They're All Right --- Days 15/281 & 282

Walks: Hood of course

Distances: 1 day of almost rest; 1 day 4 miles

So Ciwt was given and is enjoying a page-a-day book lover's calendar.  She really resonated with this one from back in March.  Maybe some of  her readers as well?

Merry Valentine's Day, Easter, Memorial Day, 4th of July, Etc... --- Days 15/276 - 280

Walks: Hood

Distance: 4 miles average

So that plant taking up much of Ciwt's bureau top was supposed to start drying out, turning brown and dying some time after its Christmas bloom. 

Now with the next Christmas a few months away (really!), looks like it will still be dark hardy green and demanding its space in her bedroom.  

Oh Ya, Fame --- Day 15/275

Walk: Hood, Vogue Theater (Late Fame)

Distance: 4.5 miles

Late Fame

So, over the years Ciwt has had a way of sort of ignoring Willem Dafoe.  She would note his presence in a movie - always eye-catching because of his chiseled features - and go on to pay attention to the movie's story or other actors.  Then a decade or so ago, when DafoeOh was given prominent roles in movies like The Sunshine Project and The Lighthouse, she began noticing what a remarkable actor he is.  And, yesterday, in his wise, endearing, seamless performance in Late Fame she was mesmerized.  How, in a movie so quiet and subtle, did Dafoe's every half smile or eye movement stand out, convey so much, be the beating heart of the movie?  You'll have a chance to answer that - and see Dafoe's well deserved personal late fame for yourselves  - when Late Fame begins streaming on October 5.

'Past' Surprises --- Days 25/173-274

Walks: Mostly around home, putting things back in place after trip

Distance: 2 miles average

So overall, Ciwt was mostly surprised by Colonial Williamsburg.  First by its size. She had been planning her trip based on the map above.  The tiny map above. If you can read it, you see there are no distance/scale markers.  So, in the dark of night, when her driver told her they had entered the site, she was surprised when he kept driving and driving and driving until they finally reached the Inn where she was staying.  In fact Colonial Williamsburg is 301 acres, a mile and half long and at least 8 blocks side to side.  In 'normal' weather, a slightly challenging but comfortable, walking day.  In 95 degree, 90 percent humidity, bordering on hell. 

The carriage rides were cancelled to save the horses from the heat. - along with most of the reenactments you see in pictures on line.

When she went out the next morning, her next surprise was how spick and span the replicated village was.  Every wood building creamy white, every stone building chipless.  The 1776 inhabitants must have spent their days tidying in and out between planning for a revolution, then executing it.   Ciwt had expected to be instantly cast back into history, instead it was a matter of suspending disbelief.  By day two her sensibilities had adjusted; so, if you are going to go, Ciwt suggests 3 days, 2 to get into the feeling.  Otherwise you might end up with the impression of the great architectural reviewer, Ada Louise Huxtable: a 'superbly executed vacuum.' 

Or as she wrote in her The Unreal America: “What the perfect fake or impeccable restoration lacks are the hallmarks of time and place. They deny imperfections, alterations, and accommodations; they wipe out all the incidents of life and change. The worn stone, the chafed corner, the threshold low and uneven from many feet, the marks on walls and windows that carry the presence and message of remembered hands and eyes….are absent or erased. There is nothing left of the journey from there to here, nothing that palpably joins the past to the present, that makes direct physical and emotional contact with the viewer, the bittersweet link with those who have been there before.”

But then Ciwt majored in U.S. History and gives art tours. If she had been on the 'restoration' (ie, rebuild, replace, eliminate) committee in the 1930's when the vast and beyond expensive project ($100M+)  was ongoing, what would she have done?  You can't have original buildings - even if they exist - because they would look like off-putting slums and probably collapse on the first visitors.  And having a whole mix of the architectural styles that actually were in place might confuse the educational focus.  The project was and is meant to be educational, and it succeeds in large part with the costumed employees and their historical reenactments and spiels.  It is hard to say whether children fall for all of this or how deeply they are educated.  Many adults apparently are very pleased; There is one story of a couple who has returned 153 times since first visiting on their honeymoon.

Now for the First Class venues:  The Art and Archelogical Museums!!  Because she had such a short time, Ciwt let AI plan her trip and he/she/it took her to the historical buildings the first day and reserved the second and last day for the Art.  In fact Ciwt could have spent her entire trip at the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Museum, DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum and even the newly opened Archaeological Museum. She would definitely return for those.  Fortunately, they all of  have extensive online presences where she can spend time now that she is back.  A nice surprise.

Now We Are Five --- Days 15/260 - 272

 Walks: Williamsburg, DC

Distances: 5 hot, humid miles average

Not Gonna Happen...

So, Ciwt is a traveler of very limited focus.  From the minute she gets serious about a trip, all eyes are on it and all nervous system parts begin fighting against the entire concept.  It always a race between going ahead and cancelling.  This is all very un-2026 in which toddlers have already traveled internationally - several times.  

Their parents, Ciwt presumes, think of planes like Ciwt thinks of walking - a pleasant (enough) way to get wherever you want as often as you want.  Not Ciwt; she took one look at an airplane sometime around age 5 and decided immediately and conclusively:  A big metal think like that Can't fly!!  To this day, even though 10's of thousands of planes prove her absolutely wrong on a daily basis, her five year old self remains steadfast.  "Doesn't mean the next one will.  Doesn't mean the one she gets one will make it."

So, heeding her inner five year old, she has canceled many trips, some at the very last minute.  And the few she has taken, like this last one, have been cliffhangers.  Then there is the matter of the return flight....

Okay, all that said, she's happily back to her beloved CIWT and her more beloved readers.

Zoom to Your Theater --- Days15/258 & 259

Walks: Hood, AMC Kabuki (Acme vs Coyote)

Distance average: 3 miles

So when Ciwt was a kid,  the Looney Tunes characters in the shorts before the main movie seemed like silly friends.  Particularly Wile E Coyote and his ridculously impossible and always 'fatal' attempts to catch his nemesis, the Beep Beep, Road Runner!  Now they - and all sorts of other Looney Tunes friends -  are back on the screen in Coyote vs. Acme, and Ciwt suggests you rocket right to a theater to see it. 

 (But don't take an Acme rocket if you expect to get there!)  If you are of 'a certain age' you're sure to have a delightfully.nostalgic time being entertained by the zany, imaginative, lighthearted getaway with a teeny amoung of seriousness and a lot of heart. No thinking needed.

Awwww --- Days 15/255- 257

 

Mutual Friends        photographer: Ernest Porter

So London's Natural History Museum has posted a few previews of its Wildlife Photographer of the Year Exhibition which opens October 16.  From chance encounters to patiently planned, the images are always stunning, thought provoking and touching.  

For instance, what could be more dear than the relationship between an oxpeckers and a rhino captured by Ernest Porter.  The 'wildly' different animals have an ancient close and mutual relationship.  The oxpeckers get a good meal by plucking parasites from the rhino's skin which helps protect the rhino's health.  The birds also act as lookouts, warning rhinos of impending danger.  And it looks to Ciwt like the rhino provides a the oxpecker with a calming 'window seat' to sleep or just calmly chill.

How to Handle Ongoing Glum, Cold, Windy Weather? --- Days 15/251 - 254

Walks: Cold, Windy, Mostly Grey Hood

Distance: Average 3.5 miles

Answer:  Window Seats, Books and Cats