In my experience, the backstage crew at University of Florida Center for Performing Arts at the University of Florida is made up of individuals I consider pros. During recording sessions for radio broadcast, I have had a number of professional encounters with the UPA folks, and without exception all have been extraordinarily capable, helpful, and friendly. It works like this: I arrive a couple hours before show time with my myriad gear, consisting of a recording device, a small mixing console, a microphone on a large, heavy stand, and an assortment of cables. I have everything I need to make a recording, but I lack some things that the UPA staff are quick to offer: a table on which to put my gear, a chair on which to sit, help locating power supplies, and so on. They have even helped me with the laborious task of laying cable and gaffer’s tape. They have done all this with expertise and good cheer. These sessions require a good deal of waiting around on my part, and it never fails that when a member of the crew walks by me, he or she asks if I need anything.

Last night I had another of these positive experiences. I was invited to attend a live performance by the American violinist Joshua Bell with the English pianist Sam Haywood. The session had been arranged through Mr. Bell’s people with the resulting recording one I hope to use as the gem of my summer concert broadcast series. I arrived at about 4:30 in the afternoon, three hours before the scheduled start of the program. Like most artists, Bell and Haywood would have a brief rehearsal sometime before the concert, and that would be my opportunity to ensure that the microphone was correctly placed, and my levels were safe. The artists are concerned, too, about things like music stands and lighting and whatnot. My chief concerns getting a good recording without interfering with the artists’ performance. To this end I am worried about the placement of the enormous microphone stand we have for these sessions, which is tall and extremely heavy. Its legs span several feet, and, fully-extended, it towers at least ten feet over the performers. I always consider it extremely generous when artists even consent to have this ugly thing cluttering the front of the stage, so I do my best to ensure that it is not more intrusive than it has to be. The stage crew helped me make sure that my stand would not block the view of anyone in the audience. The stereo microphone we use for these recordings has only one cord, which is good, but I still have to run it across some thirty feet of stage. The crew members are helpful in this regard, and help me snake it through an opening in the large shell they put up for such music performances. Though I could sit in the orchestra pit in front of the stage, I prefer to sit backstage, and the crew offers me prime real estate directly next to the stage entrance. Watch this video to see my setup.

Mr. Bell and Mr. Haywood arrived for a brief rehearsal around six o’clock. I had my gear all set up by then and was just hanging out backstage when I heard the huge sound of a Steinway piano. I put my headphones on and began checking levels. I couldn’t see what was happening, but I next heard Joshua Bell’s voice in my headphones. Then, the awesome sound of his Stradivarius. He was just playing scales and double-stops, but, wow, it sounded great in my headphones. I could hear them talking about lighting while I got my levels, then they left the stage and I waited another hour or so for the concert to begin.

Before showtime, Mr. Haywood—who looks and sounds like the very image of a polite British gentleman—approached me. I could tell he had some trepidations about the recording, though he was aware before hand that it would be taking place. I assured him that he and Bell had right of refusal, and I would never broadcast anything they didn’t consent to release. He seemed satisfied, and we chatted about the weather (it was very pleasant in Gainesville, but currently awful in London) and the program. I asked which of the pieces on the bill was his favorite and he answered, “the Brahms”. I agreed completely, since I have long believed that nobody beats Brahms at chamber music. I told him I wished I could hear a recital of all three of Brahms’ violin sonatas. He answered, “that would be a bit like having three steaks”, then paused and asked, “but how would you divide the program?” “Good point”, I answered. “I know”, he shot back, “the first two sonatas before the intermission, and the third sonata and the [Op. 4] Scherzo in the second half with some other little pieces”. He told me he and Bell were going next to Los Angeles. It was very nice of Mr. Haywood to talk me, and he seems like a very nice man. His pianism, of course, is splendid.

