We couldn't catch a flight to Rome ...

... so my friend Carol Pucci and I settled for a nice lunch in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood at La Vita e Bella, the cool little Sicilian place where Michelle and McCumber and Mich and I all have enjoyed numerous great meals.


Carol and I decided to get together when she joined Facebook recently and we "friended" each other there. In real life we've been friends for more than 20 years, since I started working at the Seattle Times, although we haven't seen each other in ages. Carol's Facebook profile had a photo of her and some friends at a little restaurant that I thought I recognized from Italy. Sure enough, she confirmed, the restaurant was Orso, in Rome. It wasn't the place I was thinking of, where Michelle and I dined near the Spanish Steps, but it might have been the spot Kaye recommended -- renowned for its antipasti -- and it's located very close to where Michelle and I stayed on our recent trip.

Anyway, when Carol and I set up our lunch date we joked about meeting at Orso. I'll buy lunch, I said, if she picked up the cab fare. In the end, we were happy to meet yesterday at La Vita.

It was really nice to reconnect. When Carol and I worked together she was the Times business editor -- Mich's boss, in fact -- but she has since moved to what she must get tired of hearing is the greatest job in Seattle journalism. She's the Times' travel writer. For "work" she trots the globe meeting cool people, eating great meals and writing stories.

We talked about travel and work and our lives, and when I mentioned Michelle she said, "Hey, I've been to the town of Nicolosi!" Here and here are stories she wrote from there.

Carol loved it in Nicolosi, and all of Sicily, and encouraged us to go. One of these days.

M&M Midge Report

Those "no-see-ums" we encountered in Florida turn out to be Culicoides furens, otherwise known as biting midges. According to this research, the midges are most common in the mangrove swamps and salt marshes of the Florida coast, and only the females bite, mostly at dusk and dawn -- the prime camping time and the exact location for a couple of milky white, Hiassen-esque tourists like Michelle and me to show up at Pennekamp State Park.

Female midges use the blood they suck to produce eggs, with each "blood meal" responsible for between 50 and 110 eggs. So, given my rough estimate of 80 bites on me, and guessing Michelle has about the same, M&M are conservatively responsible for at least 8,000 of these little buggers entering the world.

For that I apologize to the present and future "wimp" campers in Florida, as our friend Donna called us.

A week later, and I'm itchier and buggier than I was when they bit me.

Santa Barbara to L.A.

A few stray shots from yesterday's relaxing and pretty day.

We woke up in the Excellent Element at the beautiful El Capitan State Beach just north of Santa Barbara. This was the place Michelle booked for us online. It was as lovely as advertised and, at $25 a night, quite the bargain. There were a few other campers there, some sitting around a fire, others running a generator to power the TV inside their RVs. But it was clean and quiet, a four-glioma campground.


We got in after dark on Monday, flashlighted our way down to this nice beach just beyond our campsite and enjoyed a simple but perfect dinner: a second turkey sandwich from Pete's in San Francisco and a Red Hook beer from the Element-powered mini-fridge.


We continued driving down the 101 toward LA, but detoured to Ojai, as I mentioned yesterday, and jumped onto the free wireless at the nice little Ojai Coffee Roasting Co.


Entering Los Angeles, we left the 101 for the first time since downtown San Francisco and merged onto the 405, our "home" freeway, or one of them, when we lived here.

Then we headed straight for a little reunion at Kaye's in Belmont Shore (that's in Long Beach, for you non-Californians), and later had dinner with Kaye and Val at El Torito's, one of our old hangs.

Yet another very fun day.

Pie in the Sky II stats so far: Days 4, Excellent Days 4.

Pie in the Sky, Parts I and II

Several mentions here recently about the big Pie in the Sky II road trip, and since the Excellent Element hits the highway a week from today I figure it's time to tell how the voyage got that name, and when and where we're going.

It all started seven years ago, actually, when Miriam rescued me from unemployment and potential bankruptcy by offering me a job at the Los Angeles Times. That story here. I was scheduled to start work in mid-October that year, 2001, so Michelle and I decided to leave a month early and take the long route from Seattle to LA ... via Chicago, Boston, New York, Washington, Louisville, Denver, the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas.

We both always had wanted to take a cross-country road trip and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. When I called Mom to tell her about the plan, though, she thought it sounded over-ambitious.

"That sounds a little pie-in-the-sky to me, Mark," she said.

Well that cracked me up, so we immediately dubbed our trip the Pie in the Sky Tour, and made concert-style t-shirts, complete with projected tour stops on the back, to commemorate the adventure. I still wear mine.










Amazingly, the day of our scheduled departure -- with the moving van showing up early that morning -- was Sept. 11. Yes, that Sept. 11: 9/11. The moving dudes knocked on our door at about 7:30 and asked if we were watching TV. No, we said, and we turned it on to see the footage of planes flying into the World Trade Center. And then the moving guys unplugged our TV to load it onto the truck and Michelle and I climbed into my old Honda Civic wagon and we started driving east.

