The driver—another neighbor—exchanged a few “lovely weather we’re having” sentiments through the window of the truck cab, and then I trudged back to the house. Indeed, I found in our brief exchange, the power was out for the entire street. And nobody still had any idea of when it would come back on.

Dawn finally came, and the snow finally quit, and the living room started to warm a little in the sunlight. I let the fire die down so that I didn’t leave the house with a fire blazing in the grate, and then—no longer marooned by drifts—made a short run to a nearby Walmart. For one thing, I could recharge my dwindling cell phone battery in the car as I drove. And for another, I wanted to stock up on flashlight batteries…and get another boat lantern. I bought two when I got there, in fact, one of them a “new and improved” LED version that promised to deliver about 44 hours of light using the same sized battery that the conventional model would run on for only four and a half. There are times that I just love technology.

The entire day proceeded on a feed-the-fire-every-hour rhythm, though now I could at least see what I was doing…and could occasionally just sit and read a book in daylight. I ran into my neighbor by the mailbox, and she offered to let me use her house if I needed to, since she and her husband had a generator that they were running. Well, that would explain the lights during the storm the night before!

As the day wore on with still no power, the man in my life made continued pitches for me to bring the animals and myself down to his place for the evening, and avail myself of a hot meal and a warm shower and comfortable bed. It was so utterly deliciously tempting… I finally said that I would…but I still wanted to wait it out until late in the evening, just to keep the place warm and the pipes from freezing. As darkness fell, I took up my familiar spot in the couch groove, but this time I was ready for reading. There was enough battery life left in my Kindle for me to read an entire suspense novel, guilt-free, by the energy-efficient light of my new LED boat lantern. They do say that necessity is the mother of invention.

By nine at night, the house was still dark except for candlelight and the fireplace, and I started to make preparations to leave. And then I stopped short, and called him and refused. If I left the house and the power stayed off, the temps in the house would surely drop, a LOT. I didn’t think I could face walking back into a living room in the mid-forties and shoveling firewood like a train engineer fueling a coal engine until the house warmed up again. Easier to stay put, waking every hour and feeding the fire like a sleep-deprived zombie.

“I’ll be there in forty-five minutes,” he said. And then he was, bearing a warm pizza fresh from his oven, a bottle of wine, and a promise to help tend the fire throughout the night so that I could finally get some sleep. We set up the sleeping bags he’d brought in front of the fireplace, and talked, and finally dozed off, our heads close to the fireplace doors and the wood rack within his arms’ reach.

When I woke up, my face felt cold and it was four hours later. Good intentions had gone awry, and we had both slept through the fire-tending duties. The fire was out, with barely an ember left. I tried to nudge him awake. No luck. I nudged harder. Still no luck again, he was comfortably slumbering and totally out cold. I checked my cell phone. It was three in the morning. I looked at the battery-operated thermometer on the living room wall. It was only eleven degrees outside…and the living room temperature had fallen to a a chilly fifty-eight degrees inside.

I sighed…and then went to work building up the fire again with crumpled newspaper and fatwood sticks and paper towels soaked with alcohol. A half hour later it was roaring, but the wood supply was getting mighty low. And so for the second night in a row, I went trudging through the darkness with a flashlight and a carry-bag, toting in more firewood to keep the critters from freezing and the pipes from bursting. Ah, I thought, there’s just nothin’ like country livin’.

By morning, I had made my third or fourth call to the power company to check on the progress of things. This time, they finally had an estimate, and I was assured that while thousands of people had had their power restored, my forlorn street was one of the last technical holdouts in the area. “By ten o’clock,” the lady on the other end of the line estimated. Though she didn’t know if that actually meant ten in the morning or ten at night.

The man in my life eventually departed for his own house (after hauling in some more wood before he left), and I gritted my teeth in anticipation of yet another day of peanut butter sandwiches and bowls of granola with yogurt and round-the-clock fire tending. We hugged, and made plans for dinner at his house, come hell or high water.

Then, with a wave, he drove off down the driveway, and I shut the door to keep in the precious warmth. He called a minute later to tell me that he’d encountered some linemen working on a transformer up at the end of the road, and that prospects looked good for getting the power back up. Two minutes later, the lights on the Christmas tree suddenly came on, and I could hear the furnace start to hum.

Ah, rescue at last! It had been forty hours since the world suddenly went dark, and my longstanding fill-the-bathtub precautions finally turned out to have some practical value.

