when i travel this year, i try to walk as much as possible.  and in the calm quiet of my hotel room in downtown portland, i mapquested how to get to f2fb friend #282 karin deitterich mcdonough.  i was very excited because i hadn’t seen her since high school.  she was always the smart chick.  i thought she was very chic.  i couldn’t wait to hear about what had happened in the past thirtysome years.

on mapquest, if i took a car, it would take nine minutes to traverse the four miles.  but i decided to try the walking option.  again, four miles.  but an hour and a half?  oh, come now!  i might be fifty one but i think of myself as pretty fit.  i took down the directions and headed out at eight–i was supposed to meet her for breakfast at her house between ten and ten thirty.  i dawdled through the downtown because i had a lot of time on my hands.  then i entered into what portlanders would call “the hills”.  the hills go straight up.  then the street changes its name like an identity thief on crack.  then the hills go straight down, which when a gal is wear a bit of a coquette-ish heel–well, let’s just say i put my bag and my ass down at one point and sort of scootched along as toddlers do.  when i looked down i realized i could not see the downtown any longer.  as a chicagoan, i take a lot of comfort in skyscrapers seen at a distance.

i arrived promptly at ten thirty.  i only had to call her once because there was a court, a boulevard, a street, a parkway, and an avenue all with the same name as her little rue.  i had hoped she would give me a bell ringing lesson.  we didn’t really have time for that.  but she did give me a bell ringing lesson of an unexpected type: 

after a first marriage ended, karin met her second husband through their shared love of bell ringing. they both perform and karin is going to get her master's in music education. told you she was the smart one!!

peter butier welcomed me home to winnetka--he travels almost as much as i have this year because he balances a girlfriend in lake forest and children in arizona, california, and texas. i told him about the fact that this new years resolution was written about in huffingtonpost.com and he thought that was funny. i do too!