Chilehaus II

Chilehaus escaped major destruction during World War II, which is miraculous given how large a structure architect Fritz Hoger had created.

Chilehaus is almost three city blocks long. It is such a massive building that a city street actually passes through the building.

The photograph below is from 1943. It was taken after the mid-summer air raids had destroyed much of Hamburg, causing the city’s population to be evacuated for the final two years of the war.


From the photo, it is clear that buildings surrounding Chilehaus had suffered direct hits from enemy bombs. It is also clear that fires had swept through the neighboring structures.

No enemy bombs struck Chilehaus, and Hamburg fire squadrons were successful in preventing fires from spreading to Chilehaus.

Chilehaus was very lucky.

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In the photograph above, it may be seen that Hamburg streets had already been cleared of rubble.

Clearing streets of rubble was always the first order of business, in Hamburg and elsewhere in Germany, after bombing raids.

Streets were cleared immediately in order to allow medical personnel and fire squadrons to travel freely around cities, rushing to districts where their services were most needed.

One of the reasons that a firestorm developed in Hamburg in 1943 was because the Allied bombings had been continuous, and did not allow Hamburg authorities the necessary few hours’ respite to clear Hamburg streets. As the Allied bombings went on and on, without pause, Hamburg streets became more and more filled with rubble, preventing fire squadrons from traveling to scenes of fires. Several of those fires conjoined and created the devastating firestorm.

Hamburg had been bombed, continuously, for 48 hours before the firestorm began. Had Hamburg’s fire squadrons been mobile, no firestorm would have occurred.

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Because I had read extensively about the Hamburg firestorm before visiting Hamburg, it was fascinating for me to walk around the city and connect buildings and sites with their roles and fates during the firestorm in particular and during the war in general.

One of the most bizarre stories connected with the 1943 bombing of Hamburg is the fate of Hamburg’s Staatsoper, known as the Stadttheater until 1937.

The area around the Staatsoper had not been hit during the concentrated air raids over Hamburg. As a result, the city of Hamburg decided to use the enormous stage of the Staatsoper as staging ground for its campaign to feed the city (hundreds of thousands of Hamburg citizens had become homeless after the concentrated bombings).

Tens of thousands of loaves of bread had been shipped into the city from surrounding areas, and those loaves of bread were stacked onto the stage of the Staatsoper, ready for distribution to the public.

Just as distribution began, the Staatsoper suffered several direct hits by Allied bombers engaging in a delayed mission over Hamburg.

The auditorium was completely destroyed, but lowering of the iron fire curtain saved the stage and backstage areas of the opera house (and saved the bread as well). The stage and backstage of the Hamburg Staatsoper had been saved by the fire curtain—but otherwise there was nothing but total destruction for blocks and blocks in all directions.

When, after the war, it came time for Hamburg to rebuild its opera house, the new Staatsoper was built on the same location as the old.

However, the new Staatsoper is only partly new, something most persons do not realize.

Only the auditorium and public promenades are new. The portion housing the stage and backstage areas remains in its pre-war form and remains in use today (although the stage machinery has been modernized).

The result: the one-third of the building the public sees is from 1955, but the two-thirds of the building the public seldom sees is from 1827 and 1926 (the original 1827 backstage facilities had been extensively renovated and expanded in 1926).

Most patrons of the opera in Hamburg do not even realize that the Staatsoper’s box office is located in the pre-war portion of the building.

Chilehaus

Hamburg is a city of magnificent architecture.

Hamburg has splendid examples of architecture from all periods, but Hamburg is unique among European cities in that it has great 20th-Century architecture. In that sense, Hamburg is the Chicago of Europe.

Good 20th-Century architecture is rare in Europe, and almost unknown in major capitals such as London, where 20th-Century buildings are horrifically bad, and uniformly so.

Great 20th-Century architecture is even more rare in Europe than good 20th-Century architecture. Indeed, some experts claim that it does not exist.

In Europe, Hamburg stands out for the quality of its 20th-Century architecture. Since the late 19th Century, commercial enterprises headquartered in Hamburg have insisted upon quality buildings. The evidence of this may be seen on every street in the center of the city.

I suspect that there are three reasons why Hamburg is such a 20th-Century architectural treasure: (1) the city has long enjoyed the presence of an enlightened business community; (2) many excellent Central European architects lived and worked in Hamburg for decades on end, headquartering their architectural practices in the city; and (3) the rich tradition of Hanseatic architecture cannot help but serve as an inspiration to architects living and working among such fine and noble buildings on a daily basis.

One of the tenets of Hanseatic architecture is the use of fine materials. Only the finest brick, marble and stone are used to erect Hanseatic edifices, an ancient tradition carried over and maintained to the present day. Hamburg buildings, unlike London buildings, do not look cheap and thrown-together. They are exquisitely-wrought and exquisitely-crafted. In fact, I was surprised when I learned the dates of several notable buildings in Hamburg—the buildings were in such excellent condition that I had assumed they were much newer than they were.

