A Perfect Day for a Jag (English)

A day out with the Jag made the day seem more festive than it was. I've decided to save the Jag for events, or for times when I want to make something into an event, rather than tooling around in her just for day to day travel. Besides, she's really not gussied up yet; Blodwen, the Jag, is old, 20 years old now, and she needs some TLC. She still cuts a fine line, but she has some rust near her underside, hardly noticeable yet, but it needs relatively immediate attention.

Nonetheless, it was a beautiful spring day, an order-made day for a car built in England. Blodwen cllipped along the by-ways of Schenectady, Fulton and Montgomery Counties her six cylinders churning away in her 4.2 litre engine giving me about 200 HP, but only 17.8 miles to the gallon. Oh well, no one's perfect. It was a great ride with the moonroof open, and since part of my mission for the day was to ferry B to his endoscopy in Amsterdam, it seemed the best mode of travel. It makes going into the hospital for an uncomfortable procedure easier when you're sitting on real English leather and staring a beautiful mahogany veneer dash.

After dropping B off, I went to the college briefly to meet colleagues. We then transported ourselves up to Lanzi's on the Lake north of Mayfield, but south of Northville, along the Sacandaga Reservoir, a massive 29 mile long reservoir used to control water flow in the Hudson. Again, Blodwen was in her element, grabbing the country roads with a tenacity only a car with such a long wheel base can do. On the way up to Lanzi's I was alone, however on the way back, one of my colleagues came back to the college with me.

We were at Lanzi's to celebrate the departure of RA. RA, a female instructor, has been with us only a year, and has decided to return to here native Metarie, LA, the main suburb of New Orleans. We are all at a loss to understand why exactly she is leaving; she has claimed that it is for personal reasons, although I must wonder what kinds of gross personal reasons might compel someone to give up a $40k/year job for an uncertain future in a region where academics are payed much less well than they are here. Nonetheless, RA has been a lovely colleague for a year, and I had had her here to the house in the Fall for a "Southern Louisiana" soirée which she very much enjoyed. She brought the red-beans and rice and other friends and neighbors brought other food and beverages. B actually came to that party, as did Jon and Kim. B had brought the primary fixings for mint julips and I had procured the necessary ingredients for sazeracs, both of which were the main drinks for the evening. It will be sad to see the back of RA, and I can only hope that the man replacing her in the fall will be as good a part of our community.

Lanzi's was an ironically fitting locale to have her farewell luncheon; it sits ashore the massive reservoir and looks out across a beautiful vista, across what once had been the Great Sacandaga River Valley. The valley was flooded in the 1930's during that era of great reservoir building in which many small villages and towns across America were drown to create more sources of water and power, both of which are products of the Sacandaga today, as well as steady tourist industry of lake-lovers. The view really is spectacular and may well epitomize the Adirondacks, and all that RA will leave behind for the sultry summers of deep southern Louisiana. Perhaps she was just too attached to her land to really leave; I have a feeling I will never know.

At any rate, after lunch I returned to campus and collected some things people wanted me to shuttle to B. I took them to his house in the Bellevue section of the city, and then returned home to prepare for Yoga. The class was crowded but good. After it, Carolyn and I went to Lots of Noodles for lots of noodles, and now here I am home and winding down after another well-spent day.