If you’ve been following my journey, you know that yesterday morning I left Greenville, SC, for Atlanta. It was about a three hour drive, technically less, but I stopped at bookstores and other places to entertain myself along the way.
As a small business owner, I am doing everything I can to make this trip inexpensive and fun.
I have a massive crate of snacks (which M said was very me) that are my emergency food rations and I’ve been gathering more items along the way– the “breakfast” at my previous hotel was grab-and-go so I now have two muffins. I stopped at a rest stop in Anderson County, South Carolina (my mother’s maiden name, plus near Clemson where my stepmom attended school) and saw that vending machine benefited the South Carolina some-organization-for-the-blind. I bought two snacks, because I saw something one doesn’t normally see in vending machine: snacks with protein! Individual packs of tuna salad and chicken salad. My collection now has one of each. And at the conference, I snagged a bag of raisinets. Fruit, right?
Of my snacks, I have eaten two KIND breakfast bars and a bag of harvest cheddar snap peas. I had forgotten how delicious those are.
My breakfast stop yesterday was Panera. They offered me a $1 bagel again. I considered Waffle House for my “main meal” stop of the day, but the timing didn’t work out because I stopped at a TA “travel center” to pee and grabbed a banana while selecting a magnet for Eva.
I have been buying Eva magnets from different places because they are usually cheap, easy to transport and they are easy to store at home. Magnets don’t take up space. They sit on the fridge or on a filing cabinet. I texted her from the truck stop to ask, “Are you to old for a magnet?” and I got the response, “never.”
Three Bookstores of the Day
Walls Of Books: A chain of used bookstores, I visited the one in Commerce, Ga. Bought three old paperbacks. Really wanted a book on found on Hebrew and English and the Old Testament but it was almost $20 and I can’t read Hebrew.
The Book Nook: A strange used everything store in Lilburn, Ga. This was the only place I didn’t talk to anyone because the people and the customers were all really old. And it was the only place I walked into where nobody talked to me. They had everything from records to comics to books and DVDs. And a cat-themed ladies room.
Phoenix & Dragon: A spiritual bookstore on the outskirts of Atlanta. I had to go and find a witchy present for Eva. And the name! They had three cats who live in the store. Best collection of tarot cards I gave ever seen in one place.
Today marked the first day of my week-plus trip to present an erotic writing workshop at SexDownSouth: Atlanta, promoting Parisian Phoenix’s Juicy Bits. I left home at about 7:50 a.m. and headed to the bank to deposit some checks at the a.t.m. Then, after much thought, I headed to Panera and picked up an iced tea and already had to pee.
At 8:15 a.m., I left Panera with a toasted asiago bagel and my tea. (They offered me a bagel for $1 today.) Sixty-five miles later I had to pee again! So I stopped in Grimes, Pa., Exit 13, at our “favorite Sheetz.” This Sheetz has an entire row of smoothie machines and frozen icee flavors.
I made it to Route 83 and Harrisburg by 9:50, despite all my stops. By 10:30 a.m., I had eaten my gummy worms and needed to pee yet again. So I stopped in Shrewsbury, Pa., near the border of Maryland, in an area where they had massive shopping plazas with every eatery known to man. Even a Panera. I used the restroom and grabbed a coffee, even though I hadn’t finished my tea.
I left Shrewsbury at 10:45 and arrived in DC at M’s house at 12:07 p.m.
M, my traveling companion through all my crazy adventures on several continents, and I hung around the house and chit-chatted for hours and spent some time watching the black squirrel that hangs around their house, Climber Meta.
We went to Siam House DC for a lovely thai dinner, where I had mango curry with tofu. So delicious!
My hosts are currently having a great day exploring all my maps from AAA.
Today, I donned my publisher hat and I drove to Bernards Township Public Library in Basking Ridge to support poet and filmmaker McKenna Graf. McKenna publisher her second volume of poetry with Parisian Phoenix Publishing after self-publishing her poetry debut. Her next event is in Manhattan on August 22, 6 p.m., at the Barnes & Noble on the Upper East Side.
I started my day with a squawking cockatoo, and then proceeded to come downstairs with the intent to write a draft of my upcoming political profiles for Armchair Lehigh Valley and I did an hour of work on it. But for some reason sifting through Milou Mackenzie’s different Pennsylvania house bills spiked my anxiety and allowed that little voice to take hold. You know– the negative thoughts voice that says, “You can’t do this.” And/or “all your effort is meaningless.”