I’ve reshelved the pretty pillar candle and stashed the boat lanterns away, and made peace with the fact that I had to throw out just about everything in the fridge. Six months later, roses are starting to bloom where drifts had covered windows, and if the temperatures dip too low, the only thing we worry about these days is frost on tender plants.

You can never predict when something like that is going to happen, you can just hope it won’t, and plan to have enough batteries and candles and firewood to get you through it if does. There is one thing I expect, though, and it doesn’t take a Magic 8 ball or gypsy palm reader to predict it for me. And that is…

I’m pretty sure that I see a portable generator in my future. Forty hours of candlelight is so…1800s!

International Wee Lamb Rescue

In a manner of speaking, we had been in the company of ghosts all day, and were still looking for more.

The rain was falling soft and steady on the green hills of Ireland’s County Meath as we strode up the steep ridged slopes of earth known as the Hill of Tara.  After first touring the 12^th century Malahide Castle near Dublin, and then the 5,000 year old Neolithic stone passage tomb known as Newgrange earlier in the day, we were closing out our day’s ramblings steeped in the mythology of ancient Ireland and the Seat of Kings.

I was traveling with my son, Robert, and my daughter-in-law, Hannah, and we had the entire “heritage site” to ourselves now that visiting hours were long over.  The only exception was a flock of sheep that now inhabited the site where kingship rituals had been performed thousands of years earlier.  The Stone of Destiny stood atop one of the two sets of concentric circles that formed the site, and nearby, entirely wreathed by fencing and with a tarp over the entrance, stood a small Neolithic tomb known as the Mound of the Hostages.  The lush, emerald countryside fell away from the hills in all directions, and we breathed in the damp air, conjuring earlier times in our imaginations.  The only sound was the occasional bleating of the sheep, and the smoosh-ing sounds our feet made in the soft, lumpy grass.

Our curiosity finally sated and our clothes quite wet from the rain, we slowly started to make our way back across the fields to where we had parked the car. As we walked by the Mound of the Hostages, we noticed a small lamb, pure white from tip to tail, stranded inside the fence around the mound. His mother hovered nearby, clearly distressed, and both lamb and ewe kept the whole baa baa sheep conversation going. The entire mound was encircled by a high metal fence, and the opening was locked. On the far side of the mound, the bottom of the fence cleared the grass with a few gaps large enough for the lamb to have wriggled inside. However, both “lambkin” and his mother were on the other side of the enclosure.

A couple approached from the far side of the mound, clearly tourists as ourselves. The man was tall, and wore a classic Irish “driving hat.” His female companion was shorter, and carried an umbrella. The pair examined the fence, and the man finally found a spot to pull the fence apart and enter the enclosure. He clearly had his mind set on capturing the lamb and reuniting him with his mother. The lamb, of course, knew nothing of those benign intentions, and scampered away like he had springs for hooves. 

I called to Robert, and suggested that he get in there as well to help. Nice idea…but the lamb was still too quick.  Finally Hannah got in there as well, and with the three of them working in concert, the tall man in the driving hat finally grabbed the lamb from behind and quickly hustled him through the gap in the fence as his companion held it open.

Lamb and ewe fled the scene together, and with a few words of congratulations, we all scattered as well. Judging by our accents, the man in the cap sounded Polish, his lady-friend sounded English, and of course, we were “the Americans.” Really, of the thousands of tourists who must tread across the Hill of Tara, how many can say that they were part of a rescue operation that involved a Pole, a Brit, and three Yanks rescuing an Irish sheep?

The rescue adventure behind us, we turned back toward the car, and pondered on the pressing need of two of us to use a “ladies room” before we set out to drive another couple of hours in the rain back to Galway. We walked past the site’s visitor center—once a charming little church devoted to St. Patrick—but the center was long locked up.  Farther down the hill stood a gift shop/tea room that looked like it was deserted as well. A strand of lights strung from the eaves of the tea room beckoned like the lights of Brigadoon, though, and Hannah and I decided to check the place out anyway. As we approached the tea room, we could see that it was entirely dark.  Slightly daunted…but still somewhat desperate…we walked on a little further. Lo and behold, there were doors to the facilities for ladies and gents! But…they were locked.   With dispirited shrugs, we pressed on to the main door of the shop, from which a little light shone. It STILL looked deserted, but when Hannah pushed on the door, it opened!

