On a business trip to Baltimore, I walked to Inner Harbor and was enticed by a Blue Crab Special sign at a tourist restaurant. I like crab, and I love eating the local specialty when I travel. I took a seat at an outdoor table. The waitress came over to explain the details on the […]

This is part two of the same trip (because I can’t deal with the massive image galleries). If you’re interested, read St. Petersburg, Russia 2016 first. Moscow I loved, loved, loved St. Petersburg. Every day I passed fascinating-looking places that I wished I had more time to explore, but by the time I got to […]

My paramour David designed the set for the Asian tour of Saturday Night Fever, which means he’s spending three weeks in Manila for load-in. This is his third production in Manila, so he’s been there many times, has friends there, and knows the city, but when he’s working, he’s mostly stuck in the theater all […]

Wednesday, May 22, 2013 Damaso and I were both in town at the same time, which is a lot rarer since he moved to Barcelona and I took a touring job. I’m almost caught up posting the … hang on. My spell check has a squiggly green line under “rarer.” When I hover over the word, […]

Test Prep Materials (Williamsburg) Teachers’ materials for SAT, GRE, SHSAT, and GMAT. Mostly 2005-2012, some with notes on them. That’s what I posted on Craigslist. In the interest of not bogging down this story, I’m going to try to let it tell itself. It’ll be whatever the modern, electronic version of epistolary is. Well, almost. […]

Monday, April 9, 2012 Spring break for the Salisbury (CT) public schools usually means Camp Viveca for my nieces., only this year niece number one turned into a teenager, so she went away with a friend instead of coming to stay with me. Niece number two, who just turned ten (whoo-hoo: double digits!), came anyway, […]

Note: This is part four of a six-week trip. For the previous installments, please see my posts on New Zealand, Australia, and Vanuatu. If Vanuatu was consistently voted the happiest place on earth, Fiji might be the friendliest. The flight attendants were ebullient. I don’t think I’ve ever before heard a plane announcement asking passengers […]

Note: This is part three of a six-week trip. For the previous installments, please see my posts on New Zealand and Australia. When Paul suggested going to Australia, I said, “okay, but if we’re in that neighborhood, I want to go to Vanuatu.” I’d first heard of the tiny 83-island Pacific nation from a friend […]

Note: This is part two of a six-week trip. For the previous installment, please see New Zealand 2014. We picked up a rental car at the airport in Hobart and drove to a house we’re staying at through Airbnb. I’ve been an Airbnb host for three years and am excited by my first time being […]

Almost a year after my car got destroyed in a Hurricane Sandy-related incident, I was back in New York and ready to buy a new car, only I didn’t want to have to do any research, make any decisions, or negotiate with anyone about a price. A friend agreed to help me figure it out, […]