But, I know I have a road trip today so I eat a hearty breakfast, deliver Eva to her father’s car, and order my Panera iced tea. In the adventurous spirit of a road trip, I go to a different Panera and I love that there drive-through is a straight lane. But what I do not realize as I drive up is that they finally tore down the Phillipsburg Mall.
They have been saying that they were going to demolish the Phillipsburg Mall probably for a decade– and all the reports stating that the anchor store Kohls would be the only part of the mall left standing. This Panera was on one of the pad sites at the mall. (A quick Google search tells me that Crown American opened the mall in 1985, a key time period for malls, and that the stores vacated in 2019-2020. Supposedly a warehouse will be erected on the site. Because every warehouse needs a department store next door.)
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, especially when I worked in the area as a journalist, the Phillipsburg Mall was probably my favorite in the region.
The Author Talk
The drive to the library was uneventful. The Bernards Township Public Library appears a fairly modern vibes with the architectural feel of a small elementary school. McKenna did a wonderful job reading her poems and answered questions with ease during the chat portion of the program.
These are the moments when I very much love what I do, and these are also the moments when I get to contemplate how much the community built by a publisher influences everyone involved with it.
McKenna said several astute, thought-provoking items:
Self-publishing her first book put her in control of her own destiny instead of waiting for someone to deem her worthy. I would describe this a little differently: that self-publishing gave her a hands-on understanding of the industry which allows her to navigate and negotiate her future with less naivete.
Each book/work/poem represents a moment in time, and as such, they will never be perfect. And despite their imperfections, poems will always convey the feeling they need to share.
During her recent intensive geology class that toured National Parks in Utah and Arizona, poetry allowed her to grapple with something difficult. As she struggled to learn the complex scientific knowledge of the course, she used poetry to translate it. And she then made herself a photo book of the unedited work to capture the moment in time.
McKenna sold some books. I made some social media posts. I wove around the streets of Basking Ridge to entertain myself and I headed home.
Road Trips Snacks
On the way home, if I wanted to be a nice person, I needed to stop and put gas in the car. I noticed a sign for QuickCheck and that’s one of Eva’s favorites so I figured I would stop there. I discovered it was on Perryville Road, which is pretty darn close to her surname. I figured I’d run in the convenience store and get a snack (but hopefully nothing too crazy as I have lost four pounds) and then get gas.
I decided on a cup of their Kris Kringle iced coffee with light cream, apple slices and Lenny & Larry’s complete creme bricks… I mean cookies. The package said they had 15 grams of protein and 130 calories. So why not?
Gas was fifty cents a gallon cheaper than in Pennsylvania and it’s always a nice treat to have someone else pump it. The coffee had coconut and vanilla notes, which made me regret getting a small as I could have easily finished a large. I ate the apple slices (probably my first serving of fresh fruit this week) while waiting for the car to fill.
And wouldn’t you know as soon as I ended up on the road again the damn oil light came on. And the car is scheduled for an oil change in eight days.
The drive home was also lovely, and I enjoyed singing along to my music.
But if you’re curious about the cookies–
They tasted like hard discs of sprinkles. The vanilla flavor was that candy-ish flavor one gets from sprinkles, but the texture was hard, and I don’t mean hard like a cookie wafer but hard like an almond. When I got home to examine them closer I saw each serving had 130 calories, but each package of six cookies was three servings. So I had wasted almost 300 calories on some awful cookies. In addition to protein, they had some potassium and iron. The ingredient list looks like the whole cookie is wheat, pea protein and oil.
Earlier this week, I got a text message from Mr. Accordion.
Mr. Accordion and I were roommates during my tenure at a certain nonprofit that suffered from toxic management. It’s funny though how life leads a person on a meandering path, and we end up gaining things from experiences that hurt us at the time. I have current clients who connected with me because of that job. I ended up at Stitch Fix because of that job. And I published my novel as a distraction when I lost that job. So many of the circumstances that led to the success of Parisian Phoenix Publishing launched from a very stressful and agonizing work environment, where I shared an office with Mr. Accordion.
Mr. Accordion retired, and he has spent the last four years at various part-time jobs and spending time with his family. I have only known him about five years, but in that time he has always had a joke to share, leads on good food, and a genuine care for other people.
And the other day he invited Eva-the-no-longer-a-teenager and I for pizza and mini-golf. And who am I to say no to pizza and mini-golf? The venue in question was Lucky Strokes mini golf and driving range and Isabella’s Pizza.
They had a strange, vintage upholstered chair in the parking lot with a “free” sign and a school bus with a giant target painted on it in the back of the driving range, if I saw correctly at 175 yards.