Another tenet of Hanseatic architecture is the use of stone moldings. Moldings around roofs, windows and entranceways are one of the most prominent and pleasing features of Hanseatic architecture.

Yet another tenet of Hanseatic architecture is the heavy reliance upon architectural features from the Baroque Era, especially with regard to roofs. Baroque roofs are endemic in Hamburg, even on modern buildings. These roofs often are very sly in their acknowledgement of Baroque models, either minimizing or elongating Baroque features or setting them at odd angles.

A final tenet of Hanseatic architecture is the use of ceramics to decorate building exteriors. Sometimes these ceramics are set into exterior walls in the manner of reliefs. More common, however, is the use of small ceramics to highlight architectural features in the fabric of a building.

The result is that Hamburg is one of the most handsome cities in the world, a great city for walking and gawking. Ancient Hanseatic edifices blend with modern structures inspired by Hanseatic principles. The city has a unique beauty no less remarkable than the beauty of Paris or Venice.

One of the most famous 20th-Century buildings in Hamburg is Chilehaus.

Designed by architect Fritz Hoger and built from 1922 to 1924, the massive Chilehaus is perhaps the finest of Hamburg’s modern office buildings known as Kontorhauser (“Counting Houses”). This famed structure served as a sign of Hamburg’s growth after World War I and, miraculously, survived World War II to serve as a sign of Hamburg’s survival and renewal.


Chilehaus is a perfect example of Expressionist architecture: an elongated building made of clinker brick (a dark, dense brick of the very highest quality, unique to Northern Germany) with a sharp point at one end, designed to evoke a ship’s helm. The elegant façade, the Gothic-style arcades and the intricate ceramic décor on the exterior all combine to make this one of Hamburg’s most impressive buildings. Over 4.8 million bricks went into its construction.


In 1922, a Hamburg businessman who had made a fortune with potassium nitrate (saltpeter) in Chile bought a 5,000-square-meter building site in the center of Hamburg’s business district. There he planned to erect a very special kind of office building, Chilehaus, designed in the shape of a passenger ship. The saltpeter magnate arranged for an architectural design contest, which was won by Hamburg architect Hoger, already renowned for his office-building designs. Chilehaus quickly became Hamburg’s second most distinctive city landmark after Saint-Michaelis-Kirche.


Chilehaus has drawn worldwide attention since the day it was completed. The building has retained its reputation as an architectural work of the utmost importance to the present day.

Its brick façade glitters in a different light at each shift of the weather, and each change of an observer’s viewpoint alters the impression of its stone workings and ceramic ornaments.

The ten-story structure is seen most impressively from the end at which one may observe its acute-angled façade resembling a ship’s bow.


The ceramic-brick decorative designs on the building’s façade are notable.


At night, the building is illuminated.


It shines with a special majestic beauty.

Free From Obligation

For the next five weeks, I am free from obligation. I have the luxury of deciding how to spend my time.

I shall assume all household burdens during this period in order that Andrew and I may enjoy our evenings together.

However, household tasks will not take up much of my time—our apartment is very small, and we have no backlog of household tasks awaiting attention—and I will have an amount of time at my disposal that I may not have again for years and years.

If Andrew did not have to work, he and I could use this time to travel. However, Andrew DOES have to work—and, in any case, he and I shall be traveling from early July until the middle of August.

I think I shall undertake a reading program—something as far afield from the law as possible—and presently I am mulling over a few possibilities.

Edward Gibbon is on the table, but I am not confident that I am in the mood to attempt unabridged Gibbon.

I have given some thought to reading all six volumes of “The Pallisers”, but I have no especial love for Anthony Trollope and I am not confident that “The Pallisers” would hold my interest.

Leon Edel’s multi-volume study of Henry James is under consideration, but the prospect of reading the complete Edel does not excite me.

I am leaning, ever-so-slightly, toward Fernand Braudel’s three-volume study of civilization and capitalism. Andrew says that the Braudel is stunning. I think I shall make the Braudel my project—unless and until I come upon a better idea.

Oklahoma-Bound

Early tomorrow afternoon, Andrew and I will fly to Oklahoma City. We will spend Memorial Day Weekend with my family. On Saturday morning, we will attend my brother’s high school graduation.

This year will be the first time my high school will conduct commencement exercises on a Saturday morning. In the past, all graduation ceremonies at my high school were conducted in the evening, generally on a Friday night (like last year, when Andrew and I attended my sister’s high school graduation). I do not know the reason for the change, but my parents tell me that scheduling commencements for Saturday morning has become a growing practice in and around Oklahoma City.

Aside from the graduation, we have nothing planned for the weekend. On Saturday, after the ceremony, my parents will host relatives for a gathering dedicated to my brother’s graduation. I’m sure it will be very low-key. My brother is very blasé about the whole thing.

There are no nonstop flights between Boston and Oklahoma City, but Andrew and I were able to obtain a good set of flights, with only one stop each way. We will fly through Cincinnati on the way to Oklahoma and through Atlanta on the way home. Our travel time is scheduled to be only five hours and twenty-seven minutes on the outbound leg of our journey, and only five hours and forty-nine minutes on the return leg. I thought those times were pretty favorable. We could have done far worse.

