She Said "Utrecht"

Stood up in the meeting and said, “I’m sorry everyone but the foreigners need to leave now” if we’re going to get our train.  I know the drama of going to the South Station.  I know what it’s like to wait in line for your ticket while the minutes evaporate and have someone cut in front of you with a sob story and resist the urge to use your own to do the same thing, until you do.

Been cloudy all day, humid, thick weather.  Taking one client around to meetings.  The schedule is full but not packed.  A massive banquet lunch.  I had thought I’d sit lunch out but it would have been rather rude.  I partook.  And the carp head was tasty and the meatball soup had me fishing out another and yet another meatball.  The shrimp, bathed in garlic, tasted a bit like Italian scampi.  And the lazy Susan spun round and round.

Jinan in the evening.  Usually I go during the morning and return in a day.  Two nights in Jinan for one customer.  Hard to believe this is really, necessary.  We’ll stay one and then another night there near the customer.  I really would rather be heading home. 

Met someone from Utrect this morning.  That was unexpected.  I don’t remember every place I visited in the summer of 1987, but I remember Utrect and thinking it was lovely.  There is a tower to the cathedral and I climbed it and took in the city and I want to say I rented a bicycle to drive around though I don’t know how easy that would have been that many years ago.  This morning a guest came as I was leaving.  My wife had yet to return from dropping off the kids.  I asked her where she was from, expecting her to say some place in the U.S. but she said Holland and when I asked her where in Holland she said “Utrecht” and all view from the cathedral and the bicycle and the spirit of being twenty all come back to me on the wind of her comment.

Tuesday 9/11/18