The no-longer-a-teenager and I arrived and ordered a medium pizza with capicola and artichokes.
And after some conversation with Mr. Accordion, Eva and I hit the golf range. Now, I did set my Apple Watch to “golf” (and Omada gave me credit for “sports”). It took us 37 minutes to play all 18 holes. (In part because the people ahead of us where having some intense discussion about his marriage and how his wife wasn’t taking the couples counseling seriously. At least, that’s what Eva heard. How she heard that without her hearing aids, I don’t know.
It looked to me like the worst first date ever. She looked disinterested with her back turned, sipping her soda. He would not shut up about himself or his wife. And every time you looked at them, he was standing over to the side with his putter over his shoulder and his ball on the other side of the green.
Immediately, Eva noticed two things:
I don’t even remotely line up the putter correctly.
I was swarmed by small harmless bee creatures.
And then while following my little pink ball around I fell up an incline and ended up crawling around the artificial turf on my hands and knees. Speaking of my knees, my knees and legs refused enough to let me get the ball out of the hole at each green.
Instead of keeping traditional score, we kept score of who landed each hole first, and who won each hole. We ended up trying, 8 holes each with two ties. None of which would have been possible without Eva’s golfing lessons. And her tendency to sometimes hit the ball so hard I feared she might have landed it on the next green.
And I think I had a hole in one, but now I don’t remember.
On the way home we stopped at The Spot for ice cream. I haven’t been to The Spot since my Stitch Fix days.
If you read the Parisian Phoenix blog, visit the publishing company’s substack or troll me on social media, you may know that on Saturday we hosted a Book Lovers’ Celebration at the Barnes and Noble in the Southmont Shopping Center (Bethlehem Township, Pa.).
After the event, I offered our intern Allison and my daughter Eva dinner as payment for their assistance during the day. We decided to pop by Williams Restaurant as it was the sister restaurant of the diner where Eva waitressed in high school. We had already taken Allison to Tic Toc.
We chatted about the event and Allison’s and Eva’s impressions and the fact that the store manager wanted to offer Allison a job. As we got up to leave, Barbara Sceurman (wife of Parisian Phoenix author Larry Sceurman and patron saint of Paulie, the cat temporarily in our care) called out to us. Apparently, they had stopped for dinner after the event, too!
As we were talking to them, our waitress passed by us all giddy and enthusiastic.
“Did you mean to leave this for me?” she said.
Now, Eva had left a generous tip, but it turns out that she also took off her Parisian Phoenix pin and left that on the table and this waitress was thrilled to have it. So we told her to keep it and she put it on and started showing everyone.
It might be great publicity.
Who knows?
And then I took Allison to Aldi for snacks (and she loved the concept of fancy German grocery knock-offs). A plan emerged that we were all going to watch 27 Dresses. Which, gave me a chance to vegetate on the floor while enjoying Katherine Heigl (and if you followed my recent Grey’s Anatomy journey you can understand how much I enjoyed the main character of 27 Dresses who happens to be Dr. Izzy pining over George).
For me, that doesn’t mean a whole lot because I work when I need to work and since I love the editing, reading and publishing that I do and I often forget to stop. I work seven days a week and regularly schedule day trips and small outings to force myself to take a mental break.
That’s really not even here nor there for today’s tale.
I woke a little late today, and rest is always a good thing, so I didn’t make it to my desk until about 8 a.m. Larry Sceurman, author of The Death of Big Butch and Coffee in the Morning from Parisian Phoenix Publishing, had sent me a story and asked for my editorial services. He was stopping by at 9:30 so that I could scan the cartoon he made to accompany the story and then we planned to have a breakfast meeting.
After that, (which included for me eggs benedict as Larry and I continue our tour of local diners– we’ve done Big Papa’s before it closed, then Palmer and now Williams’), I came home and looked at some of the text Ralph Greco sent me on his upcoming article for a major publication, and received an email from Thurston Gill about prepping a Phulasso course catalog and a text from Joseph Swarctz about his upcoming new picture book Sprinkles Did It!
I was feeling sluggish (all those yummy diner fried potatoes?) so I poured myself an iced coffee.
I got a text from Eva-the-no-longer-a-Teenager. I needed to deliver posters to Barnes and Noble for next weekend’s Parisian Phoenix Book Lovers’ Celebration and she needed to pick up come cat food from a client that their cat won’t eat. And she said I could swing by Panera and grab an iced coffee for tomorrow.
Into the car I go.