If our flights are on time, we will be back in Boston five minutes past midnight on Monday night/Tuesday morning.

Summer Vacation Planned

The outline of our summer vacation is planned.

We will depart on Thursday afternoon, July 30. We are scheduled to arrive in Munich on Friday, morning, July 31.

We will spend Friday, July 31, Saturday, August 1, and Sunday, August 2, in Munich.

On Monday, August 3, we will head for Salzburg via Lake Chiemsee.

On Tuesday, August 4, we will head for Vienna via Melk.

We will spend Wednesday, August 5, in Vienna.

On Thursday, August 6, we will head for Graz via the Semmering Pass.

On Friday, August 7, we will head for Innsbruck via Klagenfurt, Lake Worth, Grossglockner Pass, Zell Am See and Kitzbuhel.

On Saturday, August 8, we will head back to Munich.

We will spend Sunday, August 9, in Munich.

On Monday, August 10, we will fly home.

It will not be a long vacation, but twelve days constitute the longest possible time my parents may be away from their work at present.

The purpose of the trip is to see as much spectacular Alpine scenery as possible, and we intend to see a lot of it, making one Northerly swing and one Southerly swing through Austria.

We shall visit a couple of museums in Munich and attend an opera performance in Vienna, but otherwise this trip is not built around historic and cultural attractions. We shall devote five days to experiencing the essence of Munich and Vienna, and five days to witnessing nature’s wonders in the provinces.

My parents are already worried about the flight arrangements.

On the trip over, we shall all meet in Chicago and fly to Munich nonstop on the same flight. My parents are already concerned about summer storms—they fear that summer storms will delay their flight from Oklahoma City to Chicago or delay Andrew’s and my flight from Minneapolis to Chicago—and the possibility that summer storms will cause them or us to miss the flight to Munich.

Andrew and I keep telling my parents that, in the event of unavoidable delays, the airline will be obligated to make other arrangements to get everyone to Munich, but my parents are worried anyway.

They also are worried that their luggage will not make the flight to Munich!

On the return journey, we will not all be on the same flight across the Atlantic. Andrew and I will return to Minneapolis via Chicago, but my parents and my brother and sister will return to Oklahoma City via Washington Dulles. Happily, our respective return flights are scheduled to depart within 55 minutes of each other.

Our upcoming trip will be my brother’s first trip outside the United States. He still has not received his passport, but it should arrive literally any day.

Since he selected our destination, he had better not change his mind now that all arrangements have been made!

Halfway Through

I am halfway through the exam period, and I will be glad when it is over.

Andrew has not been helpful.

He has been force-feeding me all sorts of weird Norwegian eel dishes, playing Schoenberg’s “Moses And Aaron” at full volume 24 hours a day, and continuously reading aloud from “Santa Anna’s Mexican Army 1821-1848”.

I think I am going to scream.

Mellow And Sweet

Andrew and I stayed in all weekend, studying, reading, cooking, listening to music, sending email and instant messages, and talking on the phone. It was the most relaxing weekend we have had for weeks and weeks and weeks. There was nothing on our schedule, nothing pressing that needed attention, nothing that warranted leaving the apartment, nothing that distracted us from getting plenty of rest and relaxation.

It was a wonderful weekend, mellow and sweet—and, in another week or so, I shall begin getting tense in anticipation of next month’s exams, so this weekend was very important to me.

We cooked steak, we cooked chicken, we cooked salmon. We ate pasta, we ate potatoes, we ate rice. I think we ate every vegetable known to man. We made cranberry-orange muffins, apple muffins, raspberry tarts and apricot tarts. We made strawberry-pear salad, apple-cranberry salad, tomato-cucumber salad and Amish pepper salad. We ate grapefruit, we ate oranges, we ate pears, we ate plums. We had everything except a Christmas pudding.

I’m starting to like our apartment, which is sort of frightening. The apartment appears to be larger, and more spacious, when we can open the window in the living room, which we were able to do this weekend owing to the good weather. We can survive another two years here.

In another four weeks, my academic year will be over. I look forward to a relaxing and stimulating summer.

Baltimore

The weekend before last Andrew and I went to Baltimore.

We flew down early Friday afternoon, and we rented a car so that we could get around the city easily.

On Friday night we attended a performance at Center Stage of “Tis Pity She’s A Whore”, John Ford’s early-Caroline-era revenge tragedy.

Four years ago, I studied “Tis Pity She’s A Whore” in a university literature class, and I looked forward to seeing a performance of the play.

The Center Stage production was not strong. The cast members were very, very uneven and the production did not manage to find a unified style. It was all very “regional theater”, and not regional theater at its finest. This play is probably best left to British actors—it’s the kind of play American actors simply cannot do well.

Several of the actors were badly miscast. The physical production was not handsome and nowise suggested the time of Charles I. The director did not have a solid grasp of the material and, further, offered no particular point of view. Everyone with a hand in the production appeared to be far more interested in providing lots of stage action than concentrating on and illuminating the text.