Weird. No planes in the sky and by the time we got past Spokane, a couple hundred miles east of Seattle, no solid radio signal either. We went for hours at a time without any news about what was going on.

And yet, we managed to have a great trip. We camped in Yellowstone, played cards in Deadwood, ate dinner with a bunch of flag-waving patriots in a small red-state diner someplace and then, later that same day, cruised into the liberal college town of Mankato, Minn., to find a peacenik coffee shop still open at midnight. Trippy.

Our plan had been to see ballgames in some classic parks like Wrigley Field, but the terrorist attacks suspended the baseball season. Some guy in a poker game in Shakopee, Minn., was raving about the beauty of the northern shores of the Great Lakes around that time of year, so we decided to blow off Chicago and head north instead, through Duluth and into Canada. That leg of the trip truly was as beautiful as advertised, but strange too. That's where we ran into Canadians, including the proprietor of a B&B where we stayed, who told us Americans had the attacks coming and almost seemed to hold us responsible.

Eventually we made our way through Niagara Falls and Boston and into New York, where we visited the less-than-two-week-old Ground Zero -- eerie, upsetting and unforgettable -- before moving onto happier destinations.

Some of the coolest parts of Pie in the Sky I were hooking up with friends and family, including M&M regulars Ronelle and her crew in New Jersey and Janice (below) and hers in Louisville, as well as Michelle's sister Renee and her family in Colorado. We also loved the Grand Canyon and the area around Moab, Utah (top picture). All those stops will be part of Pie in the Sky II as well.

Although we had tour dates on our t-shirts, we didn't really have a set agenda for that first trip, and that was a lot of its charm. The Canada detour was just one example of our spontaneity. We had a big Rand McNally atlas with us, and we traced our path in pen as we went -- it still hangs on our wall.

For this trip, with three times as much time on the road, our plans are even less set -- really, really, pie-in-the-sky, Mom -- except for the first two weeks, which are planned. We're leaving next Saturday, heading for Mom's place in Eugene; then to San Francisco, where Michelle has a speaking gig at the San Francisco Chronicle; to Santa Barbara, where she booked us an awesome camping spot on the beach; to Los Angeles, where she's speaking at a Cal State Fullerton writer's conference; to Las Vegas for a night; and then to New Orleans for JazzFest.

After that, wide open. We know we want to see some friends and hit some card rooms. We both kind of want to see the Florida Keys and Maine, where we've never been, and we hope to stay off the interstates and travel the smaller highways and back roads. The beauty of a long break. We'll camp and sleep in the tricked-out car when we can, grab a motel room if we absolutely need a shower.

Overly ambitious? Pie in the sky? Maybe, but something tells me we'll pull it off. With stories to tell.

Jazz Fest 2008

One of our big early stops on the Pie in the Sky Tour of America (II) will be to attend the second weekend of the Jazz Fest in New Orleans. Here's a slide show of our last trip to New Orleans and to the Jazz Fest:



For a slideshow with larger images go here.

In case you're wondering just how jealous you should be of our Jazz Fest pitstop, here's the lineup:

Friday, May 2

Art Neville, Stevie Wonder, John Prine, Michael Franti & Spearhead, Richard Thompson, John Butler Trio, John Hammond, Trombone Shorty & Orleans Ave., Marva Wright & the BMWs, Terence Blanchard & the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, Papa Grows Funk, Sunpie’s Tribute to Clifton Chenier, Zigaboo Modeliste, The Jackson Southernaires, The Lee Boys, Bonerama, The Bad Plus, John Boutté, Soul Rebels, Ingrid Lucia, Coco Robicheaux & Spiritland, Theryl “Houseman” DeClouet, Chubby Carrier & the Bayou Swamp Band, Bluerunners, Wanda Rouzan, Driskill Mountain Boys, Ann Savoy’s Sleepless Knights, New Orleans Jazz Vipers feat. Sophie Lee, Stoney B & Grampa Elliot, Gina Forsyth & the Malvinas, Clive Wilson & the New Orleans Serenaders feat. Butch Thompson, New Wave Brass Band, Tuba Woodshed feat. Matt Perrine and Kirk Joseph, Belton Richard & the Musical Aces, Eve’s Lucky Planet, Larry Garner with Henry Gray, Ritmo Caribeño, New Orleans Jazz Ramblers, Louisiana Repertory Jazz Ensemble, Betty Winn & One A-Chord, Lyle Henderson & Emmanuel, Kid Simmons’ Local International Allstars, Pinettes Brass Band, D.L. Menard & the Louisiana Aces, Legacy – the students of Alvin Batiste, Greater Antioch Gospel Choir, New Orleans Mardi Gras Rhythm Indian Section, Ebenezer BC Radio Choir, Loyola University Jazz Ensemble, Casa Samba, The Smooth Family, Eulenspeigel Puppets of Iowa, Original Big Seven and Original Four SAPCs, McMain High School Gospel Choir, Fi Yi Yi & the Mandingo Warriors, New Orleans School of Circus Arts and ISL, Gospel Inspirations of Boutte, Rosedean Choir of South Africa, Scene Boosters and Old N Nu Fellas SAPCs…