Just before showtime Mr. Bell appeared. He had his violin under his chin and walked directly to my small table and put his music down right in front of me while he did a little last-minute tuning and (literally!) fiddled around a bit. I don’t know if you have ever been within two feet of one of the world’s best violinists playing a Stradivarius, but I recommend it. Mr. Bell could probably make a rubber band on a shoebox sound good, but a Stradivarius is like a miracle, and in his hands it sings. As he and Mr. Haywood took the stage I had my typical fears: I hope my microphone placement is good; I hope my recording sounds natural; please, God, don’t let my microphone stand collapse and crush Joshua Bell and his priceless violin.

I met Joshua Bell years before after a recital he gave with another pianist. I had been in the front row for the performance, and when it concluded I stayed in my seat for a long time as the rest of the audience departed. After a while, Mr. Bell reappeared in the now-empty auditorium. He came down from the stage, shook my hand and asked if I enjoyed the performance. He was quite warm and friendly. He even signed my program. As I learned last night, however, backstage during performance, Joshua Bell means business. He was not the least bit rude or obnoxious. Rather, he was highly focused. This is entirely understandable. Playing music night in and night out for a paying audience is one thing, but the classical music world is one in which reputation is huge. Perfection is practically an expected standard. And it isn’t like he’s playing easy stuff. The duo played Mendelssohn, Brahms, Ravel, Ysaÿe, Gershwin, and Sarasate. Ysaÿe’s Six Sonatas for Solo Violin, Op. 27 are astonishing works, and, like the Bach pieces which surely inspired them, extraordinarily difficult. The D Minor Sonata from that set was first performed by one of Ysaÿe’s former pupils, Josef Gingold, who later became Joshua Bell’s teacher. Bell played the piece splendidly. I don’t much care for Gershwin’s Preludes, and Ravel’s Violin Sonata is probably one of my least favorite of his works. But Brahms’ Sonata in D Minor, Op. 108 was wonderful, as expected. Surprisingly, though, it was the relatively rare Sonata in F Major (1838) by Mendelssohn. The slow middle movement enchanted me, and the credit is due to Sam Haywood’s playing, which was profoundly affecting. Mendelssohn is known as a fairly light-hearted composer, but that adagio was sad and beautiful.

I spoke with Mr. Haywood again after the concert and told him how much I liked his playing. He was very gracious, and even assured me that he thought for sure that they would approve the second half of the program for broadcast. “I hope when you hear the rest you’ll like it as much”, I replied. “It was very nice meeting you,” he said.

By the time all the equipment was packed and ready to go the auditorium was empty. Bell and Haywood were up in the lobby signing autographs, which is something many of the friendlier performers do when they come to Gainesville. The established fans really appreciate it, and the new ones the artists just made are doubly pleased. To me, it’s the mark of a pro. Last night at the UF Center for Performing Arts, everybody was a pro.

I should say, of course, Happy New Year. I am sorry to 1.) make my first post in the new year occur more than three weeks into 2012, and, 2.) that my first post is about something as mundane as the weather, but when uses a bicycle for transportation as I do, the weather plays a much more prominent role than it might if one drove. That is to say, riding a bike in the cold sucks.

In other recreational news, I did something I never wanted to do: I joined a gym. Every time I go I think of this:

I am finding myself surprisingly motivated. I have gone three nights in a row this week, and even if I don’t go for hours at a time, I still go. I do a little treadmill, and an assortment of weight machines that are cleverly designed so that the bar cannot fall and crush your trachea. The last time I did any weight training was my freshman year of high school, and I recall that after four months of it I was significantly stronger. I am not trying to make myself look like the guy from the Old Spice commercials, but I would like to not make a loud grunting noise every time I bend down to tie my shoes.

Also, future me will be interested to know that the gym costs only $10 per month (which is much lower than other gyms, perhaps because it doesn’t have a pool), and I didn’t have to sign a year-long contract. Also, future me will be ashamed if he can’t run for more than ten minutes straight.