I had never previously attended a performance at Center Stage. The company probably does better work with 20th-Century American plays than Caroline-era tragedy, because the company enjoys a solid reputation.

On Saturday morning Andrew and I walked around Fells Point, one of Baltimore’s historic neighborhoods.

On Saturday afternoon, we attended a performance of “The Cherry Orchard” at Everyman Theater. Everyman Theater is supposed to be a cut below Center Stage, but the Everyman Theater production of “The Cherry Orchard” was much more successful than the Center Stage production of “Tis Pity She’s A Whore”.

I think the success of the production was due, above all, to the actress portraying Madame Ranevskaya. She was extraordinary. She gave one of the finest performances I have ever seen. Andrew and I could not take our eyes off her all afternoon. She had luminosity and the kind of magical aura that cannot be taught. Single-handedly, she raised the level of the performance to something special. Her fellow cast members were much better when interacting with her than when interacting solely among themselves: she was THAT good. The actress’s name was Deborah Hazlett.

The translation of Chekhov’s last and greatest play was by Michael Frayn.

A good production of “The Cherry Orchard” will make the viewer want to proclaim “The Cherry Orchard” the greatest play ever written. I was ready to make that proclamation after attending the Everyman Theater performance, and so was Andrew. Indeed, we would have been happy to return to the theater for the evening performance of “The Cherry Orchard”, too, had we not had tickets for Saturday night’s Baltimore Symphony concert (which Andrew has already described on his blog).

On Sunday morning, we walked around Baltimore’s historic Mount Vernon district until The Walters Museum opened for the day. We remained at The Walters Museum until it closed. We were not bored for one minute.

The Walters Museum owns Old Master paintings from the 14th through the 19th Centuries, antiquities from Egypt, Greece and Rome, a stunning array of artwork from Medieval Europe, sculpture (including a large number of sculptures from The Italian Renaissance), illuminated manuscripts from The Middle Ages, and objets d’art from all periods. We visited thoroughly two of the three buildings, skipping only the original Walters building in which the Asian collection is now housed.

Previously unbeknownst to me, The Walters Museum owns America’s third-largest collection of antiquities—only the Metropolitan Museum Of Art and the Brooklyn Museum Of Art have larger holdings of antiquities—and many of the antiquities are of the very highest quality and rarity, especially the holdings of works from Ancient Rome. The Walters Museum also owns America’s largest collection of Medieval armor, very little of which is ever on display.

There was more than enough to keep Andrew and me occupied for six hours. The Walters Museum has to be one of the finest museums in the United States.

Baltimore is a very small city, and yet it has two professional repertory theater companies and two major art museums, the other of which we did not visit: the Baltimore Museum Of Art. We elected to visit The Walters Museum because of its large holdings of antiquities and because its collection of Old Master paintings is much larger than the collection of Old Master paintings at the Baltimore Museum Of Art. However, sometime I would like to visit the Baltimore Museum Of Art in order to see The Cone Collection, one of the finest collections anywhere of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Early Modernist painting.

Before our trip, Andrew told me that Baltimore was probably the best restaurant town in the United States. Based upon my experience two weekends ago, I don’t think I would argue with that assessment.

We planned to dine at three different restaurants while we were in Baltimore, but we ended up dining only at two. This was because I liked one restaurant so much that we returned for a second visit.

On Friday night, we ate dinner at a restaurant that is mostly visited for its seafood but which also offers other foods. Andrew and I ate seafood—seafood for a starter course and seafood for a main course—and it was very fine indeed.

On Saturday night we ate dinner at a restaurant known for its “new” American cuisine. The restaurant was stunning: the décor was stunning, the service was stunning, the food was stunning. We went all out: we ordered appetizer, soup, salad, starter course and main course. Everything was exceptional. It may have been the finest restaurant I ever visited.

I liked the restaurant so much that we returned for dinner on Sunday evening. We skipped the third restaurant on our list, believing that it could not possibly surpass the restaurant from Saturday night.

For our second visit, we only had two courses: a starter course and a main course. For our second visit to the restaurant, we were just as pleased as the first.

We have Andrew’s boss to thank for the restaurant selections. He is a native of Baltimore, has family members still living in Baltimore, and keeps up with Baltimore restaurants operating at the top of their games. He certainly steered us in the right direction.

After dinner, we went to the airport to catch our late flight home.

"Do You Think Your Parents Might Enjoy A Luigi Nono Opera?"

Andrew and I definitely will be joining my family for a trip to Austria this summer.

We will spend the first week of August in Austria—that much is settled—and we will visit Salzburg, Melk, Vienna, Graz, Zell Am See, Kitzbuhel and Innsbruck.

At present we are trying to decide whether to add a few days in Bavaria to our Austrian journey. Once the Bavaria issue is out of the way, we will book our flights.

No one in my family has been to Austria, and it should be an interesting vacation for us.

This vacation will be devoted more to Alpine scenery than to historic and cultural attractions, but we nevertheless will explore the primary attractions of Vienna.

