Cincinnati: Growing On Me

OK, so I just sat in Fountain Square, which is very lovely, and ate ice cream while watching "I Am Legend" on a huge jumbotron poking out the roof of Macy's. Steel and glass canyon walls all around me, a beer garden (I did not partake) keeping people mellow, families drawing up chairs and sitting on the edge of the fountain, red-clad Cincinnati Reds fans filtering in after the ball game 5 blocks away to eat ice cream at Graeter's, the well-known (apparently (and deservedly)) ages-old purveyors of artery damage located there, on the...um...East...? side of the square...It was the nicest, warmest, most relaxing way to wind down my evening. Sure beat watching soccer games on TV whose outcomes I already knew. My day went this way:

Up at 7:00 or so, to do some small amount of exercisin' and catch a little South Korea v Greece on the tele. Saw SK score a goal, and headed over to the convention center to work.

I'm pretty sure there are some propietary things I'm not supposed to tell you, but I will tell you this: There are a lot of us, we work at a comfortable pace, we're well-trained and monitored, and we grade consistently. We get breaks throughout the day, and are served a pretty nice breakfast, lunch, and dinner over there. My colleagues are all nice people. There, I don't think the College Board's competitors (who I do not think exist) can glean much from that. I'm doing well - I got a post-it note from my Table Leader today, congratulating me for following the rubric so closely. I stuck it up on my computer screen for all to see...and then took it down again, because it felt kind of weird.

But I didn't throw it out.

We get out at 5:00, and dinner is served until 7:00, so that's when I've been taking my run. I don't know how far I'm running (can't get Google Earth to work on this computer anymore), but I run 'til I'm tired, exploring as I do so. I ran south toward the riverfront, and did a lap around Paul Brown Stadium, home of the Cincinnati Bengals. It's right next to the Reds stadium - which is named "Great American Ballpark", and is the second awful name of a prominent thing in downtown Cincinnati, the other being "Fifth Third Bank"". I think I had known of the existence of the bank before coming here, but seeing that God-awful name, displayed in such huge, proud, red letters, on top of a very impressive building, made its silliness all the more evident to me. Once done circumnavigating the stadium (Monday, I think I'll use the lunch break to go buy the kids some Bengals gear at their pro shop, which is open 10:00 Am to 5:00 PM), I trotted out toward an elevated highway nearby, and noticed it had a broad sidewalk along it. The sidewalk appears to have been built specifically to allow rabid Bengals fans (and there are a lot of them - this town loves those hapless Bungles) to stand there and watch practice. The practice fields are located right next to the stadium, and while there are hedges and fences separating them from the direct view of people who might be standing at their level, the sidewalk view from up above is fantastic. You can see everything. Or you could, anyway, if anything were happening there. Not nearly close enough to hear much, other than maybe the occasional whistle (it's quite a busy highway), but the sidewalk is broad and long and plain-ol' designed for dawdlers. I jogged that way and scanned the stadium, a very nice one, and the fields as I went.

The sidewalk and highway then turn into a bridge, which goes to Kentucky. I took it. The Ohio River is really a pretty good facsimile of the Wisconsin, about the same size, if narrower and faster - OK, that sounds dumb. But hear me out: I would say that a roughly equal volume of water goes down both. But the Ohio is narrower and deeper. Is my guess. But since it stormed pretty heavily last night and this morning, today it was a very dirty brown and had a lot of flotsam in it. Some natural, and therefore forgivable, but a lot of it was just garbage. Hey, maybe the rivers that flow through Chicago and Memphis and LaCrosse are just as dirty. What do I know. But this river, and this riverfront, struck me as particularly gone to pot. It's a major city, and it's tried a lot of things - they constructed these two stadia right on the river (and the Reds ballpark, whose name I will no longer utter because it is stupid, incorporates riverboat imagery into its ambience), there are a good number of riverboat restaurants, which seem to be popular, with well-dressed people filtering in as I ran past...There's even a huge levee on the Kentucky side, with a giant steel gate (down when I ran by yesterday) that rises out of the ground in the event of a flood to keep the low neighborhoods on that side dry and safe - yet another piece of evidence that they have tried hard to make this river an attraction. And maybe it is nicer at night, with the lights of the nearby downtown twinkling on its surface as the boats slide past. But during the day, it's pretty grim.