Saturday, May

Marcia Ball, Jimmy Buffett, Diana Krall, Steel Pulse, The Roots, Bobby McFerrin and Chick Corea, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Bishop Paul S. Morton Sr. & the Greater St. Stephens Mass Choir, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Henry Butler, Aaron Neville’s Gospel Soul, John Mooney & Bluesiana, the subdudes, New Leviathan Oriental Foxtrot Orchestra, Ruthie Foster, Irvin Mayfield & the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, Savoy Center of Eunice Saturday Cajun Jam, Charmaine Neville, The Dixie Cups, Nathan & the Zydeco Cha-Chas, James Andrews, Dr. Michael White & the Original Liberty Jazz Band feat. Thais Clark, Lillian Boutté, Geno Delafose & French Rockin’ Boogie, Stephanie Jordan, War Chief Juan & Young Fire, Pine Leaf Boys, Bionik Brown, Treme Brass Band, New Orleans Blues Serenaders, Spencer Bohren, Don Vappie & the Creole Jazz Serenaders, Roddie Romero & the Hub City Allstars, Lil’ Buck Sinegal feat. Rudy Richard, Feufollet, Pinstripe Brass Band, Storyville Stompers Brass Band, Tribute to Max Roach feat. Herlin Riley, Jason Marsalis, and Shannon Powell, Tondrae, Chappy, Danza feat. Evan Christopher and Tom McDermott, Beyond Measure, Lil Nathan & the Zydeco Big Timers, Rumba Buena, Rocks of Harmony, Guitar Lightnin’ Lee, St. Joseph the Worker Mass Choir, Big Chief Ke Ke & Comanche Hunters and White Cloud Hunters Mardi Gras Indians, Leviticus Gospel Singers, Tulane University Jazz Ensemble, Secondline Jammers, New Generation and Undefeated Divas SAPCs, Trouble Nation and Mohawk Hunters Mardi Gras Hunters, Archdiocese of New Orleans Mass Choir, Bester Singers, Donald Lewis, Young Guardians of the Flame, Stephen Foster’s Mid City Workshop Alumni Ensemble, Westbank Steppers, Valley of the Silent Men and Pigeon Town Steppers SAPCs, Golden Blade and Wild Tchoupitoulas Mardi Gras Indians…


Sunday, May 4

The Neville Brothers, Santana, Maze feat. Frankie Beverly, The Raconteurs, Dianne Reeves, Galactic, The Radiators, The Derek Trucks Band, Keb’ Mo’, Rebirth Brass Band, Sonny Landreth, Snooks Eaglin, John P. Kee & the New Life Community Choir, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Tribute to Mahalia Jackson feat. Irma Thomas, Marva Wright and Rachelle Richard, Vernel Bagneris: Jelly Roll & Me, Amanda Shaw & the Cute Guys, Ivan Neville’s Dumpstaphunk, DJ Captain Charles, Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet feat. Bela Fleck, Kenny Neal, Sherman Washington & the Zion Harmonizers, Bob French & the Original Tuxedo Jazz Band, Elysian Fieldz, The New Orleans Bingo Show!, Benny Grunch & the Bunch, Goldman Thibodeaux & the Lawtell Playboys, Jonathan Batiste, Rotary Downs, George French, Chris Ardoin & Nu Step, Guitar Slim Jr., Grupo Fantasma, Lost Bayou Ramblers, Ovi-G & the Froggies, The Revealers, Pfister Sisters, Salvador Santana Band, William Smith’s Tribute to Kid Sheik, Eddie Boh Paris aka Chops, SUBR Jazz Ensemble, Chris Clifton, Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Ensemble, New Orleans Spiritualettes, Zulu Male Ensemble, The Jazz Jam, Tribute to Tuba Fats, Highsteppers Brass Band, Black Eagles, Hardhead Hunters and Apache Hunters Mardi Gras Indians, Lady Rollers and CTC Steppers SAPCs, Guyland Leday with Family & Friends Zydeco Band, Young Traditional New Orleans Brass Band, Watson Memorial Teaching Ministries, Wild Apaches, Young Magnolias and Black Feathers Mardi Gras Indians, Original Prince of Wales and the Original New Orleans Lady Buckjumpers SAPCs, Tornado Brass Band, Judy Stock, Minister Jai Reed…

If we get there early enough on Thursday, we might be able to stop in for Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys, and Tower of Power.

El Capitan Awesomeness

Today I booked a room -- make that a parking spot -- at the El Capitan State Beach just north of Santa Barbara. Cost for one of the best addresses in the universe: $35 bucks. We'll be staying there April 21, sleeping in the tricked out Tripmobile. Sweet!

Thanks to isotaupe for the pic. She also has some cool pics of national pillowfight day, which took place last weekend ...