We will be in Salzburg during the Salzburg Festival, but we will not attend any Festival performances.

“Do you think your parents might enjoy a Luigi Nono opera?” was one of Andrew’s rhetorical questions to me—the Salzburg Festival will present a Luigi Nono opera this year—and I assured Andrew that my parents definitely would not be interested in hearing an atonal opera, no matter who wrote it, and that Andrew very well knew this.

“Then I guess we’ll have to forego the Luigi Nono” was Andrew’s response, his voice filled with fake disappointment.

“Yes, Nono would definitely be a no-no” was my rejoinder.

However, we WILL attend one opera performance during our vacation: a performance of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” at Theater An Der Wien, featuring an international-level cast (Erwin Schrott, Hanno Muller-Brachmann, Veronique Gens) in a major new production. My mother wants to attend an opera performance while we are in Vienna, and “Don Giovanni” at Theater An Der Wien is the only option, since the Staatsoper and Volksoper are closed during the month of August.

I look forward to a visit to Theater An Der Wien because it was the theater in which my favorite opera, Mozart’s “The Magic Flute”, received its first performance in 1791. It was also the theater in which the first version of Beethoven’s “Fidelio” premiered in 1805. That both Mozart and Beethoven worked and conducted in a theater still in existence and still in use is quite an amazing thing.

Andrew says that, for the last few years, Theater An Der Wien has mounted its own international-level opera season each year, presenting ten productions in stagione, with international casts, international conductors and international stage directors. Its productions are rehearsed to a festival standard and have received worldwide acclaim. The performance of “Don Giovanni” we will attend will be only the second performance of the run.

I have never attended an opera performance in Europe—and neither have my parents, and neither have my sister and brother.

In fact, I believe my father has never attended an opera performance anywhere, and I know my sister and brother have never attended an opera performance in their lives.

Andrew and I will take a recording of “Don Giovanni” to Oklahoma when we return home for my brother’s high-school graduation late next month. The recording will give everyone a couple of months to become familiar with the opera.

I hope they don’t hate it.

If they dislike “Don Giovanni”, I shudder to think what might be their reactions to an opera by Luigi Nono!

BELATED CORRECTION ON 19 MAY 2009: Andrew had to remind me that I HAD attended an opera performance in Europe. In November 2006, we had attended a performance of Puccini's "La Boheme" at the Hamburg Staatsoper.

TWO BELATED CORRECTIONS ON 10 AUGUST 2009: (1) Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” did NOT receive its first performance at Theater An Der Wien, as the opera pre-dates the theater by ten years; and (2) the current Theater An Der Wien production of “Don Giovanni”, which ends its run on Friday, is NOT a new production.

Weekend In Minneapolis

Andrew’s mother and father picked us up at MSP Friday night and took us home. It was after 9:00 p.m. when we arrived at the house.

The dog was delighted to see us, to put it mildly—he knew we were coming, and he was waiting for us, eagerly—and he would not leave Andrew’s side for the first two hours we were home.

Andrew’s sister-in-law was the only person at home and awake when we arrived. Andrew’s niece and nephew had already been put to bed, but we immediately went upstairs to peek at them. Even in the dark, we could see that Andrew’s niece had grown significantly since Christmas. She is already three months and two weeks old.

Andrew’s brothers were at the NCAA Tournament when we arrived home, and were not due back until 10:30 p.m. or so, at which time Andrew’s mother planned to give us our dinner.

Andrew’s brothers did not get back from the games until almost 11:00 p.m., and we ate the very minute they arrived. Andrew’s mother had prepared white-bean Tuscan soup, followed by chicken breasts cooked in a cream-white pepper sauce served with broccoli and carrots and stuffed tomatoes.

“What? No potatoes?” was the simultaneous mock cry of Andrew and his brothers, but they were only kidding their mother. They knew she would insist upon having dinner for them after the games no matter what—and even contrary to their instructions, were it to come to that.

Andrew’s brothers had had more than their fill of basketball by Friday night—two games at 11:30 a.m. and another two games at 6:20 p.m. had satisfied their quotient of basketball for the weekend—and when they got home they said they were already “basketballed out”. One problem was that four games in one day turned out to be too much. Another problem was that none of the Friday games was close. Yet another problem was that they had no particular interest in any of the eight teams playing at the Minneapolis site.

Because we had to get up very early on Saturday morning, we went to bed Friday night as early as we could manage. We turned in at 12:30 a.m., hoping to get five hours of sleep, because we planned to rise at 5:30 a.m.

Andrew and I did rise at 5:30 a.m. Saturday morning—as soon as the alarm sounded, the dog was on top of us, licking us and wagging his tail, which signified that he was going to REQUIRE us to get up—but Andrew’s brothers did not want to rise at 5:30 a.m.

Andrew went to wake them and, when he returned, he shook his head.

“What’s that mean?” I asked him.

“They don’t want to get up” was his answer.

“So what should we do?” I asked.

“Take the dog to the park” was his answer. “Let them sleep another hour. They’ll be ready to get up when we get back.”