In the next couple days I will write about one more of the following topics: school, work, collecting classical music compact discs, a fancy new kitty that comes around my house, songs that sound stupid but actually convey a powerfully universal truth, and more. Also, probably how absurdly excited I am getting for baseball. But also how I spent my New Year’s, and how I ate homemade cinnamon ice cream and suck at Scrabble.

We had stopped for food in North Carolina somewhere, and filled up with gas at least once. We were about halfway through South Carolina when I heard a rhythmic beating. At first I thought I was riding over a damaged portion of road. Then I felt the steering fail, and I knew at once it was the right front tire. Fortunately, I was in the right lane, and could get off the road without too much trouble. I pulled as far off as I could while still keeping the flat tire on the asphalt.

Now, I am, of course, perfectly capable of changing a tire. But it was pitch black outside—the Milky Way Galaxy was easily visible—and we were on the side of one of the nation’s busiest highways, and since Kaitlyn is a member of whatever the Canadian version of AAA is and offered to call them, we decided to just wait for assistance. South Carolina is so boring that we hadn’t been paying attention to where we were exactly. Fortunately, our phones have GPS, so I could see that we were about halfway between Highway 78 and Highway 61. Kaitlyn gave the information to the operator, and we were told we’d have help within the hour. So, we just stepped off into the brush by the side of the road and waited it out. It wasn’t cold, it wasn’t raining, and we weren’t anywhere otherwise dangerous.

An hour passed and no assistance appeared. Then my phone rang. The service guy was totally wrong about where we were. He didn’t even know we were on the Interstate. I knew the dispatcher told him correctly, because she repeated what we told her verbatim. Then the service called us back: “You’re on 95 south between 61 and 62, right?” No! So I told him again, and he once again told me it would be twenty minutes.

After much longer than twenty minutes he arrived. He started digging around his truck for his jack, and when he found it he put it under the Volkswagen. But he couldn’t get it to go up. I told him that I had a jack, but he kept fooling around with his. He clearly wasn’t going to get it to work, so he starting screwing around with two bottle jacks, but couldn’t get those to work, either. Finally, I reminded him that I had a jack. He used it, and of course it worked. But he jacked up the car before loosening the lug nuts.

When he put the spare tire on, I asked him if he could inflate it, because it had been in the trunk so long and I was sure it had lost some pressure. “Sure”, he said. He had a compressor in the truck. But his compressor didn’t work, so, no, he couldn’t inflate the tire. Once the tire was on, and I walked around to the driver’s side door to get in, he was peeling out. I knew that was a bad sign, because the hazard lights had been on for hours. Of course the car wouldn’t start.

I immediately called the guy, and he said he would come back.

When he got back to us, he tried to pull his truck around, but he got stuck in the mud. I was not at all surprised. Canada, who has a great deal of experience getting out of tough situations in trucks offered to help him out. Once he had us jumped I pleaded with him to wait for us to get underway, and follow us to the next exit.

There, we filled the tire, got some snacks, and were back on our way to Gainesville. Alas, instead of arriving before midnight, we got home closer to 3:30AM.

It was a crummy experience, but Miriam and I were both happy to have Kaitlyn with us. Her personality calms everyone down. Her signature phrase is “no worries”.

We traveled with our friend Kaitlyn, who we call “Canada”. We started later than we would have wished, but we all had last-minute errands that prevented us from departing at the ten o’clock hour we had agreed to the night before during a game of charades we played at the house Canada shares with another of our friends, Leslie.  We stopped briefly for food in Starke, then ignored our hunger until we reached South Carolina. From there we drove on, through North Carolina and southern Virginia, arriving in Richmond some time around midnight.  We had booked two nights at a bed and breakfast in the heart of the city, but our check-in there was not scheduled until the following afternoon, so, while on the road, Miriam booked us into the Holiday Inn next to Richmond International Airport. The Holiday Inn, as it turned out, was right next door to a hotel where Miriam and I stayed the year before on a trip to Washington.

