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Sean and Kelly wed in Portland a couple of weeks ago, but I have been silent on the subject, awaiting pictures to be posted which depict not the bride and groom, but me, looking sharp and dapper in my Hugo Boss suit. Skip ahead with me, instead, to last weekend; I backpacked overnight at Ten Lakes in Yosemite, where I sunbathed on a rock, made friends with a deer, and watched the sunset bathe the lakeside cliffs in red.

“What is the weather supposed to be like?” I asked the woman who had just printed my wilderness permit.

“The same as always,” she said in a tone inexplicably laced with lamentation, “It never rains.”

I nodded, suspicious of her claim. My summer in New Mexico had taught me that there is always a storm in the afternoon, often with accompanying pyrotechnics. One of my few California hikes had been to the Lost Coast, where it rained with the constancy of Niagra Falls. Her words proved true, however, and I enjoyed the most mild and pleasant weather of any outdoor experience. No rain gear nor warm nighttime clothes were necessary.

With a full pack, I hiked the 8 miles to the furthest and largest of the ten lakes. I was pleased to learn that the women who were swimming in the lake when I arrived were camping elsewhere. I had the lake to myself. I pitched my tent in a prime spot and ambled cautiously down to the water wearing only my shorts. I waded in the clear, shallow water amongst the large tadpoles, stepping one at a time on the flat rocks which layered the bottom of the lake, less than a foot beneath the surface. The warm sun illuminated the submerged sand and made the water temperature pleasantly cool.

I climbed atop a boulder that decorated the small outcropping of land that I had designated my personal peninsula. I let the afternoon rays dry my legs and reflect off of my pale skin, blinding hawks and chipmunks, alike. Satisfied, I leapt down and returned to my tent to fetch my shoes. The deer was waiting for me.

It was a doe (a deer, a female deer), or a buck cruelly gypped of his male birthright. It froze at the sound of my approach and we stared at each other. She broke the gaze first, dropping her head down to graze. I wondered if the animal would understand human body language, and so I turned away in a feint of disinterest. Convinced I was no threat, the doe returned later that evening, braver this time, coming within a few feet of me. She appraised me and lingered with me for a few minutes on my peninsula as the sun began to disappear behind the pines.

I ate dinner on my boulder: hot chicken noodle soup in a bag. After an exhausting day, it was a delicacy. The eastern edge of the lake was rimmed by towering cliffs. While I hungrily devoured my painstakingly timed meal, I watched the steep face of rocks and shrubs turn bright yellow, then orange, and then a fiery red before the darkness of night finally consumed them.

I awoke in the daylight, unaware of the time, and leisurely fired up my stove for some morning tea. Everything looked different, shining with light of a quality and angle unlike the afternoon before. I watched a chipmunk run down the shore into the lake, only to immediately leap back out again: wet but not soaked. A power shower? I smiled and turned away from the water to find the doe waiting for me.

“Hi,” I said. “Hello.” I felt the heat of the tea conducting through the mug handle and burning my fingers, but I ignored it, acutely aware of the precious fragility of the moment. But the lithe creature was not there for greetings, but to say goodbye. She tilted her head slightly, one ear focused on me while the other swiveled toward some sound beyond my hearing, and meandered down to the peninsula for some breakfast and a drink of water. Then she bounded off into the woods, quickly vanishing among the shadows and branches.

I sighed and perfunctorily packed my gear. Then I, too, swallowed some dried fruit, took a swig from my Nalgene, and trudged off, away from the lake and the cliffs and along the path home.

Before leaving the DC area, I took Erik’s advice and stole away for lunch at Five Guys Burgers. I’m told the chain extends all the way up the east coast, but I’ve never been. I devoured a burger-with-everything and regular fries before venturing back out into the afternoon heat. I sweat grease the whole way back to the hotel, leaving oily fingerprints on the metal metro railings. It was the tastiest burger I’ve ever had at a restaurant, and I feel completely disgusting.

I spent last week in London, living somewhat beyond my means. The dollar is rather pathetic against the pound, so every price here is doubled to get the price in American cash monies. For example, I had lunch at Vingt-Quatre, the only 24-hour diner, to my knowledge, in the city. I had a tasty club sandwich for £7.95. If you’re keeping score, that was a $16 club sandwich. Two nights ago I spent more than £100 on dinner and drinks.

Sisi was kind enough to house me for the week, which at least meant my primary expense was food. Her friend Anthony was also crashing in her spacious two-bedroom corporate housing apartment, and so the three of us spent many evenings exploring the neighborhood and sharing bottles of wine.

Jason Hung was also in town on business. We caught a bus to Oxford for lunch with Yong-Hwa. [An amusing and colorful anecdote has been removed at her request.]

She hosted Jason and I for lunch, which turned into afternoon drinks, which turned into high tea (a term that apparently refers to the elevation of the scones and cakes). It was lovely.

In larger news, on July 1st, the UK went smoke-free in all enclosed public places, including bars and restaurants. The change was dramatic and welcome. I missed the iPhone release, though it seems to have been a success despite my absence. I spent the 4th of July here in London, where I decided to wear a shirt my dad bought for me, which reads “i > u“. Sisi, Anthony, several of their friends, and I wound up at a bar that evening, where I pretended that everything happening around me was in celebration of throwing off Britain’s tyrannous reign. In retrospect, that may not have been the case.