And Andrew and I took the dog to the park and ran with him and played fetch ball and other games with him for 45 minutes, at which point he was ready to return home and have his breakfast.

We gave him his cereal when we returned, and we went upstairs and Andrew woke his brothers a second time.

The second time was a charm, because they got up and we all got cleaned up for the day.

It was after 7:00 a.m. when we all reassembled in the kitchen, where one of those spooky incidents occurred that I can never explain. All four of us stood in the kitchen, silently, looking at each other. No one said a word and no one moved a muscle.

After three or four minutes, Andrew turned to me and asked, “Ready?”

“Sure” was my answer.

And we left, and we all drove over to Andrew’s older brother’s new house, which Andrew and I had never seen. We took the dog with us, and we all traveled in one car.

This was a change in our original plan. Friday night, we had agreed to have an early breakfast on Saturday morning at Bob Evans before we started on our work. Further, we had agreed that we would not take the dog with us because he would only be in the way.

However, there was no breakfast at Bob Evans on Saturday morning, and there was no leaving the dog at home. Those plans had been changed during those three or four minutes we had stood in Andrew’s parents’ kitchen, staring at each other, with no one uttering a word.

In the ten minutes it took us to drive to Andrew’s brother’s new house, no one uttered a single word in the car. We drove and rode in total silence, and no one seemed to find this remarkable.

When we pulled up to the front drive of the house, the only word anyone uttered was “nice”, and Andrew uttered that word.

We went inside, and Andrew’s brother showed us around the house, silently, without saying a single word. He showed us every room, but he said nothing. Andrew said nothing, Andrew’s other brother said nothing (of course, he had been in the house many times before) and I said nothing.

After we walked around the entire house, we went back to the kitchen and Andrew’s brother made coffee—and, while the coffee brewed, he started to talk, for the first time all morning.

“Because we needed another hour of sleep, we had to skip Bob Evans” was directed at me.

“We had to bring him. Otherwise, he would have been unhappy” was directed at the dog, but meant as an explanation for my benefit.

“When Dad comes over, we’ll send him back home with Dad” was directed at Andrew’s middle brother, but referred to the dog.

“Will cereal be enough?” was directed at Andrew.

“Sure” was Andrew’s answer, and he looked at me. I nodded.

And we stood in the kitchen and ate a bowl of cereal, by which time the coffee was ready—and by which time Andrew’s older brother was ready to offer instructions.

“You guys start on the ceiling at this end of the kitchen” were words directed to Andrew and me, while “And we’ll get to work on the wainscoting” were words directed to Andrew’s other brother.

And we all got to work.

No one said a word, but at least Andrew’s brother turned on ESPN so we all could listen to SportsCenter while we worked. The sound of SportsCenter was the only sound I heard for the next two hours, other than someone occasionally asking the dog, “You doing OK?”

And the dog appeared to be perfectly content, chewing on dog toys and keeping his eyes on us while we worked. He’s a very smart dog, and he could tell we were occupied, and he stayed out of our way. A couple of times, we let him outside to run around for a few minutes, but he always wanted to come back inside after only a few minutes outdoors.

The kitchen looked perfectly fine—the house was new in 2004, and Andrew’s brother’s family is only the second family that has lived in the house—but Andrew’s brother and sister-in-law decided that they wanted to brighten the kitchen.

It’s a large and beautiful kitchen. It extends out into the back yard, so there are windows on three sides in one-half of the kitchen. Our project was to paint the ceiling a very bright shade of white, paint all trim a very bright shade of white, install wainscoting along one portion of one wall and paint the wainscoting a very bright shade of white, apply wallpaper above the wainscoting, paint the kitchen walls a very bright shade of white, apply border paper along the top of one wall of the kitchen, and paint the narrow spaces between the windows a very light shade of canary yellow. The colors, the wallpaper pattern and the border-paper pattern had all been selected by Andrew’s sister-on-law—who had earlier proclaimed that she would call in professionals if our work did not meet her approval.

I can understand that she wanted to add a little color to the kitchen. The cabinetry is all white ash wood—and very beautiful white ash wood it is, indeed. The countertops are all black granite, very fashionable in 2004, and they bring out the black traces in the white ash wood. However, that is not a particularly colorful design scheme, especially since the original walls were ivory, intended to match the ash wood, and since the kitchen floor is white pine, also intended to match the ash wood.

After we had been working for a couple of hours, Andrew’s father arrived. Andrew and I were still at work, painting the ceiling, and Andrew’s brothers were more than halfway completed with the wainscoting, and he wanted to know what he could do.

“Start in on the window trim” was the answer, and he went right to work.

However, he was very talkative Saturday morning. He wanted to talk while he worked—and he wanted to talk to Andrew and me.

Over the sounds of SportsCenter and over the sounds of hammering, he asked Andrew and me countless questions. He asked about law school, he asked about Andrew’s work, he asked about our apartment, he asked about our landlord, he asked about our car, he asked about Boston, he asked about summer plans, he asked about my parents.

He asked about everything.

