In general I love computers and new technologies. I covet my iPhone. I appreciate the ways that computers enhance productivity. I am unable to write creatively on a sheet of paper.

But honestly, this stuff can be such a pain in the derriere.

Today I spent part of my day speaking with folks from AT&T and Apple to make sure that 1) my phone will work in Germany (where we’re going next week) and 2) that I don’t accidentally spend vast sums of money by data roaming. I’m clear now, but it was touch-and-go there for a while.

Now, this evening, I am working on getting Jim onto a speaker’s bureau website. I have what I need (bio, photos, testimonials). Uh, not quite. We had professional photos taken last month for this very purpose, and now I find that the website will accept jpeg, gif and png formats, and of course my photos are tiffs. AAARRRGGHHHHH.

We’ve spent the past few days in New York City and have had a fun time. I’m not altogether fond of New York as I don’t really need all that extra energy pulsing through my already hypertensive arteries. Still, the place has a lot to offer and since we’re here anyway (a meeting), we always make the best of it.

This trip I visited the Met (again) and went through the Frick Collection for the first time. There’s nothing I can say about the Met that you haven’t heard (lots and lots of art objects!). The Frick is a very nice “house” museum, with much of the art displayed just as the owner, Henry Clay Frick, a coke and steel magnate, left it. Now, when I say house, think “amazing mansion on Fifth Avenue with a huge room built as an art gallery included” and you get a better idea of what I’m talking about. A Van Gogh here, a couple of Vermeers there, here a Monet, there a couple of El Greco’s, a roomful of Fragonard murals, a beautiful collection of Limoges enamels. I’m sure you get the idea.

In a similar vein, Jim and I visited the J.P.Morgan Library. Good old Pierpont (well, we’re not on a first-name basis, but I didn’t know that was what he was called by his friends and family) collected a lot of stuff (some of which was bought by Mr. Frick and is now in his collection) and there is a lovely space on Madison Avenue that houses his collection of “things on paper.”

We also went to two shows that I would recommend to anyone: Curtains, with David Hyde Pierce and Debra Monk, and Boeing, Boeing with Christine Baransky, Bradley Whitfield and a most amazing Mark Rylance. We loved both shows!

And finally, eateries to recommend: the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Station (Jim loves oysters, what can I say?), Le Rivage (a moderately priced French restaurant with great service), and Avra Estiatorio (a somewhat expensive but very nice Greek restaurant).

Ewww, Jim just gave me this awful statistic. Our meal last night (dinner for three with two bottles of wine) cost about the per capita annual income of a person in India. And THIS is why Americans shouldn’t buy so much stuff. How embarrassing.

So here I am, a person who thinks of herself as at least agreeable to social justice agendas if not an activist herself. The fact is, I wish there were a way to make sure all people had access to well-care and preventive care, that all children could attend preschool if their parents wanted them to, that teachers could be paid well enough to attract the best and brightest to teaching and caring for our children, that all Americans could figure out how to live on a little less of the world’s resources and not be quite so acquisitive.

And that last one especially gets me totally confused as I spend time with economists who think it’s amazingly wonderful for the whole world that we are exactly as acquisitive as we are. Our spending finances jobs all over the world (and yes, in the US, too). Free trade lifts the economic output of the world–the evidence is in the IMF’s World Economic Outlook which shows that extreme poverty across the globe has declined dramatically over the past several years. (That is part of the reason that food costs have escalated. As soon as people have more money, they want to eat more. Go figure.)

And, if the US wants to create a nasty recession, here’s how they do it. Jim writes:

“The danger is that consumers will quit spending, raise the savings rate dramatically and precipitate a long and deep recession. They have the ability to spend since jobs, incomes and assets are all at or near record levels.”

Now isn’t it GOOD that we raise our savings rate? And isn’t it bad that consumers spend money willy-nilly on the oddest things (please check out most of the stock of places like Williams-Sonoma, Sharper Image, any chocolate store (not that I advocate avoiding chocolate or anything)?

I am so confused……

Just thought I’d at least write a brief post since I’ve been quite derelict lately. Aside from the fact that I haven’t been particularly moved by any topic (I refuse to write about the election, though I will say that I never thought the May 6 primary in North Carolina would actually count for something), I’ve been working out, putting in this year’s annual plants, washing clothes, typing stuff for Jim, going to social and entertainment events and generally keeping way too busy.