Tricking out the Tripmobile

Here at last are some pix of the platform I built. Yesterday I stained it a lovely mahogany, and today I'll be lacquering it, as it doesn't seem to be losing its funky raw wood smell over time. Also, we won't have to worry about spilling water on it, or about mold (I don't think) if I lacquer it.

In the sunshine

We've been back from Europe for a little more than a week now and still haven't told the story of what was probably our vacation's most memorable day -- and for me, weirdly, one of my favorites.

Let me say first that Michelle and I never fight, about anything. In the eight years-plus that we've been together I can remember maybe two or three minor dust-ups. So seldom and for such low stakes do we tussle that the stupid fight we had on the day we visited the Eiffel Tower -- two weeks ago today, I believe -- counts among our biggies.

The day began promisingly enough. We took the Metro to the Eiffel's nearest stop, about half a mile away, then stopped and took a couple pictures and strolled the pleasant stroll along the Seine to the monument. It was a cold but beautiful day. So far so good.



Despite being the off-season for tourists, there were a lot of people lined up under the base of the tower, where there were two options being offered: You could take an elevator up to one of the three viewing platforms, at prices ranging from about 6 to 11 euros, or you could pay 4 euros to walk up what looked to be about a billion steps to the first, lowest, platform.

Oddly, that sounded fun to me. Maybe I was remembering how much I enjoyed, windedly, climbing the steps of Giotto's Bell Tower in Florence on my first trip there nearly 20 years ago. Michelle had no interest in the Eiffel stairs; maybe she'd done it before, I can't remember. But that was OK; this wasn't the fight part. As we often do, we agreed to go our separate ways and hook back up afterward.

"I'll meet you over there in the sunshine," I said, pointing to some benches in what would be the foreground of the top picture above. We went to stand in our lines.

At one point during the longish wait a rope descended from somewhere above, and several men took turns rappelling down to the tourist staging area and then climbing back up the rope. This was to discourage whining about the stairs, I suppose. Amazing.


I finally got to the front of the line, paid my 4 euros and began my ascent.


I liked walking. You could appreciate the tower's height, one step at a time, and also the marvel of the engineering. On some of the landings there were posters with fun facts about the Eiffel Tower, when it was built, how many steps to the top (1,600 and something), stuff like that. One poster told the story of a Paris newspaper that, a couple years after the tower opened, sponsored a race to the top. Somebody won in like seven minutes, I think, some ridiculous time.

It didn't go so fast for me. Classic eyes-stomach disconnect. For the entire trip we did a lot of walking and I held up pretty well, but I did get tired and had to stop for frequent rests. On the Eiffel stairclimb I trudged up with little painted signs marking my progress -- 90 steps, now 160, now 200, until finally at 300 and something I made it. Whew.

I'll admit, I was tired. But it was beautiful and I enjoyed sitting on a bench looking at the view. I walked around the perimeter of the platform, shooting a couple of pics, including this, my favorite:

I went into the gift shop and bought a couple of trinkets, then sat down with my bottle of water and wrote a couple of postcards. I wasn't dawdling, but I wasn't in a giant rush either. Eventually I caught my breath, felt a little spring back in my legs and began the long walk back down.

At the base of the tower I looked for Michelle in the sunshine -- no luck -- used the restroom, took a quick lap around the benched area of the park where she might be -- still no luck -- then sat down on a bench closest to the Tower.

I'd barely opened my paperback when Michelle stormed up. "Where have you been," she said, no hint of fun in her voice. I began to stammer something about what I'd been up to, but she said I'd kept her waiting for 45 minutes in the cold and hadn't been where I was supposed to be in the sunshine.

She turned around and walked away and I shlumped after her.

Even now, I suspect, she'll read this and get mad all over again. Somehow the fact that she was in an elevator and I was on the stairs wasn't figuring into her calculations. In fairness, it was cold, and "over there in the sunshine" amounted to a fairly vague meeting place. I was probably wrong in a half dozen other ways I can't even conceive. No matter. We somehow had managed to erect a fun-blocking barrier of monumental engineering, and it remained in place, all 7,300 tons of puddled iron of it, for the rest of the day, with a long shadow into the next.

In silence we schlepped to a bus stop, boarded the first one that stopped, then got out at Luxembourg Gardens, near our hotel -- she must have known where we were going -- and ate what was otherwise one of my favorite Paris meals at the Brasserie de Luxembourg.

As fights go it wasn't exactly Ali-Foreman, and in the end it couldn't really spoil what was a touristy highlight of the trip.

We've tried, with typical M&M style, to laugh ourselves out of it, but I think we both know the humor's only about half-working.

At the Amsterdam airport, waiting for our connection between Rome and San Francisco, Michelle got up to go use the restroom.

"I'll meet you over there," I said, "in the sunshine."

"Heh."

It's only logical

One of the anticipated highlights of our Paris trip was a visit to the Aviation Club de France, a relatively new card room on the Champs Elysees which is part of the World Poker Tour on TV and boasts of having "the best cash games in Europe." Okeydoke, I don't know how to say deal me in in French, but deal me in.

