Getting Ready for the 3 Tour Extravaganza

It is Thursday, September 26. We are in Dan and Malena’s yard in the coach. On Tuesday we will put the coach in storage and be driven to the DC area.  We will stay at a hotel near my cousins Jane and  Bob Levey so we can have dinner with them before flying out on Wednesday evening to Kiev, first stop.  We do not have passports in hand yet. PVS Inc has had them since late July or early August. We need 5 visas for this trip.  Apparently  China, Vietnam and even Myanmar were relatively easy. Russia was swamped and would not even accept the application until  a month before the entry date.  Cambodia would not grant a visa for more than 60 or 90 days in advance of entry.  I spoke to Ruth at PVS today and she assured me that Russia had issued our visas, yesterday, and our passports are at the Cambodia Embassy and should be done by tomorrow.  This is getting tight.

We arrived here a week ago after an uneventful trip with a stop at Shangri-la by the Creek in Milton, PA. We have made that stop often on our trips between Rochester and Charlottesville.  The big event of the week was Dan’s birthday on September 25. I’m not sure how I feel about that as I was 25 when he was born.  We entertained with dinner at new local restaurant, Pasture, it was okay, a bit noisey, and a bit stark.  It cost more than the bris!

On Tuesday the 24th we drove to Fredericksburg where we met Anna Lee and Jerry. We spent a delightful day touring, eating and talking.  I hope we will see them next in California, or someplace on the road.

I suppose I should include a picture so here is a shot looking down the driveway from the steps of GeeWhiz.

Running Around in ever Decreasing Circles

First and foremost; Carol is healing rapidly and appears to be fine.  The good news is that because she could not make the choir rehearsals she couldn’t sing in the High Holiday Choir and sat with me.  I like that even though I know she really likes to sing.  Also people who sit near us like that because being in the congregation does not stop her from singing, it is a joy for me to hear her and others say so too.

I was going to say that we had no commitments today, but that would be wrong.  We met for breakfast with the Chair of the Department of Neurology at URMC (University of Rochester Medical Center) Robert Holloway, MD. He is the new chair and wanted to talk to us about the future of the Nathalie and Emanuel Goldberg Lecture which is going into its 29th year in a couple of weeks. We are very encouraged that this will continue and be expanded to at least three lectures a year going forward.  My parents created this lectureship. . .

Not sure where that sentence was headed, one more distraction in a week of distractions and shopping. Kol Nidre is four hours off.  Food has been prepared for taking to Break Fast at Bulins’ tomorrow when we can resume eating.  Most of the “stuff” we know we need to buy for travel is sitting in the den waiting for transport to the coach.  Dan called to ask about our eta in Charlottesville, thinking he had forgotten or lost the message. I told him we were getting closer to knowing when we are leaving and we will tell them when we arrive when we have figured it out.  We have a firm last hour to arrive which is Sunday at 3 when we are needed to watch the boys while Malena and Dan have a “date.”  We will make it.

I spent over two hours today doing battle with Amazon and NYTimes.com.  At some point in the last 24 hours they changed the method for getting the NYTimes on the Fire.  Problem, they didn’t tell anyone, not even their support people.  I suffered through on hold and transfers to the wrong party followed by an online chat that locked up as we got to the final instructions.  Finally got a L3 tech who actually was able to walk me through the steps to get it done.  It needed four log ons using different User IDs and passwords.  In this day and age that is just insane.  I guess Amazon and NYTimes.com do not have a great relationship. Neither is particularly user friendly in how they connect. End of rant!

I’ll just post this now and start over some time next week.