But most of all, I’ve started working on a book. This is one of my long-term goals and instead of looking for a job (came perilously close to doing that but still can’t imagine getting up every day, early, and going to work, all day–sorry for all of you who do that), I decided it was time to write my book!

The working title is “First Dates After 50: Women’s Stories” and it will be a compilation and analysis of the stories women submit to me via Internet about, well, their first dates. If a person is single and meets someone new, there is inevitably a first date. Sometimes these are lovely affairs, or interesting evenings, or unique experiences or disasters. I want to hear about all of them.

So, if you know any woman who has been single after the age of 50 and dated, tell them to send me a story. Go to web.mac.com/lmtopp to get more information about the project.

We live here, we eat out a lot here (hard to buy food for cooking during those times when we’re home for short periods of time), so we’ve visited a lot of area restaurants. In no particular order, we really like these:

Stovetrotter’s Bistro (we just went there tonight–the food was fabulous!)
Flying Frog (where else can you get German and Indian food on the same menu?)
Lobster Trap (Jim likes this one better than I do–could be that he’s more thoroughly addicted to lobster)
Ophelia’s
Limone’s
Bouchon (but they don’t take reservations so there’s no point in waiting in line with all these other great choices)
Fiore’s
Southside Cafe
Amici’s
Savoy

In a category of its own since I LOVE everything Biltmore:
Bistro on the Biltmore Estate
The Dining Room at the Inn at Biltmore Estate

Non-Asheville favorites:
Flight (Hendersonville)
Blackwater Grille (also Hendersonville)
Seasons (Flat Rock)

Low-cost places around home:
Asian Grill
Wanpen
El Rebozo
Don Papa’s
Tamarind (Thai)
Casa Torres

Those of you who know Jim well also know that he is charmed with what I call the “optimism gene.” Not only are his economic forecasts often on the rosy side, but so is his view of our household budget, how long it takes to do something (sure, we can visit 4 national parks tomorrow!), and how close he can park to his objective (and I have to admit, he is extraordinarily lucky in this regard)(or is the optimism gene prophetic?).

In any case, here is an excerpt from Robert J. Samuelson’s March 31 Newsweek column that provides some insight into the economic version of the optimism gene while addressing the current hysteria:

“Those who think the economy is highly unstable talk now of an alarming “negative feedback loop”—a “vicious circle” to most people. Housing prices fall, creating more defaults and foreclosures; losses on mortgages increase, eroding the capital of banks and investment banks and causing them to curtail lending—which weakens the economy, depresses housing prices and causes more foreclosures and losses. Just as in the Depression, a crippled financial system spreads the slump. Only forceful government intervention can break the downward spiral.

Not necessarily, if most markets self-correct. As housing prices fall, more buyers come into the market; sales and construction revive. Most postwar recessions have been brief and mild, arguably because these mechanisms are pervasive. If inventories get too high, production slows and surpluses are sold; then production accelerates. If consumers or businesses are overindebted, they reduce spending to repay loans; spending speeds up when debt burdens drop. Though possible in theory, vicious circles are rare in practice. Government can help smooth business cycles, and everyone agrees that it should try to prevent financial panics. But if government is too aggressive, it may make matters worse. That occurred in the 1970s when easy credit created double-digit inflation—and then required harsh recessions to suppress it.

Hardly anyone adheres rigidly to either view but, consciously or not, many favor one or the other. That explains why the subprime losses seem so threatening to some—the start of a chain reaction—and less so to others. The Great Depression doesn’t settle the issue. It’s true that massive bank failures helped convert an ordinary recession into an economic calamity; but it’s also true that government policy—excessive rigidity by the Federal Reserve—actually aggravated the banking collapse. Still, the economic conditions of the 1930s (average unemployment: 18 percent) are so different from today’s that casual use of the term “depression” amounts to fearmongering. If the calamities implied by today’s hysteria occur, they will probably result from something we don’t now know or haven’t yet imagined.”