The next morning we headed into the city so Miriam and Canada could meet up with Kat and the other bridesmaids for a lunch. While we stood in front of the restaurant on Harrison Street, we watched a driver attempting to park grind the side of his car against a steel post, reverse, then repeat the process. We gestured to him repeatedly in warning, to no avail.

While the ladies enjoyed their lunch, I explored a nearby city park. Monroe Park is handsome, with large, old trees, which, at the time, were in various stages of leaf-loss. Some were bare, some were orange or yellow, and still others, like the magnolias and conifers, were green. A sign informed me that Monroe Park, formerly Western Square, was home to the Virginia state fair in the 1850s, a Confederate hospital in 1864, and the site of the city’s first baseball games in 1866. Along Laurel Street, which forms the western boundry of the park, stand two impressive structures: the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, and the Landmark Theater. All through the neighborhood, Virginia Commonwealth University occupies old magnificent row houses. The variety of styles of the houses—built during the 1870s and 1880s, after Richmond was burned to the ground—is marvelous.

When I rejoined Miriam and Kaitlyn, we proceeded to our hotel, a lovely bed-and-breakfast on the corner of Grace and Meadow. The Grace Manor Inn, though once a boarding house, still posesses all its original ornate details, from the pocket doors to the fireplaces. And it is clear that this house was built for a very wealthy family, since those details are the fanciest of fancy. It isn’t simply that the rooms have crown molding, it is that those moldings are elaborately sculpted in a way that today could hardly be duplicated, but even at the time must have cost a fortune. Outside was a lovely garden, with a fountain and a sculpture, a greenhouse and a pool. We crossed our fingers that the pool might be heated, but alas, it was freezing cold. Still, we found the parking situation—a small private lot along the back alley—very convenient. Many an urban hotel charges extra for parking.

Kat and Harris were booked in a suite upstairs, but Canada, Miriam, and I were staying in the carriage house, which, as its name suggests, is an apartment above the garage that would have onced housed the family’s carriage. The operators of the Grace Manor Inn have decorated the carriage house in a conspicuously modern style, which, if a bit lackluster compared to the main house, still proved very functional. Indeed, the carriage house was extraordinarily generous in its amenities: a huge bedroom with attached bathroom, a living room with a couch and chair, and a large dining room and kitchen area complete with a washer and dryer. Kaitlyn had a small futon to sleep on, and Miriam and I had a huge bed – a bed, in fact, that was familiar to us, since we have the same one at home.

Friday evening Miriam was scheduled to attend the wedding rehearsal. That left Canada and me with some time to kill. She was looking to get an outfit to wear for the occasion, so we got in the car and headed to a neighborhood called Carytown, so-called because it is centered around Cary Street. This is, from what I could tell, a fashionable district, with many antiques shops and vintage clothing stores. And when I say vintage, in a couple cases I really mean vintage. I had been a little miffed that, in one “vintage” shop we went the day before, most of the clothing was from no earlier than the late 1990s, and virtually none of it was from the 1980s or before. But in Carytown we found a shop with racks of clothes from the 1940s through 1960s. If one were looking to procure costumes for a play set against the backdrop of the Second World War, head to Carytown. Meanwhile, Canada was looking for pants, and I was looking for a black belt to wear with my suit. I found one at a shop with the humorously unpretentious name, “Need Supply Company”. I quickly found a made in USA black belt, but I also found tables covered in the finest looking blue jeans I ever saw in my life. I cannot exaggerate how good these pants looked. And the quality looked to be extraordinary. The tags proclaimed them to be “CRAFTED by JEANSMITHS in NORTH CAROLINA” by the Raleigh Denim Company, which, of course, pleased me. I would surely have bought several, but the price per pair was around $200. But I had the belt I needed, and Kaitlyn and I continued down Cary Street. We dipped in a shoe store, which isn’t normally my thing, but they had a whole wall of New Balance, which is my preferred sneaker these days, having become familiar with their extraordinary comfort. The pair of New Balance I have been wearing for a while now are an attractive gray color, and quite casual, with none of the clutter one often sees on New Balance sneakers designed primarily for runners. This store, West Coast Kix, had a pair remarkably similar to the ones I was wearing. Unfortunately, they were not made in USA like my current pair. But they were made in England, and that’s good enough for me, so I bought them. Canada found some pants, and we made our way back to the hotel to get ready for the rehearsal dinner.