Phase One: Barnes & Noble
I run into Barnes & Noble as a cool summer rain falls upon the Southmont Shopping Center. The manager is behind the customer service desk and I voice to him my concerns that the posters aren’t the right size.
Now, I don’t know if the designer didn’t resize them when I increased the size or whether the printer we used couldn’t accommodate the size or whether I screwed up somewhere else along the way, but the posters are too small for the standard displays and took big for the table toppers. So if I can find some big sheets of Parisian Phoenix pink poster board I might have to swing by the store and matte them.
Sometimes things just don’t work the way you planned.
If being a small business owner has taught me anything, it’s that when these discombobulations happen, you can’t get angry. You can only roll with it the best you can and develop alternative plans on the fly.
And then…
I hop in the car. We run to Panera and I grab my Sip Club beverage. We drive through lovely developments where a strange number of homes have decorative boulders somewhere along their driveway.
Eva pulls into her client’s driveway and remarks that the truck is not present. She gets out of the car. The car yells because it is still running and she has taken the electronic fob. An email slides into my in box, and I see that it’s my automated response from Substack. I had put together an automated welcome email for “Larry’s Stories” and subscribed my junk address so I could see it. I glanced down at my phone so I could forward it to Larry so he could also see it.
I heard a strange buzz, like there was a bee in the car. But then I heard more buzz. I looked up. There was several wasps in the car. I had the windows cracked, so I thought maybe if I opened the sun roof they would exit, especially since they were gathered around the rearview mirror. (I was in the passenger seat.)
Swarm of wasps
A beautiful collection of colorful flowering shrubs sat outside the car to my right. I opened the sun roof and more wasps entered the car. The wasps were swarming the car!!! I made myself as small as I could in the seat, because the wasps had no interest in me. Obviously they did not see me as a threat and I wanted to keep in that way.
My daughter and the wife of her client, whom she had never met, came out of the house and Eva immediately noticed something was off and there was a weird amount of insects around the car. I hopped out, because I didn’t want anyone to come to close to the car without knowing that the car had a bit of an infestation.
Once I exited the car, the homeowner realized that her husband’s work truck had a wasp nest on it, which he had perhaps knocked down, and in any case, he had driven away. So these wasps were confused and homeless and probably search our car for their missing house.
I carefully slipped into the drivers seat and backed up the car farther down the driveway, with the door open, hoping the wasps would gravitate to the garden and not my Volkswagen. We closed the windows except for a crack in the sunroof and hoped.
When we reentered the car about five minutes later, only about four remained inside the car and as we started to drive away that number dropped to two. And one I accidentally squished in the window.
To make sure none of them followed us home, Eva jumped on the highway to outrun the bastards.
The clients felt terrible and they even texted us a photo of the original wasp nest. I can see why the wasps were confused.
This is going to be one of my cooking and grocery shopping posts, so if you’re not into that, you can feel free to skip this one. I was laid off from my warehouse job in September, unemployment expired in March and I’ve been surviving off my small publishing company (and editorial/writing/journalism clients) ever since. Being a small business owner, especially when it’s a new small business, is not for the faint of heart.
I had a loose plan of what I wanted to do today– get up, go get my coffee at Panera, swing by the Dollar Tree and maybe Grocery Outlet. I had $48 in my wallet and The No-Longer-a-Teenager complained that we had no food in the house except for the weird crackers and local cheese (local cheese from Joan Zachary’s cheese CSA).
My Panera iced coffee turned out to be the most perfect sip this morning, but the Dollar Tree next door was not open. I could go to Shoprite down the street but my $48 would not yield what I needed it to yield there.
Yesterday I prepped some seasoned white rice and teriyaki salmon, some lentils/split peas, and some pasta salad. My hope is that Eva, the college student and no-longer-a-teenager, and I can have a little bit of all of that for dinner. I thought picking up some tortilla shells and chips could mean some Mexican meals from the leftovers.
And we needed milk and half and half.
And then after all that cooking, I had a deep craving for spaghetti and super basic red sauce. So, I made some.
Creativity and patience are often the secret to making meals out of nothing. It’s often useful to designate some cooking time where you can coordinate some basic items that can be reused later– because making the decision to try and build a meal out of nothing while hungry usually ends in disaster. (I was a vegetarian for eight years until my daughter was born, took vegan cooking classes, and have incorporated some vegan choices into my life, so that helps me navigate cooking with minimal items.)