It seemed like a good idea at the time. Jim had a meeting in Phoenix, our 16-year old niece was on spring break, and no other speeches were in the way, so what about extending the trip, staying in Flagstaff and visiting all the national parks and monuments within a two-hour drive? Sounds great!

Well, yeah, great to us, and to thousands of other people, too. Sigh. So, we had a good time, we learned a lot about geology and ancient southwest indigenous people, but we were always in crowds. And flying was just nasty with planes full to overflowing with rookie fliers. (And let’s just note right here that although this is not another Continental Airlines diatribe, we certainly got no special treatment whatsoever as Platinum Elite fliers.)

But, having done the requisite whining, I can report that we did enjoy ourselves. Our tour included the Petrified Forest in the Painted Desert (I say it that way because I never knew the two were connected—duh), the Grand Canyon, Montezuma’s Castle (cliff dwelling) and Well (a desert sinkhole/spring-fed lake), Tuzigoot (Indian pueblo), Sedona, Lowell Observatory, Sunset Crater Volcano (cinder cone with lots of area geology explained), Wupatki (Indian pueblo), Walnut Canyon (cliff dwelling), Meteor Crater and a campus tour of Northern Arizona University.

Highlights:

Jim’s “must see” was the Petrified Forest. For me, the thrill was not just being amazed at beautiful agate-filled logs just lying around, but the extraordinary scenery of the Painted Desert. Here the sedimentary rocks are dyed with minerals leaching from a volcanic ash layer, and with no vegetation to cover it over (the “desert” part), it is a painter’s wonderland of purple and pink pastels.

My “must see” was Meteor Crater—not because I thought a big hole in the ground would be so very impressive (though it was pretty amazing) but because of the whole idea of how it was made. Despite reading quite a bit about it, I’m still not totally clear on where all the stuff that was in the hole went. Obviously some of it was piled up around the rim, but not nearly enough to account for the missing volume of rock. The explanation is that some was vaporized (poof!), some melted, some piled at the rim, and some formed a “continuous blanket of debris surrounding the crater for a distance of over a mile.” Well, OK, but I was there and it’s not obvious is all I’m saying. A very good book (extremely readable) on the geology of the areas we visited: Geology Underfoot in Northern Arizona by Lon Abbott and Terri Cook.

For Haley, the most inspiring part of the trip was her visit to NAU. It was her first campus tour (she’s a sophomore) and as happens with most kids after their first tour, she was very impressed and would like to go there. Jim and I liked it, too, with its reasonable size (10,000) in a reasonably sized city (Flagstaff-60,000), and its strong commitment to undergrad education. We’ll see what happens.

The saddest, sorriest part of the trip was –thieving tourists. Especially at the Petrified Forest, theft of petrified wood amounts to about a ton a month!!!! That is so unbelievable. Except that as you walk along the trails, signs point out what the place used to look like, before all the loose stones that covered the ground were taken. This is disgusting. Only about 10% of the area’s petrified wood is protected, and it is easy to buy—in the gift store at the visitor’s center (they sell petrified wood that’s come from non-parklands) and in lots of shops in the area. But people still steal it. While we were there, we didn’t see anyone take anything, but we did see many, many people walking off-trail, despite prominent signs telling people to stay on the trails. This behavior is appalling and I’m embarrassed that I’m in the same species as these people. Take three deep breaths……….

Our evening at the Lowell Observatory was pretty impressive, even if we did vastly underestimate the number of folks who would be there and had to stand in line for about 90 minutes as the temp continued to drop and the breeze continued to rise. Brrrrr. But, our perseverance was rewarded as we got a look through the 24-inch telescope at Saturn. I’m pretty sure that’s probably the biggest telescope a non-astronomer would ever be allowed to look through. I also took advantage of two smaller telescopes that were set up for viewing M81, M82 and M41. It was an incredible opportunity.

I love touring the west, and this trip ranks right up there on my list of favorite places I have visited.

And, no trip to Phoenix would be complete without our usual trip to eat at Lon’s at the Hermosa Inn. The ambiance, especially on the patio, is romantic, beautiful, lovely… and the food is always terrific.

Hey, are you tired, amazed, overwhelmed, scared, annoyed (pick one or create your own) at all the economic brouhaha? Weirdly, Jim’s not getting called for a lot of speeches, but we are getting a lot of calls from concerned corporate customers.