Big dinners have always made me a tad uncomfortable. For one, I don’t like meeting new people. And, of course, my discriminating taste makes many restaurants unappealing to me. When Kaitlyn and I arrived at Mekong Restaurant, on West Broad Street, we were a few minutes late. I spotted a long table with at least thirty people, and I assumed that was our party, but I lamented that I’d be squeezed in next to nobody I knew. I really didn’t recognize anyone. But that’s because it wasn’t our party. Ours was in a separate room, with several large round tables. I spied Harris, and gathered that the bridal party was not yet present. So we just chatted until they arrived, then took our seats. Happily, my table was inhabited by people I knew, or—in the case of Harris’s lovely sister and our dear friend Laura’s long-time boyfriend—had recently met. So we all had a fine time chatting and catching up. Amy, a psychologist and former Gainesville Roller Rebel, moved to Nashville some time ago to start her own practice and we had not seen her since. Laura (who, you may recall, has knitted me a fabulous cap, accompanied me to baseball games, gone with us to Disney World, and, in general, spent countless evenings watching television on our couch), moved to Providence last summer to work at Brown University, and has been sorely missed. Her boyfriend, who I had heard about for years, is a splendid fellow with a wonderful sense of humor. He kept me laughing constantly. Meanwhile, dinner guests made toast after toast to the couple, and we all enjoyed ice cream cake. Dinner ended quite late.

On Saturday morning, Kat and Harris, Kaitlyn, Miriam, and I all met downstairs for breakfast in the very fancy dining room at Grace Manor Inn. The meal consisted of several courses, concluding with a dessert. In fact, such a breakfast was served both mornings of our stay. Saturday, though, we were joined by Mel, another friend and Gainesville Roller Rebel who is a professional hairdresser. She had come all the way to Virginia to attend the wedding and do hair for Kat and her bridesmaids.

After breakfast, Miriam was occupied with wedding stuff, so Kaitlyn and I went on another quest: to get her some shoes, and me some bottled water. (We had set the thermostat too high the night before, and I felt like I was going to burst into flames all night, and it left me so thirsty.) Canada used the GPS on my phone to get us to a shopping center out in a suburban area of Richmond, and there we got all our errands done in one shopping center. Laura, who was doing bridesmaid stuff, had asked if Canda and I could pick up her boyfriend from his downtown hotel on our way to the ceremony. Kaitlyn, once again, used my phone to guide us there, navigating the many one-way streets.

We headed to Maymont Gardens, which is a large park on the north side of the James River. It is a beautiful place, even in late autumn. As you see in this photograph, Maymont has a stunning Ginkgo tree. We found Mel and her husband Cory when we arrived, and we walked around a while admiring the structures and the scenery before taking a tram on a fun ride to the site of the ceremony, beneath a rocky cliff, in front of a brook. The place looked rather like the Shire. A string quartet was playing when we reached the wedding site, and guests were standing about. We saw Harris, too, chatting with friends and family. I know the nervousness that plagues grooms as they await the appearance of their brides, and, after a while I noticed Harris was standing all by himself, looking terrified. He told me later he was alright, but he sure looked scared. Miriam, Laura, and Amy were in the bridal party, but Laura’s boyfriend, Mel and Cory, Kaitlyn, and Shannon Sisco, and I were all just there to watch.