So on the Friday that we were in town, after spending most of the morning and afternoon at the Louvre (that's it in the picture above), we walked the rest of the way up the Right Bank (listen to me) and after asking directions a couple of times found the place.

It was just a single door front, no big glitzy casino neon, and a single doorman/bouncer/guard. He allowed us in and we walked up a flight of carpeted stairs to find a guy in a suit sitting at a desk at the front of a hallway, with the den of iniquity apparently hidden (quietly) somewhere behind him. The Bellagio this wasn't.

When we inquired about playing poker the desk dude asked if we had passports. Mine was in my day pack, no sweat, but Michelle had left hers back at the hotel. I'm sorry, he said, without a passport you can't play here.

Michelle asked if she could just watch while I played for a little while.

No, the man said, with a sarcastic (I thought) Frenchy smile. "If you need zee passport to enter zee casino then of course I cannot allow you into zee casino to watch without zee passport. It is only logical."

"Yeah," I said to Michelle, using the double-reverse head-fake mock tone that I knew she would recognize but that he wouldn't, "It's only logical."

Dumbass Frenchman smiled in my direction as if to say: Women, what're ya gonna do.

So, although we were tired from our long walk and Michelle was catching a cold and wanted to sit down, we seemed out of options. We thanked Frenchy for his time and walked back outside. On the sidewalk Michelle suggested that I go back in and play for a few hours. She could take the Metro back to the hotel, she said, and I could meet her back there later. Good girlfriend.

When I walked back upstairs the guy gave me a knowing smile. "Ah, you're back," he said. "Maybe madame will return later."

Yeah, I thought, and maybe she'll kick your sorry logical ass for you. But I dutifully handed over my passport, filled out a little form and waited to be escorted down the secret hallway to the poker action.

Frenchy came around the desk, looked me over and stopped dead in his tracks. "Oh, I'm sorry," he said, "I didn't notice. We're going to have to find you some shoes. It is a house rule."

I had already checked to make sure this wasn't some kind of 007, tuxedos-only joint, and nobody had said anything about my casual (but neat and clean) travel attire. Now, though, my trusty REI hiking boots were a problem.

"Do not worry," Frenchy continued, "we can take care of you."

He walked me into a tiny coat closet, invited me to hang up my rain jacket and backpack, and suggested that I pick out some dress shoes from the back of the closet. What difference my footwear could possibly make -- in a few minutes it would be invisible under the poker table -- I couldn't imagine, but whatever. When in Paris.

Maybe now you're picturing a neat row of nice, shiny oxfords and loafers to choose from. Nopey, not quite. Instead, on the floor, under the hanging overcoats and rain gear was a medium-size pile of beat-up street shoes -- a helter-skelter leather pyramid -- that looked like it might have come from the Goodwill, or Dachau.

None of the shoes were in pairs, and none had laces. "We don't want you to 'forget' and walk back to your hotel in our shoes," the coat-check man explained.

I tried on a dozen shoes and finally found one that was only a half-size too small, then spent several more minutes looking for its mate. Finally I emerged from the closet, two scuffed, dusty, pinching, laceless "dress shoes" on my feet, wondering how this look conceivably could be more presentable than my nice $250 hikers. I did not see the logic. But OK, another hurdle cleared.

Now I was escorted back to the poker area, which consisted of about 10 or 12 tables spread among two small parlor rooms and a connecting hallway, but with games in progress at only four of them. I asked the host what limits were being spread -- what was the size of the games being offered -- and he informed me that they didn't play any structured-limit games like the ones Michelle and I usually play. The only options were no-limit games -- the stuff of old Western movies and big-money tournaments like the World Series of Poker -- with minimum buy-ins of either 50 or 100 euros, about $80 to $160.

There was a long waiting list, he said, but he'd be happy to put me on the board. He wrote down "MM (UK)" -- close enough; whatever the actual nationality, I was the English-speaking foreigner with the loaners on my feet.

Now I saw that there were literally 30 people ahead of me on the board and for the first time noticed all the men (only two women in the whole club) standing around waiting to get into a game. Why they didn't start two or three new games, like they'd do here at the Muck or in any other card room I've visited, I couldn't guess. It was going to be a long wait, and if I hadn't been tired from our day of walking and museum-touring, I might have bailed right then.

Eventually, about an hour later, I got a seat in the bigger of the two games, the 100-e minimum buy-in with blinds of e5 and e10.

Now, no-limit hold 'em, despite being the king of poker, really isn't my game. I've logged thousands more hours in small- to medium-stakes limit games, and I feel like the rhythms, betting patterns and mathematical calculations of those structured games have become second nature to me. I sometimes lose and I sometimes make a mistake, but I think I always know the best play, or can figure it out if I take a minute. My experience in no-limit is much narrower. I've played it in tournaments but only once or twice in a live game like this, and with much less confidence than I'd normally have.

