Russ&Suzie

Trip Log
2008-12-25 12:25:21 (UTC)

Holiday trip to Raleigh - I

We left Tuesday getting up early for a trip on a day in
Madison (and later Chicago) showed snow and cold. Long
delay leaving Madison so arriving in Chicago we found our
flight no longer on the board. O'Hare airport closed and
opened and closed again so, as it happened, though we
weren't boarded, the plane sat on the runway and when it
returned for more de-icing, it admitted those people coming
through. This included us and a young woman named Danielle
Walker with whom Susie struck up an immediate connection
(felt like a family!) -- she was a nanny in Chicago whose
Baptist preacher of a father had lived in N.C. once; he
called to see how she was doing; now lives in Buffalo but
the family had already converged except for her. We saw her
later in Raleigh with two huge pink suitcases.

WE travel light and efficiently: very glad for that on such
trips. Plus, I had a project that just emerged. Phillip
Manning long ago wrote a book about Erving Goffman, a
figure in Sociology who has long fascinated me. I have had
this book but haven't read it. So I did another triplet
project: took an idea from each section of the book (49)
and added two more lines from two other sources for all 49:
one from an article on giardia, its history and a new RNA
method to defeat it, and the newest book by Ashbery. I
wrote these into a blue book and learned a lot more of
Manning's critical analysis as well as the other material.
Am now typing in and revising as I go to render into
present tense, smooth its reading, and so forth.

Chris Baermann looks great! She's Susie and Lisa's first
cousins once removed (11 years younger than their mother
whose first cousin she is). Their mother and Chris (short
for Christine) were double cousins: three brothers married
three sisters and Chris is the last survivor, now 89 years
old. The twins feel that she should soon move to Madison
(the time has come; previously she'd looked at Madison care
centers. She's vigorous and lively with her only physical
problem memory issues, but the twins worry that she'll
forget some crucial thing.

Dick and Lisa got here earlier, Dick from his retreat with
his friend in an Arizona resort. The two meet periodically
in that way. Lisa had arrived after visting a friend who
had retired to the Research Triangle.




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