Before Kat appeared in the arm of her father, we had seen some punk teens wandering around the rocks behind the wedding site. In fact, all of us thought we might have to go have a talk with them to tell them to get lost. Shortly after, we heard a commotion coming from the top of the cliff. I expected to look up and see some kids tumbling down. But it was a deer. It had slipped down, then scampered back up. But Kat arrived, looking lovely, and the ceremony went off without a hitch. Indeed, we kept remarking how perfect the weather was, and how wonderful the setting. As the newlyweds passed by, Harris gave one of his trademark thumbs-up.

As the wedding party disappeared for an hour or so of posed photographs, my companions and I traveled back up to the site of the reception. We stood around chatting, having a nice time, but all the while quite concerned by the appearance of another guest – a young man wearing a black suit and black leather gloves, holding a black briefcase. He was completely bald, and looked rather like a comic book villain. We badgered Shannon to go use her charms to see if she could find out what was in the briefcase, but he would reveal nothing. I thought that, perhaps, as the couple arrived, he might free some doves or butterflies, but that never happened. He just walked around with the briefcase, looking mysterious.

The bridal party finally did arrive, and when they had their first dance everyone stared, as is custom. There wasn’t much dancing besides that, but what the reception lacked in dancing it made up for in speeches. It is custom, of course, for weddings to have two speeches: from the best man, and from the father of the bride. But many couples, dispensing with tradition, invite a bridesmaid to say a few words, or some other relative or friend. Kat and Harris being the sort of people they are, could not restrict the speeches to just a chosen few. No, practically everyone who knew them wanted to tell all just how wonderful they are. The stories are true; Kat and Harris are splendid. But it was comical just how over-the-top the speech one-upmanship became. Initially, Harris was just a great guy and a great friend – one who made you always feel he was your best friend. I get that. Harris has a knack for connecting with people. But by the fourth or fifth speech, Harris is saving his friends from drowning in the Atlantic Ocean. Again, these stories are true, and anyone who knows Harris would not be at all surprise by such tales, but so nice are Kat and Harris that the speeches just went on and on, until at least ten people had spoken. Finally, time was up and the venue was closing. We’d have to leave.

We all met back at the carriage house, dressed in our street clothes. We had lots to talk and laugh about. The plan was to have two after-parties: one at a bar/arcade, the other at the home of a friend of Kat and Harris. We were assured that, at the early hour of nine o’clock at night, parking would not be an issue, nor would we have to pay a cover at the bar. That was just not the case. Parking in Richmond is hard to come by. Streets are crowded, and since many are one-way only, one has to be prepared to parallel park on the left side of the street. Not to sound boastful, but I can parallel park the hell out of a car. Still, left-side parallel parking was a challenge. We finally found a spot, and somebody negotiated a deal with the bar to let the wedding party in for free, provided we agreed to leave when the bands started to play. All our hands were marked with a large “W” to distinguish us from the regular bar folk. We all ate because we were starving, and it was cute to see Kat and Harris’s first meal as man and wife. Then the two played old school arcade games before we had to leave.

We parked back at the Grace Manor Inn and walked the three blocks down Grace Street to the home of one of Kat and Harris’s close Richmond friends. Inside, all the young wedding guests were there, but wearing normal people clothes. Even the mysterious briefcase guy was there. It turns out, he was just screwing with everybody. Nothing was in the case. We had brought Kat and Harris’s wedding cake (or what was left of it), which we had transported from Maymont Park, and everyone had another chance at some of that. Miriam and I, Canada, Laura and her boyfriend all sat on a couch in a large, mostly empty parlor.  Kat came in after a while and we chatted some more with her. Then began a strange spectacle, but what that really defines Kat and Harris, and really all their close Richmond friends. Loud music could be heard from the dining room, then a crowd formed a huddle, singing Misfits songs at the top of their lungs. It’s their thing. We spectators watched for a moment, then let them to it. We walked back to Grace Manor, and said goodbye to Laura. Mel and Cory had gone, as had Amy and Shannon. The next morning we would leave, too.

