My Diesel Madelaine

Sitting at a red light and a truck pulled up beside me.

Driving with windows down, as per usual, the fumes wafted over and I was instantly transported to Shaftesbury Avenue just off Picadilly Circus approaching the Chinese restaurant that offered glossy red sweet and sour pork from the second floor (or as they called it, the first floor) overlooking Leicester Square some 30 odd years ago. That was the aroma off the great red double-decker Routemaster buses of the '70s when I lived in Queen's Gate SW7.

There were around 40 of us, students and professors together, in a five story stone townhouse, with an English cook who believed devoutly in lard which she applied by the kilo and whose fried eggs never touched the pan but circulated in the oily currents until pronounced done leading us all to confine ourselves to Corn Flakes for breakfast; three maids, two Spanish and one cute Australian nicknamed "Rabbit" who went out with me a couple of times before she was sent away for fraternizing; and Mrs. Yardley, the housekeeper, who enjoyed the occasional sweet vermouth and had previously served for "Mr. Hitchkock" (yes, that Mr. Hitchkock) out in Essex during the war, where she saw one of the first V-1s impact in a field nearby as she rode her bicycle back from market, and whom, upon sufficient application of the aforesaid sweet vermouth, she described as "a very quiet man. Strange. But very quiet."

Our classes, at the Commonwealth Club, formerly the Empire Club, renamed in a fit of political correctness never accepted by its older members enjoying their cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off and grumbling aloud just what the hell all these Americans were doing wandering around loose, were limited to three and a half days a week leaving the rest of the time for our own explorations, including excursions through Hyde Park on a bright fall day up to Speakers' Corner with a fellow student in a wheelchair and whose name I have forgotten to be regaled by political lunatics and religious fanatics, and trips to some little lane out near where the Crystal Palace used to be which was the location of three restaurants, all within sight of each other and all named some variation on the theme of "Pot." There were the Hot Pot, the Golden Pot and the Golden Hot Pot, the first being our favorite, not so much for the good, cheap food (although it was both, in an Italian theme) but for the waitress who came to our table of five without pad or pencil, proceeded to take our orders, served another table and returned with our meals, all correct, which she placed, also correctly, without once asking who got what. We were duly impressed.

The light changed and the truck drove off taking its diesel fumes with it. I came home.

It's different now. The last time I was in London the city seemed darker and grimier, although that may have been the effect of twilight and drizzle and early spring instead of bright high autumn. But the streets seemed even narrower, the buildings are taller, the Commonwealth Club is gone and Picadilly Circus isn't even a circus anymore, the formerly encircling streets having receded on the east side leaving Eros stuck out on a pedestrian peninsula. And we couldn't find the old house, although we may have been on the wrong side of the street. And the rent-a-Morgan dealership in the mews was long gone.

Still. I really want to go back again. Diesel hits just aren't enough.

Sign of the Times

I pulled up next to a flatbed truck belonging to a local stone mason today. Painted on the upright panel at the head of the flatbed under the company name was the slogan

"The Best Customer Service in South Florida"



except that the "ervice" had been scratched or eroded off so the sign actually read

"The Best Customer S in South Florida"

which, if that is truly how they feel about their customers, may be indicative of how they treat their customers which would be excellent customer service. So it's all good, either way.

Back In Business, or, The Things I Do For Cookies

Well, today's platelet donation went swimmingly.

The nurse found my vein on the first try. Blood flowed (in both directions) with minimal beeping. The actual donation time (time attached to the machine as opposed to filling out paperwork and pre-donation testing) took barely an hour. I had my skull-themed pointy stick at the ready and had everything so under control the assistant phlebotomist took a nap in the couch next to mine (to the nurse's annoyance).

My reward: my four gallon pin and a really bright yellow all-purpose multi-pocketed tote bag/carryall.

And two cookies.

Just because.