Here’s Jim in a nutshell: Calm down, take it easy. The Fed’s on the case (though riding in a little late and actually partly to blame by keeping interest rates too high for too long). The original housing mess is mostly affecting large investment banks (see Bear Sterns) and homeowners (well, more accurately, home mortgage-payers) in four states: Arizona, California, Florida and Nevada (my condolences to those states, plus Michigan). But let’s not forget that these places (not Michigan, you silly) also had the biggest run-up in prices and honestly, what goes up way too fast always comes down. Small business owners are still reporting no problems getting credit. The drop in employment numbers (nonfarm payroll jobs to be precise–sheesh, living with an economist can be so, um, irritating?) is so small compared to the number of actual jobs that it is not a statistically significant number.

So, calm down, people. Remember FDR’s words, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” And he was talking about economic news then, too. And those times were WAY worse. (Apparently I’m not the first person to dredge up this quote for the current times. The blogosphere is active.)

Jim was quoted by the Raleigh News & Observer regarding technology companies on the 21st. Here’s the link: Tech Companies Feel Slowdown.

When you travel as much as we do, you’re bound to hit a few bad days. Our last trip, which to be fair was 3+ weeks long, had several.

The first few distressing episodes included Jim’s intestinal bug in Toulouse, where he missed all the touring and most of his meeting (miraculously arising each evening for dinner!), a too-tight-turnaround-for-Heathrow so we didn’t have our luggage during our overnight in Frankfurt, bad weather in Chicago so my flight was cancelled (hey, but we did get our luggage) resulting in an unscheduled hotel night there, the passed-along intestinal bug to me in Palm Springs (La Quinta) where I missed most of that segment, and a blessedly uneventful drive to LA and then a flight to DFW for a speech in Fort Worth.

But the fun really began when we tried to fly home from Fort Worth on Saturday afternoon (2/16). We had a 4:30 pm flight to Houston (IAH) with a 2-hour layover and a connection to Asheville at 7:30. Obviously, we checked our 4 bags to AVL. Note that there is only one flight a day from Houston to Asheville (the one serious problem with living in Asheville is its dearth of flights). So, when the flight was delayed (very stormy weather at IAH), we watched our dinner hour disappear. Then we watched our connection disappear. But wait, outgoing flights were also being delayed so it might be possible to still make the connection. But no, never mind, we’re definitely missing the flight to AVL.

Well, we are Platinum fliers for heaven’s sake, so we know the drill. We called the Continental Platinum Desk and got ourselves rebooked to fly to Newark at 10:55 pm (from IAH), followed by a flight to Asheville the next morning assuming that we can make the Newark connection. Fine. Good.

So we finally board our flight CO 2600 to IAH, the same flight we’ve always been on, the flight where we have exit row seats, the flight on which they tell us we do not have a reservation. WHAT?!?!?!?! And they can’t find me in their system at all. WHAT?!!?!?!?

It turns out that the helpful (not so much) Platinum Desk guy who booked us to Newark (EWR) from Houston cancelled us on the flight TO Houston. Lovely. I’m sure that it was only our Platinum status that actually got us seats (not together, of course) on that flight, since the 3:30 flight to Houston was also delayed along with us. We also discovered that Jim and I are now flying on two separate records, which is why they couldn’t find me.

At last, we get on the plane. This is good. We will be able to make the EWR flight. We will get home Sunday morning. At least we will be home 24 hours. This is one of those times where Jim really tests my commitment to travel with him. A 24-hour turnaround from a 3-week trip. Eesh. That’s not enough time to read our backed up mail. Oh well. The next trip, to Destin, FL, is short (3 days, 2 nights) and involves a paying speech and is a destination I’ve never been to. I’m hoping it will be warm and I’m excited about seeing those white, sugar-sand beaches I’ve heard about. These are my thoughts while on the plane.

The pilot interrupts my reverie, which has been going on while we’ve taxied away from the gate, to announce that we have been re-routed by air traffic control to Houston via San Antonio. We won’t land or anything, but we will be heading west to go east to avoid those same storms that have been causing trouble all evening. So? Uh, oh, this flight will last 1-1/2 hours (about 35 minutes longer than normal) AND we need more fuel to do that. So, it’s back to the gate for us. And now we’ll miss the Newark flight. DRAT!