Still, I'd been watching as I was waiting and I could see that this game was soft. Nobody was raising, especially before the flop, and too many players were playing too many hands. They may have been splendidly shod, but they were making beaucoup mathematical and strategic errors that even I could see from the rail.

I decided to buy in for the minimum 100 euros and see what developed. This, I knew, was not a good game plan. Since the game had been going a while several players had much more money than that in front of them; in a no-limit game you don't want to be short-stacked against an opponent, who can use that advantage to push you out of pots. Smart no-limit players buy in for as much as they need to match the big stacks at the table. But Europe's expensive with the weak dollar right now and I didn't come here to win or lose a fortune. I just wanted to experience some Paris-style poker and have some fun. If I caught some cards and won a little money, great. If I lost my e100, so be it; my bankroll would live to fight another day.

On the second hand I was dealt, what do you know: pocket aces!

It was only now that I realized, hey, everyone's speaking French, which I don't understand, and no one, including the dealer, seems to understand any English.

"Raise," I said -- what the hell, it's an American game -- and I made it e30 to go. What? A raise? This seemed to break the friendly vibe. I heard a lot of under-their-breath French muttering and half expected to be marched back to the coat closet. But two players called, and one -- a young sunglasses-wearing guy of a poker type I'd recognize in any language -- stared at me, hard.

They have no idea what I'm up to, I thought. I'm a crazy foreigner, and I could have any two cards.

The flop brought an ace to give me three of a kind, beautiful, and no apparent flush or straight draws. I bet out, about a third of the pot, inviting callers. Only the starer called. The turn paired the board, giving me a full house. Now I was truly golden, unless the other guy held exactly 7-7 for quads. I checked and he checked behind me. On the river, a blank, I bet most but not all of my remaining chips, he called, and I scooped a nice pot to about double my chip stack.

The Frenchies muttered some more. "Nothing to it," I said in loud, annoying English. I thought maybe I'd put them all on Froggy tilt and walk out with all their euros.

For the next hour I didn't see any decent cards and didn't play a hand, but I kept up my chatter, just to make it seem like I was part of the game and to see if I could provoke any reactions. If nothing else, I thought, I'll remind these guys that Texas hold 'em is an American (not French or even UK) game, and maybe lay some universal poker expressions on them.

When one guy made his straight draw on the end but didn't bet, unsuccessfully trying for a check-raise against a wise or gun-shy opponent, I gave him my standard needle: "Whassamatter man, you don't like money? Bet your own damn hands!"

Another guy in another pot checked, hoping for a free card, but ran into a big bet. "Check your hat!" I said. "Cash money!"

This was entertaining to no one but me, but I didn't care. I was money ahead, playing poker in Paris and except for my feet about as comfy as I could be.

Finally I got another hand to play, ace-king, and raised to my standard 30 euros. This time several players called, and although I caught a king on the flop sunglasses kid caught two running cards to make a straight, and I was back down to less than my original buy-in.

A few hands later I had pocket 8s, raised all in and was called by one player with pocket 5s. He caught a 5 on the river and I was out of chips.

In some circumstances I might have bought in again -- I still liked my chances in this game -- but I'd lost what I had budgeted and had some fun along the way. Good time to head back across the river and find Michelle, I figured. It was only logical.

Pie in the Sky Part II

Here's a piece of awesome news: My request for a three-month leave has been approved by my editor David and my publisher Roger, two really awesome dudes, I have to say.

The Backstory: Mark started saying a year or so ago that he would like to take a long drive around the country and write a book about xxxxxxx (book-savvy friend Donna tells us not to say too much about the secret sauce!)

So in December or so I put the idea to David, my boss and a fellow xxxxxx afficianado. He immediately endorsed the idea, and seemed even to be wishing a bit that he could come with. He pitched the idea to Roger, my publisher, who also approved.

It's been over a year now since Mark collapsed just a few feet away from where I'm sitting now, heralding the beginning of his life as a sick guy.

One of the most amazing revelations of this awful experience has been just how awesome my bosses are. They have been incredibly giving, generous and understanding. I can't even begin to explain all the little and big things they have done to make this path easier for us to walk. They have really been amazing.

I tried to write a bunch of stuff just now about just how amazing they are, and all they have done for us since Mark got sick, but I deleted it. It all feels too personal and too much to get into.

So this is all I have to say: I wish such bosses upon you. Even in our misfortune, we are fortunate. And thank you, thank you.

More to come, on The Great Adventures of Cat Psychiatrist and Old Navy.

What's that you're saying?

It's like the French -- to steal further from the old Steve Martin bit -- have a different word for everything.

Before our trip Michelle and I brushed up a bit on our Italian and it really helped. We both knew a little already, and after a couple of months of using the computer software, listening to the "Phrase-a-Day" podcasts and drilling each other with the flash cards, we were starting to feel comfortable with the language. Far from fluent, but definitely able to pick out a few important words in a conversation and to make ourselves understood.