The Longest Season Perks Up

Of course, as soon as I mention that only one political ad is running in our area five more suddenly pop up.

There's at least one variant of the original attack on Romney's record as Massachusetts governor (which is still running) and one praising President Obama. There's also now an Obama ad warning about distortions and misrepresentations in Republican ads, specifically the AFP PAC ad excerpting the unfortunate "the private sector is doing fine" sound bite. There's also another AFP ad complaining generally about the poor economy.

All of the Obama ads come directly from the president's campaign. None of the ads on the other side come from the Romney campaign. They're all PAC ads from one or the other of Rove's groups. Some of the Rovian ones don't even acknowledge the existence of the presidential race but merely ask people to "support the AFP jobs program," whatever that is.

While there is a bit of sniping and some selective editing going on, they haven't gotten really vicious . . . yet.

Debby Does Gainsville

Well, after a weekend of heavy (although on-again off-again) rain and sometimes howling winds it appears Debby is going (ever so slowly) east. We were only ever on the trailing edge of the storm but the cyclonic airflow kept heavy wet air moving up from the south.

The only major damage anywhere in the area was in Ft. Myers where flash flooding overwhelmed an ancient water main which broke closing down most of a major street for the better part of the day, Sunday.

I can only imagine what the people up in the panhandle are going through facing a storm with 50+mph winds and rain parked right in front of them for literally days on end. These are the folks who had a 13 inch deluge just a couple of weeks ago.

Tapping a Vein, or, The Well Runs Dry

I was scheduled to donate platelets today. I didn't.

There were omens, signs it was not to be.

The blood pressure machine farted and shut itself down while I was cuffed. While it cycled through its reboot, the nurse and I debated whether my walking around without a measurable pulse meant I was a ghost or vampire. I told her I preferred undead (which I have been accused of being before by a number of people who have never seen me out in sunlight).

After she looked me over disbelievingly when I told her I had lost ten pounds over the last two months (when I gain weight it is distributed pretty evenly across my frame and when I lose it it disappears the same way) she informed me that I would probably not be able to donate a double unit ever again since that ability is conditioned upon a volume/mass ratio (platelets to weight) that I no longer achieved. Who knew?

While settling into the couch, I mentioned that her substitute last month (she'd taken Memorial Day weekend off) had commented on how my vein bifurcated just above the usual draw site and how she had spent several minutes palpating the spot and debating which path she should take which ultimately made no difference as the apheresis machine kept beeping throughout the procedure anyway.

The nurse then proceeded to stick me and missed the vein entirely. She could tell because there was no draw and I could tell because of the pain. She wiggled the needle around and I began to turn red and sweat. Finally, she broke the wall of the vein (I could feel it) and filled her little sample vials. Then the machine started with a continuous series of beeps unlike the usual ones I am used to. There was maybe five inches of blood in the draw tube and the rest was clear plastic. Nothing was moving.

At that point we gave up. She told me that if it wasn't drawing right (which it obviously wasn't) it would never return right which meant at some point it would "infiltrate" which is med-speak for squirting the blood back, not into a vein, but directly into the muscle which, I can testify from previous experience, is extremely painful. (Not laser beam-to-the-ear painful, which is another story, but still.)

She removed the needle and we rescheduled for next week.

I took a cookie anyway. For "pain and suffering."

The Longest Season

Not Summer, unfortunately.

The political season has started here with an official Obama ad ("I approve this message") disparaging Romney's record as governor of Massachusetts. I've seen it a number of times now on several different stations, but always seemingly on national programs of a political nature so I'm not sure if it's being aired nationally or just locally.

I haven't seen any other ads, yet, which is a little surprising since this is a critical swing state but I'm not complaining, either. I am quite sure before this season is finally over in November we will be saturated from both sides.