Glory Halleluiah! We stepped inside the little gift shop, and a young man finally stepped out from behind the scenes. We sketched out our basic needs, which included a fancy coffee for me.  He explained that we’d have to get our drinks “takeaway,” since there would be no room to seat us.  Could he throw some whipped cream on top of my “mocha” coffee?  Of course, he said.  Could he make a hot chocolate, Hannah asked hopefully.  “Only with marshmallows,” he replied with a smile. Ah, bliss!

We paid for our drinks, and finally left the shop just as the private wedding party that was the cause of the restaurant being open at this hour began to arrive.  Settled back into the car, we turned our attention to the task of finding our way back to Galway, as the lights on the restaurant receded in the rear view mirror.

All in all, it had been an extraordinary day. A medieval castle, prehistoric tombs, a wee lamb rescue, a fortuitous pit stop entirely off its regular schedule, and the most delicious fancy coffee that I had in Ireland. As I drove through the rain and night fell upon us, I couldn’t stop thinking of magic, and ghosts, and luck, and Brigadoon…

"Wilde" Irish!

In Galway, Ireland, summoning international literary relations across time and across borders! Between Oscar Wilde (Irish writer and author of "The Picture of Dorian Grey" and "The Importance of Being Earnest") and Eduard Vilde (Estonian writer and diplomat). The original of the sculpture resides in Tartu, Estonia, outside the "Wilde Irish Pub" there.

The Last Emperors

I would be lying to myself if I didn’t admit to approaching my last official, scheduled tour of my solo Italian vacation with ambivalence and even trepidation.  After returning from Pompeii, Sorrento, and the Blue Grotto of Capri, a three-hour tour of the Vatican loomed on the horizon like a plume of black smoke from Vesuvius' crater.

A little background music. I was born Catholic, and raised Catholic, married Catholic in a Gothic cathedral with soaring arches and achingly beautiful stained glass windows, and had my children baptized in the Catholic faith. But… over the years I have also turned into what is politely referred to as a “lapsed” Catholic.

I suppose that part of my disaffection stems from developing an independence of spirit as I grew up. Part, no doubt, came from looking at an all-male, ostensibly celibate church hierarchy pronouncing much about families and reproduction, and thinking, “really?” Part came from just wondering in my heart of hearts where all religions came from, and suspecting that most if not all the creation myths stemmed from groups of men sitting around campfires under starlit skies and trying to put an understandable face on the mysterious universe, while the womenfolk were back in the cave tending the children and stirring the mastodon stew.

But if I had to carbon date the first crack in the belief system of my ancestors, it came when I was only fifteen, and standing inside the Vatican. At the time, I was a product of a Catholic grade school and a Catholic all-girls high school, familiar with obedience, duty, morality, and myriad plaid school uniforms. My godmother, a high-school history teacher, had footed the bill for me to go on a summer study trip to Europe with a group of girls from my high school (Immaculata in Chicago) and two nuns as chaperones and teachers.

At some point in the Italian leg of the trip, we ended up at the Vatican. And as I stood there in St. Peter’s Basilica, I remember looking around at the incredible art and opulence, the sculptures and the gilt and the polished marble, and wondered “if Jesus Christ was standing here next to me, what on earth would be say when he saw this?”  I didn’t think it would be “good job, guys!”

I went back to Chicago and kept dutifully following the rules set by church and family, but that small seed of disaffection stayed and grew quietly. Years later, when an exhibit of Vatican treasures went on display at museums around the world, my godmother and I went to see them in Milwaukee. And again, I felt that familiar disconnect between churchly admonitions to be meek and obedient, unquestioning and good, and the lavishness and opulent excess that characterized the vestments and chalices and various totems of the papacy.  As we left the exhibit, there a guest book for visitors to sign and leave a short impression of the works of art. Amidst the “gorgeous” and “magnificent” and “inspiring” comments, I left one more surly and sardonic: “sell half and feed the hungry.” I then quickly stepped away from the book, looking over my shoulder, imagining an Opus Dei assassin straight from the novel “The DaVinci Code” to be lurking there to quash my rebellion.

Fast forward to my Italian vacation and my final guided tour. Sitting in the lobby of the Hotel Diana at six in the morning, waiting to be picked up for the tour, I promised myself that if my sense of moral outrage over came my thirst for staring at great art, I would detach myself from the group and exit stage left, taking the Metro to Nero’s Golden Palace or the Baths of Diocletian and indulging in some more delicious gelato along the way. The irony didn’t escape me that while I might be steadfastly non-religious on a daily basis, I can still recite the Rosary to get to sleep…and fervently repeat the prayers from my childhood in times of deep fear and crisis.