Plus the Italians are famously generous toward any lame attempt to speak their language. Stammer something practically insensible with your thick American accent -- "I has well coffee!" -- and people will stop and applaud with wonder. My God, you speak beautiful Italian! Michelle, especially, was complimented all the time.

In Paris, different story.

Michelle had a couple years of high school or college French but she didn't do any review at all, and I've never been able to speak or read a word. All those extra vowels and x's and silent letters. ... I get nervous asking for a croissant, and that's here in Seattle. I also had this notion that French people were snooty and unforgiving about stupid Americans' ignorance of their beautiful language.

Gauche -- that's a French word, right?, and the one I can pronounce! -- that's how I figured I'd feel every time I opened my mouth. On that much, I was right.

On our first night in Paris, after getting checked into our hotel we decided to walk around our awesome Latin Quarter neighborhood (that's the 5th Arrondissement, don't ask me how to say it), and look for something to eat. We settled on a nice looking fish place called La Criee. From the moment we walked in I was lost. The staff didn't speak any English, Michelle's brave attempts at French weren't being understood and there was only one word on the menu, "vin," about which I could make a reasonable guess. We ended up pointing to a couple of things and hoping. I ended up with a platter with two whole trout-sized fish laid out, heads, tails, bones all in place, no side dishes or other attempts at presentation.

Who knows, maybe deux carcasses is a French delicacy and La Criee is the new Ritz, but it didn't really do it for me. Michelle ate her meal and helped with mine and claimed to like it. It must be me, I thought, a big American baby, but for the rest of the trip I referred to that place as "The Crying Fish."

The people at The Crying Fish were nice, we just had a language barrier. OK, no prob. The next day, we tried a little cafe on the main boulevard in the neighborhood, a prime tourist area, and asked in Michelle's game but broken French for a table. The host literally looked down his nose at us.

"Oh," he said, "I can see we're going to need the English menus."

How do you say "what a dick" in French?

A proposito (that's Italian for "by they way"), I found that French people even clear their throats in French. The first time I noticed it was on a bus one day when a middle-aged man in a business suit and hat cleared his throat. Instead of something like "ahem," imagine Pepe le Pew laying on a thick "hnn-hnn-hnn-HUHHHNNN." It was awesome, and I heard others doing the same thing on the street; I've been clearing my throat that way ever since.

All of this, by the way (class: in Italiano?) isn't meant to disparage the Parisians or belittle our time there, which I loved. If anything, the language snootiness loosened me up. I'm not going to please anyone anyway, I figured, so why sweat it. I'm just saying.

And anyway, by the end of our short week in Paris I was able to say good morning and order my favorite breakfast treat, a pain aux raisin -- "pan ah ray-zahn," was my approximation -- and get served too. Tasty, in any language.

Bonjour.

Michelle in Europe

Very cool slide show Michelle posted earlier, but since they're all her pics from her camera she's not in any of them. That just ain't right.

Here are a couple of my faves of her from our trip:


On the walk to the Eiffel Tower.


We had many terrific restaurant experiences everywhere we went, but some of our favorite meals were our daily impromptu picnics. It seemed there was always an excellent deli and bakery nearby, so we'd start the day by picking up a fresh loaf of bread or baguette, get a few slices of prosciutto or salami and some provolone or brie, maybe a small container of artichoke hearts, and then, when we got hungry, stop on a bench or in a park someplace and make a little feast. Yum.

This picture was one of the best lunches of the trip, in a little piazza just outside the Vatican (that's the outside wall of St. Peter's Square on the right).


We decided at the last minute, while we were nearing the end of our Paris leg, to take a quick one-day side trip to Florence. So we flew from Paris to Rome and then jumped directly on the Firenze train. Michelle made all the travel arrangements on the Internet from our Paris hotel room, including a nice little pensione for one night.

This shot, outside the Florence Cathedral, the amazing 14th century church and bell tower known as Il Duomo, was a typical sight on our trip: Michelle wielding her camera.

Europe slideshow

For a slideshow with larger images go here. Click on CAPTIONS to see more info about each picture ...

A final indignity (stateside)

If we had been blogging properly, telling stories as we went, this would have been the first entry. Now it's coming slightly in the middle, since we had one or two quick teaser posts from Europe and last night's we're-too-tired-to-blog update.

(Update on the update: We went to bed at 9:30 last night, an all-time M&M record, but then again that was 6:30 this morning to us, and we had been up since 2 a.m. the day before. Even so, we didn't sleep well -- I caught a cold and kept us awake coughing and nose-blowing all night -- and finally gave up and made some coffee at 5, another M&M first.)

So anyway.

A week ago Sunday, when Mich so generously picked us up and took us to the Seattle airport, we were excited and ready to get checked in and through security, even though we had nearly three hours before our flight. I was in such a good mood I'd practically forgotten about the senior-discount and healthy-eating indignities, but when we got to the security screening station all that changed.

Experienced travelers by now, we went about our duties like automatons: backpacks on the conveyor, empty pockets of change and metal, remove jacket, kick off shoes and stand, ticket in hand, ready to be waved through the metal-detector arch.

