Just back in snowy Chicago now after a quick jaunt to Boston for meetings.  I saw some old friends, met some new ones, and mostly enjoyed myself.  The brief trip included three attempted seductions:

- As I walked down the corridor at Logan International Airport yesterday afternoon, a sixty-ish shoe-shine man caught me eye.  I knew I was in trouble.  He looked down at my feet, then back up at my face, and pronounced:   "Shoe shine, sir." It was not intoned as a question but rather as a statement, an offer of rescue, the way a doctor might say "Here, let me help you" to a heart attack victim.   I kept walking.  I spent the rest of the trip feeling self-conscious about my scuffed footwear.

- Then last night, a panhandler was acting as ex officio doorman for a drugstore in Harvard Square, holding open the door for folks as he hit them up for spare change.  I slipped past him, ignoring his request.  His tone of voice changed suddenly:  "Hey handsome, that's a really nice shirt."  I kept walking.    He was right, though:  I was wearing a nice shirt.  It's a good thing he didn't look at my shoes.   

- This afternoon, a taxi was taking me back to Logan.  We were zooming along the highway when, just behind a massive sarcastic billboard advocating gun control legislation, I caught a glimpse of the Medusa herself:  Fenway Park in all its green glory.  They'll be playing baseball there in about seven weeks.  If I hadn't been safely lashed to that taxi, I would have stopped walking--and turned to stone.   Whereupon I would have fallen prey to every shoeshine man and panhandler in the Greater Boston Metropolitan Area.

   I'm a lucky man  just to be home safely tonight.