Jenna and Matt—a young married couple from Vancouver on their honeymoon—shared the lobby with me, and we struck up a conversation as we traveled. The Vatican Museum was the first leg of the tour. Our tour guide was a lively woman who came up to perhaps my shoulder. Despite the fact that she occasionally held a yellow umbrella above her head so that we could locate her in a crowd, the crowds were dense and she often vanished from sight. With no other familiar faces in our group, the young Canadians and I served as each other’s lifelines as various guided tours spilled across each other like cross-currents, and exquisite sculptures held a siren’s lure for the unwary laggard.

Despite my earlier misgivings, I could have spent a month in the Vatican Museum, a week gazing and drooling in the antique sculpture gallery alone. The gallery stretched as far as the eye could see, rows upon rows of Roman and Greek busts and statues. I had not realized before this how Roman statuary focused on the individual rather than the ideal. Despite the cold marble, the carved faces were unique and full of personality. This man looked like he had a sense of humor! This woman looked exactly like Agnes Moorehead’s disapproving grandmother in “Bewitched.” I was captivated. I was mesmerized. I felt a touching, human connection that spanned millennia. I was also nagged by the question of what early Christians would think of a modern Church that acquired and preserved so many artifacts of the Empire that had persecuted and martyred them.  Hmmm…. That thought stayed with me.

The Canadians and I tag-teamed throughout the rest of the morning, waving to each other over the heads of the teeming throngs in the map gallery, and the tapestry gallery, the Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter’s Basilica. And once again, in St. Peter’s Basilica, I was struck by the magnificence and radiance of the devotional art…and the lavishness of the adornment. 

And this time I wondered, if a first-century Christian martyr had been standing beside me, taking it all in, would he think “Ha. And I let my family get eaten by lions for this?”

By the time the tour guide pointed out a long, marble staircase at the Vatican made with wide, shallow steps for the Pope to ride his horse upon, I thought about the ancient Roman artifacts of an earlier empire that surrounded us and underlay the modern, and suspected that in the centuries after the fall of Rome and the ensuing Dark Ages, a new, powerful empire in its own right had simply and naturally emerged to replace the old.

The mixed wonders of the Vatican tour finally behind us, I took Jenna and Matt (about as old as my youngest kids!) under my wing and offered to show them how to return to the hotel via the Metro. We stopped for gelato on the way, of course, at the same shop I had visited on my first day in Italy and discovered that heavenly rum-infused chocolate tartufo.

We retired to a bench on a busy square while we ate, grateful for a chance to get off our feet and watching traffic and pigeons and pedestrians vie for space and safety as the traffic patterns changed with the lights. Then, after negotiating our way to the proper Metro stop for the hotel, I gave them a quick tutorial on how to reach the Coliseum from there as well. It felt so good to do a little of “the mom stuff” again!

We parted company, and I returned to the Hotel Diana to regroup and change into a different pair of shoes. Then I was off again, determined to see as much of ancient Rome as I could in the remaining afternoon. By the time I had walked the outskirts of Nero’s Golden Palace (closed for restoration), and toured the basilica next door to the Baths of Diocletian and St. Maria Maggiore’s cathedral, I was toast. I gravitated back to the rooftop garden at the hotel. A waiter passed by. Would I care for a drink? Why the hell not.

I packed, slept, and awoke before dawn. I returned to the rooftop garden once more before checking out, enjoying a cup of hot chocolate in splendid solitude.

In the early light, I saw Rome in all its modern sprawl and splendor…and magnificent remnants of its ancient splendor as well. I can’t wait to come back to explore it again.

28 Hours in D.C.

What a trip! I think this was the tightest turnaround I’ve ever had for a visit to Washington D.C.  And I swear, I was feeling so stressed the day before I left that if I’d managed to buy “trip insurance” when I booked my flights, I might have just canceled.

But I hadn’t, so I didn’t, and there I was, aloft on Tuesday morning. And it was absolutely glorious!