Andrew’s brothers heard everything we said, but they let Andrew and me talk to their father in peace. They did not interrupt or participate in the conversation.

By 11:00 a.m., Andrew and I were done with the first coat of paint on the ceiling. The ceiling was by far the largest of all surfaces to be painted, and we were relieved to be done, because painting a ceiling involves all sorts of neck and back contortions, involving the use of muscles in new and unusual ways. It quickly becomes tiring.

Andrew and I immediately went to work on the walls, which was a much easier task. By this time the wainscoting had been installed, and Andrew’s brothers immediately went to work painting the wainscoting and painting trim.

By 12:30 p.m., everything that was to be painted had received its first coat of paint—and we received visitors.

Andrew’s mother arrived with our lunch, and she brought Andrew’s nephew with her.

He had been excited all morning, waiting to see Andrew and me. He knew we had come home, and he knew we were over at his own house, working, and he could not wait until after his nap to see us, so Andrew’s mother brought him with her.

He was so excited to see us that he paid no attention at all to what was happening with his kitchen. He wanted us to hold him, and talk to him, and swing him through the air, and play with him. He was extremely happy to see us, and we were just as happy to see him. His mother says that he asks about us literally every day, and that he constantly wants to know when we will come home.

We held him on our laps while we were eating our lunch—ham salad sandwiches, the same thing he had already had for his lunch—and we promised to be home when he woke from his nap, and we promised to give him horseback rides and anything else he wanted for the rest of the day.

After we had had our lunch, Andrew’s mother took him back home, and we moved outdoors. Andrew’s brother had landscaping work for us to do alongside the rear exterior of the house. Specifically, he had purchased an array of shrubbery it was our duty to set into the ground.

It took us only ninety minutes or so to get the shrubbery planted, and by this time we were ready to call it a day and return to Andrew’s parents’ house and spend the rest of the afternoon and evening with the kids.

At Andrew’s parents’ house, we cleaned ourselves up and prepared to enjoy some serious time with Andrew’s niece and nephew.

Andrew’s niece did not know Andrew and me, which we had expected. She was only three weeks old at Christmas, and we knew she would not remember us from the holidays.

She allowed us to hold her, however, and she quickly became comfortable in our company, probably because her parents and grandparents and uncle, whom she is accustomed to, were all present.

She’s a beautiful little girl. She is curious about her surroundings now. She looks at things, and she looks at people. She likes to be talked to, and she likes to be held. At Christmas, she was little more than a sleep machine. Now she is starting to pay attention to people and things in her world.

She allowed Andrew and me to feed her her bottles. She looked at us the whole time we fed her, but occasionally she would stretch or move her head to make sure that her mother was nearby. She did not do any fussing while we held her, but it was clear to us that she was not as content with Andrew and me as she was with her regular crew of admirers.

When Andrew and I were not holding her, her parents, her grandparents or her uncle were holding her. She is used to plenty of attention.

When we were not holding Andrew’s niece, we were playing with Andrew’s nephew.

He’s a little chatterbox now. He talks all the time. If he’s not talking to his parents or to his grandparents or to his uncle, he’s talking to his sister. If he’s not talking to his sister, he’s talking to the dog. If he’s not talking to the dog, he’s talking to himself.

He plays with more interesting and more complicated toys now, including puzzle toys, and he has a certain procedure in place for playing with many of his toys. For instance, there are certain puzzle toys that have to be finished before he will move on to something else—once he has started to put certain puzzle toys together, he will not stop until he has completed his project, no matter what else may tempt him and no matter what else may intervene. His Dad says that he is showing signs of becoming an engineer (like his uncle).

While he is assembling his puzzle toys, the dog sits on the floor at his side and watches his every move, as if the dog is studying the puzzle toys himself.

He eats at table now. He no longer sits in a high chair at the corner of the dining table between his mother and his grandmother—he sits at table, between his mother and his father, in a regular chair with a child booster, and he now eats dinner at the same time as everyone else and he now eats pretty much the same foods as everyone else.

He likes it. It makes him feel grown-up. It makes him feel like a full participant in the mealtime ritual. He talks at mealtime, too, and he especially likes it when his Granddad talks to him at mealtime. He understands that his Granddad is the ultimate arbiter in all things, and it makes him feel important when his Granddad talks to him at mealtime.

He does a little showing-off at mealtime, too. On Saturday evening, when he was done with most of his eating, he began making silly faces across the table at Andrew, Alex and me, and making a mountain from the remaining food on his plate. He was trying to elicit smiles from us, and he succeeded.

We had a big dinner Saturday night. We had roast chicken and stuffing, mashed potatoes, butter noodles, butternut squash, green beans, parsnips, tomato-cucumber salad and cranberry salad. He has a good appetite, and he ate everything. We had apple pie for dessert.

We did not attend church Sunday morning because the games at the Metrodome started at 12:00 Noon. Andrew and I, and only Andrew and I, rose early Sunday morning to take care of the dog. Because Andrew and I operate on East Coast time, it was not a chore for us. As a reward, we got Andrew’s niece and nephew to ourselves for an hour before anyone else rose for the day.

