US Tour 1997: Day 18

Fifteen years ago today:

A momentous day: I have my first breakfast at Ritter’s Diner and fall in love with Pittsburgh. David (my host) and I cover a lot of ground and if you look closely you can see things that no longer exist–like Isaly’s, Three Rivers Stadium, and the East Liberty projects.

If you’re starting to get weary from the trip, today also marks the halfway point.

Original narrative.

US Tour 1997: Day 17

Fifteen years ago today:

A quick circle through downtown Detroit, followed by an unpleasant drive through Toledo and free passage on the Ohio Turnpike. I landed in Pittsburgh, which was not on the original itinerary, and thus began somewhat by accident a love affair with the place that endures to this day.

Original narrative.

Order through chaos

It’s hard not to love a bookstore with a “history of technology” section.

More random stuff for a Saturday morning, all of which would probably be more appropriate to some closed-system social networking platform, but fuck that:

  • This might explain so may aspects of my life, from my career choice to why my marriage state-unsanctioned relationship failed.  And why I always crave cookies but often don’t find them satisfying. Or it might not. (Thanks, Dan C.)
  • Much true, this. And it’s somehow related to the fact that I find knowing lots of stupid Excel tricks has helped me more as a librarian than any other tech skills.
  • I don’t shop at Penney’s (I mean “JCP“) as much as I used to, but I could start again, especially if it would piss off these morons.

North of the border

So as you may have gathered, I made a quick trip to Canada last weekend. There was a “weekend getaway” aspect to the trip and I did get to hang out with my friend Sarah in Toronto. There was also a business aspect. All in all, it was a great long weekend–if a bit exhausting from all the driving. I always feel so peaceful and calm in Canada. An added bonus was that it was rather chilly so I was able to extend the winter I never really had by a few days.

I stopped in Pittsburgh on the way up, my last visit there since we sold the house. Frankly, I was a little nervous about that. There’s a lot of “breakup baggage” associated with Pittsburgh. But I love Pittsburgh and I’ve decided not to let negative associations ruin it for me (a decision I’m trying to make on a regular basis lately) so I drove into town, had my Italian sub at Tom’s Diner in Dormont and then drove up to Mount Washington to look down on the gorgeousness. And it was good.

On Saturday I made the drive to Niagara Falls with a brief stop in Erie. The border crossing was relatively uneventful, all things considered, and I made my way into Fort Erie for cash before driving the 30 km to Niagara Falls. It was at about this point that I realized it was starting to get cold and rainy and I had somehow neglected to pack a jacket. So it was off to Value Village. I checked into my ridiculously cheap room ($29) at the Super 8 and eventually headed back out in search of dinner. I found said dinner at a wonderful place called The Flying Saucer Restaurant, which was kind of like eating inside an episode of Space:1999, decked out as it was in that beautiful late 1970s vision of the future. I also walked around the Clinton Hill tourist zone for a few minutes.

Sunday morning brought breakfast at a most wonderful diner that was way off the beaten (tourist) path and was dirt cheap–particularly by Canadian standards. I explored Niagara a bit before meeting Sarah at the new Walmart (it was right off the QEW and had a big parking lot, making it perfect for said rendezvous) so we could make a day trip to Toronto. It was great seeing Sarah; we had lunch and roamed about The Annex a bit before popping in to the new Loblaws at Maple Leaf Gardens and then heading home. After sending her back across the border, I explored a bit more.

On Monday morning, I packed up, checked out got gas, had breakfast at Bassell’s, and did my necessary grocery shopping and other final errands. I shot a few photos downtown and managed to locate the building that served as the morgue in Niagara (I’d scouted a couple of other locations the day before). Then it was back to the USA, appropriately entering through the hellhole known as Niagara Falls, New York. I stopped by Wegman’s, detoured through Buffalo, and got on the Thruway.

After my late start, I couldn’t quite make it home in one day, so I spent Monday night in one of the newly-renovated Motel 6 locations outside Charleston WV. My room was sort of a half-assed version with mostly new paint and a new (but yet still cigarette-burned) bedspread and no actual new furniture.

After a quick breakfast and an unproductive stop by the Charleston Department Store, I came home.

Photos:

Abandoning Da ‘Burgh


Goodbye, house…

I think I already mentioned it, but the Great Pittsburgh Experiment (2009-2011) came to its conclusion a few weeks ago as Mark and I met up to dismantle the house we’d been so excited to buy two years earlier.

The reasons are clear: we’re no longer a couple and one of us lives on the other end of the country. And the one who lives on the other end of the country is the one who was more excited about having a house in Pittsburgh to begin with. Not that I didn’t love the house too, but it was always more Mark’s fantasy than mine, and he did all the painting and the renovations, etc. Pittsburgh is a place I’d still consider living should an opportunity arise. I really like it there. But I probably won’t visit much now that we’ve sold the place; part of the fun was “playing house.” It just wasn’t enough fun to justify paying another mortgage.

One benefit of moving is that I got lots of nice new old furniture to use in Winston-Salem. The former owner left a fair amount of stuff in the house when we bought it, including an amazing “Brady Bunch Hawaiian Adventure” bedroom suite which has now migrated southward to the Carolinas. I got custody of a much newer and better mattress too.  Thanks to Mark for driving the truck and helping to load and unload all this stuff. It’s inspired me to do a makeover.

It was sort of a sad weekend, obviously, as one more part of the life we used to have together was ending. But it was something we had to let go. I wish I’d taken some time to spend a few days up there before we gave up possession of the house, just to have a few more breakfasts at Barb’s or lunches at Smallman Street. I felt very much a part of Pittsburgh, strangely enough, even with my limited time there. Years from now, I’ll probably see these two years of owning two homes as a sort of surreal period, much like 2005-2006 in Charlotte but probably with fonder recollections (except maybe for the ones that involve driving through 250 miles of West Virginia each visit). I’ll miss Pittsburgh, but I’ll miss what it symbolized even more.

Under contract

I’m not sure how this happened but all this week’s work on the house in Winston-Salem seems to have resulted in a sale. But it’s the house in Pittsburgh that sold. Go figure. (Yes, I know that one had nothing to do with the other, but when you’re ending chapters of your life on a more or less weekly basis, it helps to have a sense of humor about it.)

Carpet sleeper

If you have to spend a Thursday afternoon babysitting carpet cleaners, it definitely helps if “The Big Sleep” is the afternoon movie on TCM.

It’s been contractors all week for me as I’ve been getting assorted repairs, cleanups, and other quick fixes in place in a desperate effort to make the house more appealing to potential buyers. It strikes me as kind of sad that–like many people, I’m guessing–we never did some of these little things to make the house nicer until it was time to sell. So other people get to enjoy our investment.

But the way the real estate market is now, I might end up “enjoying” them for years to come anyway.

Since I no longer update with any frequency, here are a few catch up items:

  • Work is good. I just got approval to burn off some one-time funds on a project that’s very near to my heart. I also just returned from a relatively informative conference in Charleston. And I’ll probably be at the big ALA shindig in New Orleans next month if anyone wants to hang out.
  • We’re supposed to be getting another offer on the Pittsburgh house today.
  • A short vacation in Atlanta for me in a couple of weeks. I’m looking forward to a few days of random exploration and not thinking about houses or other stressful things. I may actually even get some research done. I’ve been into that again lately, particularly now that I’m finding a lot of libraries (mine included) are starting to put city directories online via the Internet Archive.
  • A good friend who’s now stranded in Mississippi will be moving back this way in another few weeks–right when I’m in Atlanta, as it turns out–and I may be having lunch with a longtime online acquaintance and his betrothed this weekend. Maybe the new German place