What officially drew me there this time was the opportunity to watch an oral argument at the United States Supreme Court. The case on the docket was Missouri vs. McNeely, and it centered on the question of whether police should have to get a warrant before forcing a blood draw for evidence in a drunk driving case.  A little more than eight years earlier, I’d argued exactly the same issue before the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and the Wisconsin court ruled that the fact that alcohol is constantly disappearing from the driver’s bloodstream during the investigation and arrest creates an exception to the general requirement for a warrant. The Missouri Supreme Court reached the exact opposite conclusion last year, and so SCOTUS took up the case to finally settle the issue for the entire country. I was just there to claim a front seat at the table of history while the pivotal arguments were going on. When else would I ever have anything like a reason to show up in that courtroom?

(Okay here I will confess that I actually had been inside the courtroom itself once before, but not for actual court. My dearly departed godmother had taken me along several years ago as her traveling companion to watch a historical case reenactment presided over by her conservative jurist hero, Antonin Scalia. I don't remember what case was argued, but there were drinks and hors d'ouevres afterward, and I got photos of both my aunt and myself with Justice Scalia. Hers turned out to be the worst picture she'd ever taken. Mine, with me all dolled up in a lace blouse and blue-rimmed glasses on the other hand, was charming, and made it look like I was on a blind date with Danny DeVito.)

 

But the fun, and the prep, all started two days before, when I got home from work and finally got down to packing. This will sound incredibly politically incorrect…but really, when it comes to packing for a trip, men have it so much easier. Flat shoes, shaving kit, a change of clothes. Into my little carry-on bag for a single overnight stay, on the other hand, went…a pair of spike heels, a little black dress and a blazer to wear to court; another knit dress, a long sweater and a pair of high-heeled boots to wear to dinner with my college roommate who works in D.C.; jewelry; makeup; hairspray and Static Guard; curling iron; cashmere cardigan for under the blazer in case the weather was colder than the sixty degree forecast; a long raincoat; and three books for reading on the plane.

After checking the D.C. weather report, I nervously threw caution to the wind and left the calf-length down coat, mukluk boots and winter gloves behind. This was no small point. Just before Christmas, a blizzard had left me without power at my house for forty hours, and dumped fifteen inches of snow in the front yard.

 

I needn’t have worried. The plane touched down at one in the afternoon, and the sun was shining. There was not a snowflake in sight.

After following my friend Kathy’s excellent directions for the Washington Metro and emerging from the subway only a block and a half from my hotel, I was awestruck to notice purple pansies in profusion lining the sidewalk as I walked by. I snapped pictures like the tourist that I was. Then, as I turned the corner, I saw that the pansies were part of the luscious landscaping at my new digs for the night, the St. Regis Hotel. I silently gave heartfelt thanks to the folks at Expedia.com and their “book your flight + hotel and save!” feature. 

 

Given that one of the last motel rooms I stayed in was at a Red Roof Inn my son Michael and I found in the dead of night in rural Pennsylvania during our road trip to Philadelphia a few months earlier (and truly a great value for the money!), the qualities of “posh” and “sumptuous” in this absolutely gorgeous hotel only two blocks from the White House were total balm to my senses.

Once I was settled in, I still had hours to go before meeting Kathy for dinner, so I scored a map of D.C. from the front desk and went out for a walk.

 

The area around the White House was alive with the construction of temporary bleachers and structural accommodations for the upcoming inauguration. I spied a young man taking a picture of the White House with his phone and offered my usual friendly swap—I’ll get a photo of you with your camera if you’ll do the same for me! His accent placed him somewhere from Down Under—Australia or New Zealand I guessed though I didn’t ask—and a few minutes later we both walked away with photographic proof that each of us had actually been in Washington.

 

I meandered farther toward the Washington Monument, but finally ran out of steam before I got there and just sat on the base of the First Division Monument for a little while, soaking in the warm sunshine and reveling in the fact that while the trees were leafless, the grass was still mostly green and it felt like late spring to me, not the dead of winter I’d left behind. And I snapped a photo for two young men admiring the monument commemorating those who died while serving in the First Infantry Division of the U.S. Army.

I stopped at the Renwick Gallery on the way back, and took in a current exhibition of crafts by young artists, as well as the portrait gallery on the upper floor. As I finally walked back to the hotel, I couldn’t help but notice that the sidewalks in these corridors of power seemed overwhelmingly occupied by guys in dark suits and well-tailored overcoats, striding purposefully toward…what, I had no idea. Whatever their agendas, they seemed to involve a lot of texting. Texting while walking, texting while waiting for the light to change at street corners, texting while riding subway escalators.