And like that bowl of spaghetti– sometimes the most simple things are the most satisfying. Sometimes you want a feeling in your belly or a specific spice more so than an item. That’s part of why I buy a lot of weird sauces and I love to keep on hand smoked paprika (for those ‘meaty’ desires), everything bagel seasoning (that can wake up those bored taste buds), and sesame oil (a must have if you enjoy Asian flavors). We all have our favorite seasonings.
Right now I’m drinking about 15 ounces carbonated water I made in my soda stream, with about 2 ounces of mango coconut water (from Dollar Tree), 2 ounces Seagrams ginger ale (leftover from Eva’s birthday party), and about 1 ounce fresh lime juice (limes cheap from Aldi). It’s refreshing in this hot day and different.
On Wednesday, Eva and I will receive a “meat box” from Hungryroot and we have a lot of leftovers from the in-law’s picnic yesterday (including half a ‘litter box cake’).
We needed some items to spice up our eating, preferably some fresh fruit, so how did I spend my $48 at Aldi?
Actually, I spent $38.53.
4 small cans of plain tomato sauce, 47 cents each.
4 cans chunk tuna in water, 85 cents each.
Everything bagel seasoning with jalapeno, 1.85
generic Spam, 2.15
larger can of chicken breast chunks, $2.69
quart of half and half, $1.98
half gallon of 2% milk, $2.22
two individual servings of Chobani Flips, chocolate chip cookie dough flavor, $1.38 each
8 ounces New York Sharp cheddar, $1.75
Deli pack slices of provolone cheese, Eva’s favorite, $1.65
Hummus Crisps (no idea what these are but they look like pop chips), $2.19
Veggie Straws, ranch flavor (for Eva), $2.35
frozen broccoli florets, $1.15
cotton candy grapes, a big container, $3.98
multipack of fresh limes, $2.29 (cheaper than lemons)
bunch of bananas, 2.04 pounds, 90 cents
2 avocadoes, 65 cents each
A dozen large eggs, $2.04
One of my guidelines is to look for items around $2. You will see that the grapes are the most expensive item on this list. By setting a mental guideline, I force myself to pause and consider whether the item on my list is worth the price. I ask myself questions like how versatile is this item? How many servings will I get out of this item? How healthy is this item?
For example, the grapes were an easy yes, because that is cheap for those grapes. They are one of the few fruit items I will eat. Eggs, also a solid choice, can add an egg to a lot of meals for extra protein. Even Ramen suddenly looks like a decent meal if you do it “egg drop” style. I chose limes over lemons to save a dollar, but buying them also meant I could transform the avocado into avocado dip/guacamole/toast spread. And the Chobani was also a splurge and has more sugar than I need, but it is also a great snack if you are craving cheesecake or ice cream or canolis.
It’s Wednesday afternoon, and it’s been a hearty week. I just finished editing a novel by debut author E. H. Jacobs. Parisian Phoenix Publishing plans to release the book, Splintered River, in September before the upcoming presidential election. Somehow, by the skin of my teeth, I managed to pay all the bills another month.
As a small business owner, there is always a hustle. And while I typically work seven days a week, I love what I do and it often doesn’t feel like work.
And this week I had a special surprise– Armchair Lehigh Valley asked me to cover First Lady Jill Biden’s visit to Allentown, the largest city in the Lehigh Valley region and third most populated city in the state. For comparison, it stands behind Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Philadelphia has 1.6 million people. Pittsburgh has more than 300,000. Allentown has about 125,000.
Harrisburg, the state capital, has 50,000 residents and is number 16 on the list of most populated Pennsylvania cities. Bethlehem, the center-most city in the Lehigh Valley, is number 7 on the list with 78,000. Lancaster is number 12, which isn’t what you’d expect since Lancaster is known for its Amish communities.
The city closest to my small town is Easton, which is number 41 on the list with 28,000 people.
Anyway, Allentown’s population is 50% Latin, so lawmakers like to stop by to woo the Latin voter. Yesterday, Jill Biden visited Lehigh Carbon Community College to promote Career to Classroom, a proposal from the Biden administration to “reimagine high school” by connecting students to jobs, training and opportunities to learn skills and an associate’s degree while still in high school.
I haven’t attended an event with politicians that required Secret Service in decades. I arrived early, parking at the PPL Orange garage.
I arrived at the LCCC campus in downtown Allentown around noon, and the Allentown police were already outside with the people coordinating the event. Media had to line up along the building after receiving their press passes. The Malinois K9 sniffed our stuff and we headed inside two people at a time.
K9’s have to be high-energy and driven, and this guy was no exception. He played with his toy and barked when he didn’t have enough to do. You could see the disappointment when he didn’t find anything in our stuff, because for him, this was a game and he wanted to find whatever he needed to find to win the game.
