Complaints Department (With Bonus New Drag Name)

So, O Best Beloveds, I won't lie to you: la vie is rather bleak chez nous at the moment. I'm in a slough.

Seen in the Souq

A pile of ottomans in Ottoman old Cairo...

Cities of the Living and the Dead

At some point it stops being travel and starts being just living...

Hey, Old Friend...

It can be a tricky thing to revisit an old haunt, but sometimes it works out.

Hundred-Gated Thebes

Just a quick note from a little trip-within-the-trip.

Notes from the Road

We're here. Well, not there, actually, in the sense of this snap - our own cosy flat is distinctly more modest - but in dear old Cairo.

Rendez-vous sur le Nil

The weather's gotten cold and dank; the general scene is equally dismal. Mr. Muscato and I are escaping.

Project Runaway

I don't know about you, but I think that sounds like a perfectly capital idea...

By the Sea, By the Sea...

So we ran away, for just a little while...

A Desk With A View

Really, this is the most picturesque city. Above is the view in which I've been rejoicing from the office for the last ten days, and it's a measure of the beauty of the place that it's really not all that special a view.

Unexpected Changes at the Last Minute

So I'm in San Francisco, and no one could be more surprised than I...

O Patria Mia

I'm home. While I was away, Miss Leontyne Price turned 90. Here she is in 2001.  I don't know about you, but hearing her, singing that, now, well...

The Night Before the Morning After

So, here I am, ensconced in an on the whole entirely comfortable room in San Francisco.

Oh, God, I'm Repeating Myself...

Yes, it's travel time again, and once more I will be following in the brave, befuddled shoes of Dr. Howard Bannister and jetting out to San Francisco.

Just Peachy

Our ongoing efforts to ignore the sordid reality all around us continue. Mr. Muscato and I are off on an all-too-rare weekend minibreak.

So Long, Farewell...

Of course, we're really more dog people, but these traveling cats are just so twee I couldn't resist. Consider them an artist's impression of my early evening.

Travelogue - Here's Grace (and Oscar, and Oysters and...)

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City by the Bay

Except for the hills, it turns out that what San Francisco reminds me of is Alexandria (the real one, not the DC suburb, of course). Both are cities profoundly shaped by water; both feature scads of fabulous Beaux Arts architecture (although San Francisco's are in rather better shape on the whole) juxtaposed with a dizzying array of other styles; and both seem to feature a disproportionate number of deeply attractive - and an equal number of deeply outlandish - people.

Open Your Golden Gate...

Well, the Powers That Be that guide my life (at least in its 9-to-5 variations) certainly are puzzling.  Having decisively put me, last year, into a quiet corner where I can do no harm, they've suddenly decided to release me once more out into the great wide world...

Trip Report: Old Familiar Faces

We're home. The dogs, relieved and more than a little vengeful, have been fetched from their pricey hostelry, I've been back to the office, and today I'm taking advantage of a post-flight sore throat to stay home and try to get rested and organized.*