But we still had one more breakfast in the elegant dining room, and it was an honor to spend it with the bride and groom the morning after their wedding. They would stay on at Grace Manor another night, so we hugged them goodbye and went back to the carriage house to pack. We made one more stop, at a little coffeeshop in a working class Richmond neighborhood to meet up with Sarah Jean, who moved from Gainesville to Richmond last summer. We chatted for an hour or so, while a hipster couple sat on a nearby porch, the fellow playing an acoustic guitar, his girlfriend looking at him admiringly. “That’s the dream”, I thought to myself. We bid Sarah Jean farewell and got on the road after noon on Sunday morning, the twentieth of November.

We had an epic misadventure in store. But that is for next time.

Now, as you may recall, earlier this year I built Mrs. Hill a whole new kitchen, and when it was finished I wished she might have some quality cookware to enjoy. So, on a trip to Charlotte over the summer we paid a visit to the Le Creuset store in, of all places, Yemassee, South Carolina. Le Creuset is a French company that makes enameled cast iron cookware. I saw an episode of How It’s Made once where they showed the production of a Le Creuset Dutch oven, and it was amazing. And somehow, in spite of my relative lack of enthusiasm for cuisine, I had actually heard of the brand. I somehow knew that Le Creuset was known for lasting a long time. A lifetime, really. So it didn’t take much to convince me that this was something I wanted Miriam to have. I just didn’t expect to personally get as much use out of it. I now cook almost exclusively with one of the pieces we brought home that day, and it is marvelous. I say all this to make the next part of the story more clear.

Whether it was from our testimonials or not, our close friend Kat expressed a wish for a nice new Dutch oven, especially since one she owned previously, but made by another company, had been recalled by the manufacturer for a potentially dangerous defect. Miriam took a mental note of this, and on the day after Thanksgiving, six days after Kat’s wedding, Mrs. Hill and I found ourselves on our way to the Le Creuset store in Orlando. The problem for us was that everyone else in the country apparently had the same idea. I cannot possibly convey the enormity of the traffic. We moved inches at a time. Pedestrians on the sidewalk appeared to move away from us so quickly that I think I noticed a red shift. When we at last reached the entrance of the shopping mall, we found the police had barricaded the street; no one was getting through. Imagine the busiest football game day in the history of Gainesville, where cars park anywhere they can make room, where pedestrians cross the street where ever they feel like it, and where police tape restricts access to the very places you wish to go. Imagine that, and then imagine much worse. Miriam had to jump out of the car at an intersection and proceed on foot to the store while I tried my best not to get smashed by the insane drivers determined to reach their goal if it killed them. Cars covered the median and shoulder of the road, and people openly defied no parking signs to secure a small bit of real estate. Miriam emerged from the nightmare unscathed, and with a beautiful turquoise blue Dutch oven she was sure Kat would love. I was shaken. “I am never coming here again”, I vowed. I think I even shook my fist.

We proceeded on to Miriam’s parents’ house, and the next day, as we were enjoying an afternoon at Walt Disney World, Miriam received a textual message from Kat, who was on her way home from Richmond, where her wedding had taken place. “I just got a turquoise Le Creuset Dutch oven at a store in North Carolina”, it read. I died a little, but it was actually kind of funny. Miriam is such a good gift giver that she knew exactly what the bride would have purchased herself given the chance. And she did.

So, it’s back to the nightmare for us to exchange a Dutch oven for a skillet. It’s a good thing Kat and Harris are such wonderful people.

That story is still to come.

But it never fails that at least once a season the writers of The Simpsons give us something inspired – something that lives up to the high standards the show set in its better seasons. Last night’s episode, “Replacable You”, was outstanding, and a splendid reminder of how the show used to make me laugh until my guts hurt.