Once I arrived inside, the Secret Service scanned my person and another agent checked my bag. He saw my cookie that my friend Laurel had given me in case I didn’t eat. It was a Panera oatmeal berry cookie, which is one of my favorites. The agent looked at me in all his Secret Service seriousness, and said, “Ma’am, all chocolate chip cookies must be confiscated by me.”
“That’s fine, Sir,” I said. “But it’s oatmeal.”
“Then you are free to go,” he said.
I headed into the elevator and up to the third floor. As we arrived, I saw the sign for the restroom. So, I asked the Secret Service agent if I could go to the restroom. I was told yes. When I returned, I entered the room and saw a random sign for “media entrance.” I saw all the video news crews and photographers setting up their tripods. To stay out of the way, I wove farther into the room and sat down.
I ended up sitting with the audience, unintentionally, but got a great view of everything.
To read the article, which the editors at Armchair focused on the workforce development legislation Biden has proposed, click here.
If you want to read a speech only a few words different from the one Jill gave yesterday, click here.
Yesterday, my friend Gayle and I embarked on an adventure. I wanted to motivate myself toward more movement and healthier living and Gayle enjoys visiting new towns via self-guided walks designed by local clubs of the American Volkssporting Association. Gayle has wanted to hit the Ephrata, Pa., walk (which is about 90 minutes away from our homes) and I love a day trip. The walk is maintained by the Susquehanna Rovers.
Gayle packed lunch. I packed sunscreen. I even tossed some electrolyte powders packets in my bag, knowing it would be a sunny summer day. I took my muscle relaxers.
Off we went.
The background
Now, as someone with a mobility disability (cerebral palsy, spastic diplegia), I suspected– or perhaps even knew– that this would end with some sort of injury or discomfort. I had hoped that having this walk, a 5K by design, would motivate me to get away from my desk and wander around the neighborhood.
That didn’t happen. I could blame the heat wave, but in reality, I doubt I would have changed my behavior even if the weather were nice.
In the end, I said to myself, “Anyone can walk a 5K.”
And in one respect, I was correct. I did it. On the other hand, it was stupid. And I’m suffering because of it. But that’s getting ahead of myself.
I wanted to use this walk to see how my movement was in a more long-term commitment. I wanted to test my breathing and my heart rate. I suspect a lot of my health issues will not resolve until I lose at least 20, if not 30, or even 35 pounds (at which point I ask myself– how did I gain this much weight so quickly?)
So this walk would help me evaluate my true status and make health-related goals.
That was my logic. Was it a tad reckless? Maybe, maybe not.
The Walk
Ephrata has a lovely main street, historic buildings and apparently monuments– none of which we saw because the 5K was mostly through residential neighborhoods. And we missed a turn somewhere and ended up shaving off about a half mile. Our time for our 2.8 mile 5K was about 31 minutes a mile, and we periodically stopped to enjoy the shade, look at weird buildings, and sometimes cuss about hills.
AVA walks are rated, and this was a 1B which means it was supposed to be easy, with sidewalks and the occasional hill. But if you looked at the “fine print,” the walk was rated “medium” for strollers and “hard” for wheelchairs. I think for the foreseeable future Gayle and I need 1A walks that are easy for wheelchairs.
So here’s my analysis of what we saw in Ephrata on the 5K:
A gnome garden. I like this tiered design of outdoor knick knacks. I’m not sure what sense it makes, but it seems like a concept the no-longer-a-Teenager would embrace.
A neighborhood egg stand, that was closed.
Your going to have to google this for yourself. “Best Kept Secrets Tour.” “Shopping, Food & Fun adventures.”
The strangest “double” homes I’ve ever seen. The walk took us through an entire neighborhood of attached, split-level homes. I own “half a double,” and some neighborhoods in my area are row homes that expand an entire block. But I have never seen neighborhoods like these. I fail to understand the logic. There are two reasons to “attach” homes– one is to lower the cost by sharing a wall, and the second is to squeeze more people into a smaller space.
These homes have the space to be detached. They are on suburban lots. So, if you are going to invest in a suburban home, why would you want (or even accept?) being attached to your neighbor. There were also attached ranch homes, with the same concept, but just without the extra stories. And some had a strange shared doorway in the middle, like a breezeway, so they were both attached and detached.
We did see a lot of great distant views. Mountains in the distance. Clear skies.
