The fact that the last stanza of "Jabberwocky" is the same as the first has always haunted me. It’s the story of a hero who goes out and kills something — or, as Alice says, "Somebody killed something, that’s plain" — but I’ve always had the sense that even at the end of the story, things go back to the way they were, and everything starts over. In our own lives, there’s repetition; but even if you think you’re in a loop, there are always changes; and frequently the changes are for the better, if you can work the loop just right.

Sometimes you just need to get away. Sometimes you need to get as far away as you can from normal, everyday reality and find someplace that turns words inside out and lands everything on its head.

It was on the first night of my trip to Boston. I was looking at the upcoming couple of weeks and realized that between various business trips, it looked like Jennifer and I were going to be seeing very little of each other throughout mid November. Things had been pretty crazy up until that point as well, and the day in Boston had already been overwhelming, even though I’d only been there a couple of hours.

So, I called up Jennifer from Boston and told her that between everything that was going on and everything that we figured would be going on, we were going to definitely need some time away with just each other. I suggested that we do something that I had always wanted to do, but had never done because I had never had anyone with whom I would have wanted to do it: go to a bed-and-breakfast inn.

Originally, we both wanted to go to someplace in Carmel, which is a really beautiful part of the central coast. But after looking at various inns on-line for half an hour or so, we stumbled across a place called The Jabberwock Inn, located in Monterey. Instantly, we both knew that this was the place for us to go; I mean, with a name like The Jabberwock Inn, how could we not go? I called, made our reservations for this past weekend, and we spent the next month eagerly anticipating our getaway.

It’s about a three-hour drive from Woodland to Monterey, especially if you decide — as we did — to take the scenic route and go down Highway 1. After a bit of confusion in the San Francisco area (we were saved by a kindly tollbooth operator who gently told us exactly how to get to 1 from 80) we managed to get to the right stretch of road, and southward we headed. And after several playings of Billy Joel and Barenaked Ladies albums, and passing by miles of fields filled with mysterious green growing things (later identified as brussels sprouts and artichokes), we arrived in Monterey and at the Jabberwock.

It was like stepping into a little world all its own; from the moment we drove past the hedges and onto the brick of the parking lot, I felt like we had passed through a doorway leading from a hectic world of broken product releases and insane development schedules and into a world populated by dodo birds, playing cards, talking rabbits, and just plain quiet. The Jabberwock was decorated in a Victorian style, with intricately patterned wallpaper, bookshelves filled with dozens of copies of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass; and in just about every corner, hidden from view in almost every case, some new figurine or ornament or detail relating the Wonderland. A statue of a dodo bird in the foyer. A pewter statue of Alice in the garden. That sort of thing. The innkeeper served us sherry and hors d’oeuvres before dinner, chocolate chip cookie and milk before bed, and breakfast in the morning.

Our room was large, with a huge bed, a comfortable couch and reading chair, and no stereo, TV, telephone, or even a place to plug in our laptop computers. Not that we’d brought out computers, of course; the whole point was to get away from that sort of thing for the weekend. We spent a very relaxing night in the inn, enjoyed a great breakfast in the company of friendly strangers, walked along Cannery Row in Monterey, listened to the seals barking in the harbor and the seagulls crying out overhead, and generally just enjoyed ourselves.

On the way back, we passed more mysterious green growing things, bought two stalks of brussels sprouts, showed off Spiff II to my parents (who both cringed when they saw the brussels sprouts — but that’s a story for another day), and drove back home with enough time left over in the day to go out and see Charlie’s Angels — a cheesy but fun film.

So the weekend passed, and Monday came back at us, with more flimsy code, more broken products, more bugs, more meetings, more insane development schedules. The borogoves were mimsy all over again. But when you can take time to work on things, or even just take a couple of days to leave the world and focus on who you are and who you are as a couple — even if you don’t spend a lot of time in "deep conversation", like we did at the Engaged Encounter weekend — something still changes. The Jabberwock — the monster, not the wonderful inn — might still be lurking around the tulgey wood; but now it’s just a little less intimidating, because you’ve come just a bit closer to the partner that you’re going to be spending your life with.