The Plotniks Visit the Vanderbilts

Plot and Duck are getting out in the nick of time. The frigid wind is coming in off the water and Providence is turning nasty cold. That rainstorm yesterday knocked the last leaves off the trees and it's going to frost Monday night. Oooh, mama, get us back to the sunshine.

But it was a fabulous last day. After Ducknik finished sanding Bron's dresser and Plotnik skimmed the gravy to get everything ready for dinner, the three took off for Newport. Newport is where for the last 150 years the Vanderbilts and Astors and Dukes and many more of America's old merchant princes have been building their showplace mansions. Today you can either pay to tour inside them or walk for free on the cliff walk, passing incredible mansion after incredible mansion as you meander above Newport Harbor.





You cross over two bridges to get to Newport. It's a colonial town, with a few old, narrow streets, some venerable Congregational and Baptist churches and quite a few Chicos and Talbots and Shoppes For Quainte Gifties. Lots of nautical themes. It looked like the perfect town to find a few Very Tacky Giftes, but most of the island has closed down for the winter. The wind cuts under your scarf in a heartbeat.

But they do have delicious clam chowder and it was hot, which mattered a lot.



Dinner was great too, with BZ's fine roommates, two young women also in their first year in the Geology PhD program at Brown. There was not only an endless supply of yummy ribs but interesting discussions about rocks, and synclines and anticlines, and deep time, and the rock squeezers, and the KT Extinction, and also how dinosaurs may have died off due to allergies, having run out of soft, furry mammals to use to wipe their noses. The good thing is that BZ, Jessica and Rocio will be in Saint Plotniko in only a few weeks for a conference so we can do it all again.

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But in the meantime, Tim's comment on yesterday's posting was heartbreaking to his old friend and fellow Tiaposian. Tim and his partner Tom have been talking about adopting a child for many years, and Plot and Duck have been following them through this last part of the journey. Now, after these two sweet guys have finally had the joy of meeting their son, after being in the delivery room as he was being born, it is impossible to believe their joy may be taken from them. There have never been two parents more ready and willing to sacrifice for their child, so Plotnik and Ducknik and all of Tim and Tom's old friends are hoping for some kind of miracle here.

Miracles from any source will gladly be accepted. It would be really nice to let this little boy find out just how lucky he is, and we would love to meet him. Tim and Tom, we're here but we're there too.