After spending an afternoon at the Tate Modern, wondering how I could become famous by signing a fake name on a urinal, I went to Shakespeare’s Globe theater to see the Merchant of Venice. A few meters from the door, a gust of wind caught my umbrella, inverted it, and then ripped it off the handle completely. I was left with a curved piece of wood in one hand, a bemused smirk on my face, and rain pouring down on my bare head. I have since purchased a new umbrella, that I am assured will remain whole, even in the face of weather.

Now I’m in DC, and just gave a talk at a PI Meeting. It went well, even though I made the slides on the plane.

In the thickest Scottish accent I’ve ever heard, as he drives me to my hotel, my cabbie asks what I think of Bush. I answer cautiously that I am not his biggest fan. “Fuckin’ prick, ‘e is, that one!” My cabbie yells over his shoulder. I laugh, and we discuss the exit of Tony Blair and the inauguration of a Scottish Prime Minister.

My paper talk goes well, and I post the manuscript and slides on my Research page. I make a surprise announcement at the end that we are able to release our data; there is much rejoicing.

I decide to skip a portion of the afternoon sessions to be a tourist. I hop into a cab from the Hilton and ask for the Scotch Whiskey Heritage Center. There is a pause. He mumbles something and starts driving. I say again, half-question, half-repetition, “Scotch Whiskey Heritage Center?”

“Scaaatch,” the cabbie retorts, mocking my American pronunciation.

“Scotch whiskey,” I try again in my best Scottish imitation.

“I understood ya’, I joos had ta think about it a wee bit.”

At the booze museum (for what else is it, really?), I meet a Canadian named Dean with whom I have lunch after the tour. We do a flight of scotch drams from the four regions of Scotland: Lowlands, Highlands, Speyside, and the Islands. According to an extremely scientific blind experiment, I can identify two of the four by smell, and all four after tasting. I win a 1 pound bet with him about whether our waitress was Scottish or Irish. Sláinte mhath!

The conference excursion takes us to Stirling Castle, where we have a guided tour followed by champagne in the garden and a banquet in The Great Hall. The meal begins with an Ode to Haggis. A bagpipist, instrument singing, leads in a waiter holding a plate of haggis aloft. The plate is adorned with napkins curled up like the ends of a viking long boat. The musician then recites Burns’s “Address to a Haggis“, in the most exaggerated accent he can muster.

The Edinburgh chapter of my travels is nearly at a close, and I will depart for London shortly after I post this. Pictures forthcoming once I settle in London and move them off my camera. I should really get a flickr account…

There are three elements to my Irritability Trifecta. They are heat, hunger, and exhaustion. With any one, I get a bit whiny. I’m not ashamed to admit it. Any two and you ought to wait before asking a favor. The trifecta is me at my most grumpy and stabby. This story begins with me at one out of three; I am on a red-eye from Los Angeles, having gotten only a couple of hours sleep.

As we descend into Heathrow, I see raindrops streaking the windows. Ah, raining in London: how predictably quaint. It was my brilliant idea to take a train from the airport to Edinburgh, rather than flying, so that I could spice up my trip with a pleasant tour of the English countryside. I take a light rail to Paddington, and then the Tube to King’s Cross, from where my train is to depart. The station is packed with people, and most of them look cross, or concerned, or disappointed. I sidle through the crowd to check the light board for the next train to Scotland. It reads thus: Canceled, Canceled, Canceled, Canceled, and so on down the line. The enormous flat-screens flash BBC images of the severe flooding that has washed out roads, and railroad tracks, all up and down the flourishing, green countryside.

“We advise you not to travel to Edinburgh tonight,” a gentleman with the GNER tells me. I advise him, in my turn, that I will be ignoring his well-meant words, wholesale, and seeking passage to my destination. We dance the frustrated-customer-and-powerless-terminal-operator jig for a couple of minutes, and I emerge with a ticket to Edinburgh that will leave “sometime” and take “probably a very long time”. The flooded sections slow the train to a few miles per hour, I learn.

Ticket in hand, I go stand dutifully underneath the giant light board with the throngs of passengers awaiting further instructions. The amber colors flicker and a single train is announced: Edinburgh-bound, Track 5. I bob and weave through the current of people as they rush toward the train (FCFS), my giant suitcase trailing heavily behind me as I curse myself for packing like a woman. I dive into a car and slump down in my seat, exhausted and, I realize as the train pulls away from King’s cross, hungry.

Sufficiently displeased with my condition, airline-rested and fed as I am, I immerse myself in The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman. A revered classic, to be sure, but I also took a writing course from Joe at MIT and felt ashamed to have never read anything he wrote. I finish the book on the train, pleased with the experience. The rain takes a break to allow the summer sun to blaze down through my west-facing window, driving me into a sweat and completing the trifecta. I stare out the window, pointedly.

Soon, though, the clouds roll over the sun again and food service sates my animal hunger. My status downgraded to whiny, I write this post. The train ride takes about seven hours. Total travel time to Edinburgh from home is roughly 24 hours, subjective time.

The countryside really is quite lovely. Speckled with white sheep and rising near Edinburgh into seaside cliffs and crumbling stone walls. Rolling, green, and well-watered.