 

Kathy and I finally met for dinner at a contemporary Italian restaurant near the hotel, Siroc.  I had misjudged the side of the broad boulevard that it was on, and had to cut across a swath of park to get there. As I passed by a man sleeping, and—by all evidence—apparently living temporarily on a park bench, I got a crash reminder in just how far the drastic divide between the fortunate and unfortunate can be in this world, and how starkly the two worlds can exist just a few feet apart from each other in a town like this. I wondered whether that thought occurred to many of those guys in the pin-striped suits that I’d seen earlier, covering the pavement with such ambition and animation. Maybe they just didn’t walk through that park all that often.

Over delectable dinners, Kathy and I caught up on about four years of life and family and work, and then it was finally time for me to call it a night. It was going to be a long and thrilling day ahead! The next morning I was up long before the sun was even a low gleam on the horizon.  Breakfast was a chunk of cold salmon and caramelized onions left over from dinner the night before, in between showering and packing. After checking out and parking my suitcase at the hotel, I cabbed it over to the Supreme Court building an hour before it opened to the public. I wasn’t taking any chances at not getting in!

 

 

Because of another case a few years ago in which I’d filed a “petition for certiorari” with the high court, I was actually a member of the Supreme Court Bar and had learned in planning the trip that I was entitled to special seating in the “bar member section.” Exactly what that entailed, I had no idea, but when I got there I found I was just the second person in the “bar members” line and so getting in would be no problem. I spent the next hour chatting with a couple of defense lawyers who were also connected somehow with the case I was there to watch. Then, after our identities were at last confirmed against the roster of bar members, we were escorted first to a coat check and locker room, and then to the courtroom itself. All cell phones, cameras, coats and assorted bags had to be left behind.

Oh, what I would have given to be able to have a camera in my hand for a few minutes!  We were seated nearly an hour before court started, and as the stately and beautiful room started to fill with spectators and participants and staff and security guards, the energy and anxiety were palpable. There were lawyers, old and young, who were going to be formally admitted to the Supreme Court Bar before the cases were called, and their proud sponsors who would each personally ask the court to do so.  The participants in the morning’s cases readied themselves at their seats at the front of the courtroom, doing last-minute cramming as if for law school exams. There was glad-handing, and introductions, and jostling around, and wishes of “good luck” from various quarters. And then, finally, some of the individual justices’ clerks emerged from behind the tall scarlet drapes with coffee cups to be placed at the bench, and then all the justices emerged to take their seats. New bar members were sworn in, and then what is literally the Super Bowl of law in the U.S. began.

As the arguments started…and even before…I realized that I literally had ended up with the best seat in the house!! Somehow, fortune had smiled on me and I was seated in the front row of the bar member section, at the very edge of the center aisle, directly facing Justice Antonin Scalia and Chief Justice John Roberts. Going back to the Super Bowl analogy, a seat like that would be on the fifty yard line, just behind the coach and players. Wow. And as a few of my girlfriends from law school had predicted, and being that close to the action, I nearly had to sit on my hands to keep from raising one and offering, “Yes, I know the answer to that question!”

It will be months before a decision is reached in the case, changing the way one half or the other of the country processes drunk driving arrests. After the hour of argument in the McNeely case was finished, there was a mass exodus from the room as the players and spectators for the second case of the morning filed in. I managed to get a photo on the steps of the courthouse with the Missouri prosecutor who had convinced the U.S. Supreme Court to consider the issue, and then took inventory of the rest of the day.

 

 

My plane would lift off at five in the afternoon, but I still had enough time to walk over to the U.S. Capitol building across the street and take a guided tour. And as I was checking my rain coat, an exceedingly friendly and generous Capitol guide even volunteered to get me a pass to see the chambers of the House of Representatives. (There were no representatives there that day, but it was easy, sitting high above in the visitor’s gallery, to look down at the floor and imagine 435 adults behaving like five-year-olds in a large sandbox. Sigh…)

 

 

 

Finally, it was time to find another Metro station and take the subway back to the hotel to claim my suitcase and swap my courtroom duds for traveling clothes. Yet another subway ride later and I was back at the airport, going through my fourth metal detector of the day. And just twenty-eight hours after I had landed in Washington, I was up in the air again, chasing the setting sun into a landscape still covered with a blanket of white.

First December Snow