As we sit for a few minutes at the gate waiting for our fuel, we are told that our co-pilot will not be able to fly because the extra time required to go around the storm will cause him to time out before we arrive. Sheesh, this is getting ridiculous. So now we will wait for a new co-pilot—some poor guy who is either arriving in Houston to go to bed or is already at home or in his hotel room. That’s gonna take a while.

After waiting a few more minutes (maybe 10 or 15) we get the surprising news that instead of refueling, we’re just going to change planes. (What????). So, everybody off, get re-ticketed and board the plane parked next door. Eesh, this is SO confusing. But, we do as we’re told and at least this time we get seated together, though still not in the extra-roomy exit row we originally had. At this time, at least a third of the passengers give up and decide to stay in Dallas-Ft. Worth overnight.

Now we’re on our new plane, waiting. . . . . . . . . “For what?” you might ask. Well, silly, we have to transfer all the luggage from plane 1 to plane 2. There never was any good explanation of why we needed to change planes, but by the time all that rigmarole was done, a new co-pilot showed up.

Not ones to take our flight cancellations quietly, we spent much of the extended wait time on the phone getting a room reservation in Houston (don’t even think the airlines would cover a room—this was weather-related after all) and making the decision to give up on Asheville altogether and head directly to Ft. Walton Beach (VPS)/Destin, FL. So, another call to the Platinum desk, who proceeded to confuse themselves again with the two records that were erroneously created by the Newark reservation. This time our friendly but maybe-not-totally helpful Continental person booked us from Houston to VPS for Sunday, the 17th, giving Jim the flight number 2918 with a departure time of 12:25 pm. OK, we’re not going home quite yet but at least we’ll be on time for Jim’s Tuesday speech.

Finally, we actually take off and fly all the way to Houston. And now, I don’t know why this part surprised us, but you’ve probably guessed that our luggage didn’t arrive. #$%^&*$% All that time transferring luggage? And our bags were tagged to Asheville so since there are NO flights that go to Asheville from DFW, why didn’t our bags get reloaded onto the new plane???? Or, if they were on the new plane, and since NO ONE was connecting anywhere by that time in Houston, why didn’t they put our luggage on the belt???? This was TOTALLY ANNOYING. And at least British Airways supplies a t-shirt with their “overnight kit.” “I don’t like sleeping naked,” I’m whining.

So, it’s overnight in Houston. People are cranky, our Hilton Garden Inn is full and it gets ugly when the driver refuses to take some people who say they have reservations but whom he doesn’t believe for some reason. We managed to get on the shuttle but it was a close thing.

Next morning, I check the Continental website to find out what terminal we need to go to for flight 2918. WHAT????? Flight 2918 leaves at 4:05 pm. This is not good for so many reasons, not the least of which is that the same storm that messed us up last night will be in Ft. Walton Beach at around 4:00 pm!!!! But, hey, we probably have the wrong flight number, right? So I look up our records online to double-check. All right, this is serious. We have no records, no flight to VPS at all. Not again!!!!!!

An hour-long call to the now-infamous Platinum desk (they’re not particularly competent but they’re all we’ve got) finally gets us on the flight we always wanted (#5754 leaving at 12:25), although not seated together. But at least we’re on the plane. But wait, my ticket change is free but Jim’s costs $331. “Both of us are flying the exact same route, with the exact same types of tickets, originally in the same record, with the same cancellations and changes,” we try to explain. “But the records are different. They show different things.” AAARRRGGHGHHG!!! It took another 20 minutes but eventually Jim’s fee was waived(?).

At last, we shuttled to the airport, flew to Ft. Walton Beach, picked up two pieces of luggage (shocking), and beat the storm to our hotel. Jim’s second suitcase (all his outer clothing) arrived on Monday, my second suitcase (all MY outer clothing AND pajamas!) arrived on Tuesday after making its way to Asheville.

So now when you read about our travels, you can remind yourself that sure, seeing very cool stuff all around the world is exciting, but getting there is NOT!