Sunday’s NCAA games were not particularly interesting. Kansas blew out Dayton. Michigan State’s win over U.S.C. was closer, but we had no particular interest in any of the teams at the Minneapolis venue. Attending the tournament in person was anti-climactic, all in all. There were lots of empty seats, and we were informed that the empty seats were not the result of no-shows—those seats had not been sold.

We spent the rest of Sunday playing with the kids. We were either on the floor, playing with Andrew’s nephew (and the dog), or sitting in a rocking chair, holding and rocking Andrew’s niece.

While we were at the games, Andrew’s mother had performed some serious cooking. She prepared Dutch Chowder for yesterday’s lunch, and she prepared another big meal for Sunday night dinner. For a starter course, she gave us pasta in a very light lemon sauce and fried shrimp with a stunning seasoned bread coating. The main course was pot roast, served with homemade stewed tomatoes, a very sharp version of macaroni-and-cheese, Brussels sprouts, fried okra and applesauce. For dessert, we had chocolate mousse.

When Andrew’s niece and nephew had been put to bed for the night, Andrew and I and his brothers went over to Andrew’s brother’s house to continue work on the kitchen project.

To begin, all four of us worked on the ceiling at the same time, applying a second coat of paint, to get that out of the way.

Once that was completed, Andrew and I applied a second coat of paint to the walls and trim while Andrew’s brothers did the wallpapering. The wallpaper was mostly white, with a very subtle pattern in canary yellow. When the job was done, everything looked perfect. It was after 1:00 a.m. when we finished our work.

Yesterday, after breakfast, we all went back to Andrew’s brother’s house to spend the day. As soon as we arrived, Andrew’s brothers applied border paper along the top of one kitchen wall, signaling completion of the project. The kitchen was beautiful, I thought, and the installation of wainscoting and the application of wallpaper and border paper and the introduction of a few traces of canary yellow into the color scheme added significantly to the beauty and appeal of the room.

Andrew’s sister-in-law pronounced herself pleased with the results—and she said that she would not be calling in professionals to do over the job after all.

Her seal of approval granted, we all moved the kitchen furniture back into the kitchen, and the kitchen was again ready for use. Andrew’s brothers hung two spice cabinets, an antique wall shelf and an antique cuckoo clock.

They also suspended from the ceiling a pot-and-pan holder over a cooking island, for the display of bright copper cooking utensils. The copper cooking utensils, along with flame-colored Le Creuset cookware displayed hanging in a giant antique pie cupboard with the doors ajar, provide a touch of deep color to what is otherwise a very bright room, primarily white, with traces of canary yellow.

The antique pie cupboard was a housewarming gift from Andrew’s parents, specifically selected with the Le Creuset cookware in mind. It is from Germany (probably Bavaria), circa 1870, and has intricate carvings inside and out, including on both sides of the doors, which is very atypical of American pie cupboards of the period, and is made from at least four different kinds of wood. It is also much larger, and heavier, and more solid, than American pie cupboards of the period. Andrew’s mother says the piece is of museum rarity and quality. Its woods have been beautifully refinished.

(Andrew and I have not selected a housewarming gift yet, but we will not be able to match the pie cupboard, no matter how hard we try.)

The kitchen still requires more furniture. Among other things, it still needs a sofa, perhaps two. Any delay is due to the fact that Andrew’s sister-in-law has not yet decided what type or what color of sofa(s) to get. She does not appear to be in any hurry to make furniture decisions—the entire house is barely one-third furnished—but she says she needs to make a decision about kitchen sofa(s) soon, because the kitchen very definitely needs more seating capacity. She says that her plan is to live with the new kitchen colors for a week or so, and afterward to decide how best to complete the room.

The new house is perfect for Andrew’s brother’s family. It is large and handsome, and very well-designed, with a large back yard (which will be fenced soon) and beautiful, spacious rooms. It is bright and cheery, and has plenty of space for kids to play, indoors and out.

Next to and perpendicular to the kitchen is a large rectangular family room, running along the entire back of the house, with a large fireplace at the far end. Andrew’s brother’s family will no doubt spend most its time in the kitchen and family room. The rest of the house is almost superfluous.

All day yesterday, Andrew and I played with his nephew and made a fuss over his niece. We will not see them again until July, so this was very important and very precious time for us. With a single exception, we did nothing but spend time with them until late afternoon, when it was time for us to go to the airport.

While the kids were taking their naps, we did make one brief visit—Alex and Andrew and I went over to Alex’s apartment, once our old apartment, just to see it once again and to visit with our former landlady. The apartment looks exactly as it did while we lived there. Nothing has changed, not even the furniture. Andrew and I were very happy in that apartment for two years, and we miss it now.

Alex, too, is very pleased with the apartment. The place suits him, and he keeps it neat as a pin. It’s his apartment now, and no longer ours, but we still miss it.

I wish we could have that apartment in Boston.

I didn’t even like that apartment initially—but after about two months, I fell in love with the place.