One of the first things we encountered was the Anne Brossman Sweigert Charitable Foundation, with a family sculpture out front and a sign engraved on a grave marker. (They also have not updated their website in almost 10 years according to the “grant history” tab.) Why did they place their sign on a grave marker? So it didn’t blow away? Fade?
Around the two-mile mark, we realized we had missed the turn and reached our threshold for the residential tour, and ironically, we ended up taking a street parallel to the main drag back to the hotel where the walk-box is stored.
Interlude: Early in the walk, I noticed my right leg was pulling in toward my left leg. So, minding my fitness and strength coach’s advice, I led with my knees to make sure I wouldn’t end up tripping over my own legs due to my knees facing inward. I tried stretching, to see if I could get my hips and thighs to move more outwardly, but I couldn’t come up with the right movement.
Nothing hurt, but damn everything was tight, and my legs fought me with every step.By the time we climbed the hill and stairs by the hotel, my back was starting to feel the stress. My legs didn’t want to lift. So I made it to the car and popped another muscle relaxer.
Step count: about 8,500
The Ephrata Cloister
We went to Ephrata Cloister, driving down the main drag and wondering why the walk couldn’t have shown us all these lovely local businesses and perhaps led us to a cafe where we could have rested. We had a savory-and-sweet vegan chickpea and carrot salad with a side of grapes for lunch. From there we headed into the gift shop.
At the gift shop, I found an impressive collection of wood crafts, paper folding kits for Moravian Stars, quilted cards, replacement ink for quills, Amish novels and a nice selection of Pennsylvania Dutch nonfiction books.
The no-longer-a-Teenager is mostly Pennsylvania Dutch on her father’s side. One paternal great-grandfather was Welsh, but all of her other paternal great-grandparents were Pennsylvania Dutch. Her paternal grandmother’s father spoke Pennsylvania Dutch (Leroy Buss) as his first language, learning English at the one-room schoolhouse he entered at age five. I would have loved to buy her a Pennsylvania Dutch to English dictionary or Superstitions and Folklore of the Pennsylvania Dutch, but the budget did not allow.
We visited the museum where we learned that the Cloister was a spiritual community with roots in Germany that came to Pennsylvania, just like the Quakers and the Moravians, in the early 18th century for religious freedom.** They had strict beliefs and practices, one of which was celibacy so it became impossible to keep the community alive. (The “householders” later became the German Seventh Day Baptist Church. Householders were the families on neighboring farms who supported the community and their religious beliefs without going all in on the celibacy, vegetarianism, and sleeping on a wooden block disciplines.)
We also saw a really long glass horn.
** 1720. That’s more than FIFTY YEARS before the Revolutionary War.
The tour
Gayle and I like to support local history and nonprofits, and who doesn’t love the story of a good old colonial cult. So, we embarked on the tour.
First, we watched a really information-packed but poorly acted and filmed movie. You can watch it online here. (This was where Gayle thought she lost her phone and I got a text from a client who needed me to do something later that day.) We were told the tour was 45 minutes to an hour long, depending how many questions people had, and that we should be on our way at 3 p.m., 3:15 p.m. at the latest.
Gayle was hoping the tour would send us all over the grounds walking from building to building. I was suddenly starting to hurt and could barely stand. Neither of us voiced what we were thinking to the other.
“You’ll love the tour guide,” the volunteer at the desk said. “He’s really knowledgeable and passionate.”
Our tour guide took ten minutes to get us out the door because already other members of the tour were asking stupid questions covered by the movie we had just watched. We walked out to the middle of the yard, not even a half acre away where the tour guide announced we had reached the village.
We stood outside for a long time, at first talking about architecture, then the idiots with us had to debate how old the trees might be, and whether they were “original.” I was mesmerized the whole time by a man who looked very Mennonite/new order Amish/”Dutchy.” You don’t think the Pennsylvania Dutch have certain genetic “looks,” but they do.
Now, somewhere around this time, it became difficult to know when the tour guide was telling us historical fact, and when he was expounding on his own “theories” (his word). He talked a lot about significance of numbers, how the triangle formed by the Village served as a reminder of our path to God, and the powers of the mystics. This is where I, as a journalist and a historian, started to get annoyed. He provided no proof of the sources of his ideas. (Here are some of the official lectures on the topics.)
We stood in the main living area of what became the Sister’s House. Eventually we ended up in the Meeting Room. We were *locked in* the building, so strangers who had not purchased the tour could not wander in. I know this because the Dutchy man needed to leave and he could not without interrupting the tour.