The middle-aged screening lady looked me over. "Are you carrying a pouch," she asked, patting her belly.

Jeez. And this was before two weeks of eating our way through the food capitals of Europe! I knew she wasn't kidding either, since joking around at a TSA checkpoint is against federal law.

No, I said, that's just my gut.

Michelle and I laughed and agreed not to take it as a bad omen for our trip. In fact, it became a fun refrain in Rome and Paris. Michelle would show me a picture of myself in front of the Spanish Steps. "Are you carrying a pouch?" Ha ha. Or, in the Louvre, "Look at the pouch on that guy!"

My pouch truly is bigger now than when we left, although no one had the poor manners to mention it again. We ate like fiends -- what's the point of going to Paris if you're not going to have a croissant for breakfast? -- and both resolved to be more responsible when we got home.

As Frank would say ...

It's nice to go traveling, but it's oh so nice to come home.

Michelle and I always quote that Sinatra line after a trip, even one as cool and fun as this one has been. We rocked pretty hard, to the point that now, as much fun as we had, neither of us can imagine staying any longer in Europe.

Or maybe we're just tired from this incredibly long day of travel -- more than 24 hours, from Rome to Amsterdam to San Francisco to Seattle, and that's only because Michelle managed to talk us onto an earlier flight in SF, saving us a four-hour layover there.

We're wasted, but happy. Photos to process, sleep to get and then more stories to come.

Pardonez moi

We briefly interrupt this tres bien, molto buono vacazione to wish my mom, Rita, a very happy birthday.

Anyone who has been following this blog for awhile knows that Mom is an excellent and regular contributor. She's also about the coolest, easiest-going mother you could wish for, and one of the all-time good and fair people. I won't say how old she is in this post -- old enough that it's a shame she hasn't been to Rome and Paris -- but if I reach her age I'd happily settle for half her health, smarts and spirit.

We've just gotten up from our afternoon nap after being out and enjoying Paris all day, but it's still morning where Mom is in Oregon, so Happy Birthday! Michelle and I hope you have a wonderful day planned. Live it up!

...

In vacation news ... heading out now for a bite of dinner somewhere, then tomorrow back to Rome and -- in a last-minute change of plans -- a quick day trip up to Florence before returning home. Bunches of photos and more complete reports on our return. Thanks for following along.

M&M

il materasso pneumatico

That's the air mattress, to you and me.

So, Mark and I are studying Italian. We have a couple o' three sources we're using to learn our Eye-talian: This here book, the Daily Phrase Italian podcast, and a set of 1,000 vocabulary cards. We're on day six of the podcast, and chapter three of the book.

Ciao!

Trip Mania

Okay kids, this is a participatory sport.

I get the urge to hit the road. Mark does too, but our ideas are kind of spongey. We can't seem to focus.

I'm half thinking of taking Mark off to Venice in February, then a three month road trip across America in July.

I'm just curious: If you were the boss of us, where would you tell us to go? Or if you were us (even better) where would YOU go?

The rules: You have three weeks of vacation, plus up to 6 months off pay free. Make your schedule. All must occur within the year 2008.

Old Home Week

So I dropped by Friday to see my old pals at The Orange County Register, and they literally welcomed me with open arms. At least, my former co-worker David Whiting did. He greets me with "I had a dream about you," and goes into a long story about how in this dream he was at a bar, and I walked in and ordered a drink. And that was it. But the dream had been the night before, and now here I was, dropping in after seven years away, and what's up with that? Weird, huh? The man to the left is fellow editor Steve Plesa, whose only comment -- a few minutes into the story -- was "I can't believe you're still going on about this." Or something to that effect.



The OCRegister gave me my first full time gig in journalism (thanks Tonnie!) back in June, 1990. I worked as a community reporter for two years, then as a fitness reporter, then as a medical reporter. I quit in Dec. 1999, I think it was, to check out the Internet thing I'd been hearing so much about. Friday I was back to check out the Reg's newfangled CCI system -- they're one of a handful using NewsGate right now. Former fellow CCI Superuser David Medzerian was kind enough to do the honors.

The system's pretty cool, but it's missing a big Web integration piece.




David gave me a quick tour of the newsroom. Check out their cool soundbooth, right in the middle of the newsroom! I stepped inside and said "la lalalala!" really loud (or something to that effect.) No one could hear me. I felt like i was inside of my Bose headphones. I want one.



Also, the Reg has a TV studio in the newsroom. Very cool.



Also ran into some old friends, reporters Nancy Luna, John Gittelson and Mary Ann Milbourn.



And former CCI team member Chris Boucly:


Former fellow reporter (now an editor) and sometime marathon training partner Frank Mickadeit:





Then it was up to the Register's cafeteria, the Daily Platter (shudder), where I chatted for a while with David Whiting, who is going to help lead the newsroom into a Web First future. Interesting note, the guy who rented us the house down the street from Blossom's on Orange Grove owned the company that dished up the food here. I tried to tell him, but I don't think he was listening.