I don't know - It's not THAT grim. But it's not that nice.

Once in Kentucky, I found myself in a hotel district. Cheap, small, perhaps even seedy hotels. I touched a metal grate, just to have had a reason to have come across, and turned back toward Ohio. And I so enjoyed the slow rotation around the stadium and the practice fields, that I touched the guard rail at the intersection that led back to the hotel, and turned around and took one more trip to Kentucky, to make sure that grate was still there.

It was.

I'm really enjoying the way I run here. I don't know how far, and I don't care how fast. I go at a comfortable pace, with my newfound freedom from pain in my feet of my ankles or my knees or any damn thing. I run 'til I'm tired and then I stop, and each time I've stopped, I've been no more than a few blocks from the hotel. I've walked to the hotel both times, showered, and headed out to eat.

Yesterday when I did this, I ate at a little pizza place I found on the way to the stadium. You see, I had run past the stadium earlier, and had noticed that all these baseball fans were beginning to filter in. I asked someone when it started; he said 7:10. I thanked him, jogged / walked to the hotel room, and soon found myself standing and chatting with a young Italian man about the secrets of great pizza as my two slices warmed up in his oven. He told me he'd been living in DC four years ago when Italy beat France in the World Cup final, and that he and all his friends had gone to celebrate...in front of the French Embassy. I laughed long and hard at that.

And then gobbled my two slices as I walked to the ball park, joining an ever-growing throng. I wore my Brewers cap, and thought, Hey! The Brewers and Reds are in the same division! Could it be...?!

Nope. Kansas City Royals. Oh well. I scanned the prices and the sections, and bought myself some damn fine seats, ten rows back behind the Reds dugout. Then I bought a beer, walked to my seat, and settled in.

I had missed the top of the first. I was so close I could see which of the Reds had shaved that morning. Dusty Baker, their manager, came charging out of the dugout to challenge the ump, who'd called a Royals runner safe at first. I saw a home run by the Reds, lustily cheered by all of us; I saw some nifty fielding and a bunt that moved a runner from first to second, and that runner then scored on a single. I sat next to a couple from Indiana who have season tickets; they were there with their son and his girlfriend. She told me they were also Colts season ticket holders; she told me she was gaining weight again because she was trying to quit smoking. She told me the old Riverfront Stadium used to host Reds and Bengals games; she told me about her mixed record of success with Weight Watchers. She told me she'd had a hysterectomy. She told me the stadium was only three or four years old, and that the Reds were currently in first place. I told her I needed to get past her to go buy another beer, because this one I'd just finished had been great.

And I walked to the hotel. I had watched the game through the top of the sixth, and that, my friends, turns out to be all the baseball I can take. I'm really glad I went - I now know a hell of a lot more about Cincinnati, the Reds, and a large woman from Indiana. But the experience wasn't going to get any better if it went on longer.

Tonight after my run, I dashed quickly to the eatery in the convention center and managed to snag a meal before they closed up the buffet line. I sat next to a very nice Spanish teacher from Seattle, who's pregnant and is taking next year off to take care of her baby. We exchanged teaching ideas and travel stories with kids, and stories about trying to raise kids bilingually - her husband is Japanese, and only speaks to her son in that language; she tries to speak to him in Spanish, since they once lived in Mexico for three years, and he is still reasonably fluent. It was a very nice chat.

And then back to the room, where I washed some running clothes in the bathtub, and out the door to find Graeter's and have some dessert. Which led to "I Am Legend". Which is still creeping me out a bit, and the fact that I'm listening to Bon Iver as I write this isn't helping in that regard. I may need to stay up a bit yet.

Work tomorrow at 8:00! Hoping to get another positive post-it note. I hope I can sleep, what with the anticipation and all. Wish me luck!

Hell, who am I kidding. It ain't luck.