I faded in and out of the door mentally because my legs were hurting at about an eight. When we left the meeting room and entered the add-on kitchen, I was ready to fight the sweet little old ladies for a space on the small bench. My heartrate had been soaring since we started the tour (130s when standing and 110 when seated) probably in response to the pain. There was room for all of us.
Interior of the Meeting House (saal, meaning “room.”)
At this point, my plan was to sneak out of the tour when he let us out of the building and to tell Gayle to take her time as I would sit outside and read my book. But it turned out the tour was only to this building.
Our tour guide unlocked the door at 3:40 p.m.
The repercussions
By the time I went to bed, my pain levels had reached a nine. They are between a six and seven today and I’m taking it easy. I think my body has forgotten how to walk. As a person who deals with spasticity, which means my muscles in my legs never relax, I have a theory. This is the first long walk I’ve taken probably in years, certainly since I started taking muscle relaxers. It’s the first long walk I’ve taken since I started fitness training with Andrew, and even more certainly, the first I’ve taken since he had to pause our sessions several months ago. And I sit at a desk now, 8-10 hours a day, seven days a week, and walk 3,500 to 5,000 steps a day.
So, sure I overdid it.
But I still maintain that I have never moved the way I moved yesterday. I fried my adductors.
Hard to believe for several months from 2020-2021 I was a picker in the Stitch Fix warehouse where I walked miles and miles and miles every night, five days a week.
For more about this trip and some discussion of books, printing and those arts at the Cloisters, see ParisianPhoenix.com.
I wish I had some exciting reason that it’s been two weeks without a post. The reality is that I’ve been ghostwriting a novel and that every free moment I have has been dedicated to that client who is currently paying my mortgage. Luckily, I love the client, I love the story and I love the whole experience of being a part of the project so it’s not a hardship by any means.
The book publishing entity– Parisian Phoenix Publishing— has been paying the other costs of life. If you follow the blog there and/or read the Substack newsletter, you will see we are always doing something to keep the company and its authors growing. And if you need another reminder of why and where to buy books, check out the shop we’ve curated at Bookshop.org, where you can shop online and designate your favorite independent bookseller to receive the profits from the sale.
So, rather than try to catch you up with every bit of crazy while I’ve been away, let me provide this fine list:
The Initial Joys of Summer
The Teenager only has a few more days of Teenagerdom and she has spent much of the last month renovating our garage into an indoor/outdoor living space. She is hosting her birthday party out there and I can’t wait to show you the final result.
2. I have started using the outdoor patio more as the Internet extends that far and there’s really no excuse.
3. We decided to try the Papa Johns Cheeseburger Pizza and their new Spicy Lemon Pepper Wing Sauce. The boneless wings are terrible, but the sauce is out of this world. And the burger pizza– especially with the $10 promotional price point–might be our new favorite food. The Teenager has proclaimed that all pizza should have pickles.
4. I spent some more time with my cat, Fog. We normally use a “crate and rotate”-style system for all the animals. For the last year, my boy Fog, our old tripod Opie and the cat the rescue gave up on, Canyon, have been in my room. We decided to let them free roam and this meant I got to spend some time during my long work days with my man, Fog.
5. Speaking of cats, our houseguest, Paulie, still loves to bite me, but he has gotten quite forward about being in my business.
6. We pre-gamed the Teenager’s birthday by going to Dave & Buster’s for some arcade time and then visited this strange convenience store with the old style poker video machines, alcohol, vaping supplies, penny candy, ice cream, strange snacks and all the household goods one would expect from a convenience store.
7. I made some new recipes including rhubarb quick bread (think banana bread but with rhubarb) and my own twist on fried pickles. I smeared/shredded cheese on a kosher dill pickle sandwich slice and then pinched it into a piece of Italian meat before breading and frying. Both were amazing.
8. My 2015 Jetta turned over to 71,000 miles. The Teenager has been driving it for work, so it only had 55,000 on it when I got laid off from Stitch Fix in September. But in other exciting news, before the end of the month, the Teenager should pay off her 2012 Nissan Rogue which we’ve had two years when we only planned to keep it for six months. It’s pretty much ready for a demolition derby now, but it was The Teenager’s first car loan and she paid it off six months early.
And lucky number nine….
(The Celts believed 9 was a holy number, because nine was a collection of three sacred threes.)
9. Today, I got to have a lavender matcha latte with my book-making, mixed media, painting artist friend Maryann Riker of Justarip Press. We stopped at Spectacular Coffee at Easton’s Silk Mill after indulging in a green sale (yes there is such a thing!) at Vasari Oil Paint.
Angel Ackerman 