High Summer

I know Summer doesn't "officially" start for another day or so but I am a big fan of the ancient traditional seasons where the longest days of the year are "Mid-Summer" and the longest nights are "Deep Winter." This is brought to mind by the sudden appearance of a string of the most glorious bright, dry, sunny, slightly breezy days we've seen in months. We've turned off the air-conditioning and flung open all the windows.

We can expect one or two more before the humidity returns.

Time to turn off the computer and go play outside.

Tasks and Rewards

Yesterday was my brother's birthday. Because this is no longer the land of the free and home of the brave but the residence of those who submit to bureaucratic paranoia, we (mostly he) spent the better half of the day downloading forms, copying documents and expediting them back to Connecticut because, even though he has never been out of this country in his life (excepting one three hour lunch trip to Nogales as a preteen) and even though he has lived in this same town for going-on thirty years, and has renewed his driver's license a number of times during that period, he must now present a certified copy of his birth certificate in order to renew it this time. Between the copying costs and the postage, he's spending close to $60 (never mind the time wasted not celebrating his birthday) just to qualify for the renewal.

We made up for it with a birthday dinner of broiled lobster in drawn butter, shrimp and scallops sauteed with sweet red peppers in a bacon/garlic butter sauce over pasta and corn on the cob accompanied by a very fruity, spicy Gewurztraminer and chocolate cake for dessert. You can erase an awful lot of frustration with a meal like that.

Turtles all the Way Down

It seems we're having a banner season on sea turtles this year. They're all over the beaches in numbers no one has seen before. There's some concern it may just be an early season due to the warm (actually non-existent) winter and consequently warmer-earlier-than-usual waters but there are indications it really may be a bumper crop coming in.

Red and Yellow Boxes On the Map

In the going-on-three-years that I've lived here now, and the thirty-plus years I've been visiting before that, I have never experienced--not even during hurricanes--the intensity of the weather and the weather warnings we had last night.

Early in the evening the TV ran a crawl warning of severe weather offshore. There were two different, very specific, warnings: one for up to 20NM from shore and another for 20 to 60NM out. I've never before seen anything more than generalized high seas warnings.

A couple of hours later I could see lightning flashes way off to the west.

Shortly thereafter, the TV began a crawl warning of severe thunderstorms. The lightning came closer. The crawl warned people to get inside, postpone travel and take shelter but not in a vehicle or mobile home. Lightning covered the entire western sky and was close enough for the thunder to roll through.

The severe thunderstorm warning began alternating with a tornado warning. The instructions were to prepare to move to an inside windowless room in a substantial structure. Again, no vehicles, no mobile homes and, if you're outside (where advice from the TV is going to be useless) lie down in a ditch and cover your head. The lightning started striking nearby and rain came down.

At that point the weather people broke into programming and put up a local map. They showed yellow boxes for the thunderstorm warning areas and a red box for the tornado warning and reported rotation in the upper winds and a sighting of a funnel cloud (although no reported touchdown). We were in a yellow box but just (and I mean by a couple of streets) outside the red box. The entire county was under one or both warnings and lightning was striking continuously all around the house now.

I gathered my shoes, wallet and phone and brought Bartleby inside. Although the cat was happy to be indoors she seemed unfazed by the light show until one bolt hit so close there was no time delay for the thunder. She jumped at that one.

Despite local impressions, the storm was dissipating as it came ashore. The rotational winds were south of us along the river, heading away and slackening. The clouds were losing height (as shown on really neat 3-D radar imaging). As the trailing edge of the storm front came ashore our yellow warning box was removed form the map and the county south of us came under warning instead. They also got a tornado warning.

The rain slackened and by 2 a.m. it was all over.

The good news is the sun is out this morning for the first time in over a week.

Miscellanea, (Mostly Meteorlogical)

Looks like Rainy Season is finally officially here. Haven't seen the sun since before the transit of Venus which we didn't see either. It rains at least once every day now, sometimes in the morning sometimes in the evening. At least I'm remembering to close up my car. . .and the birdbath is staying full.

Of course, now that it's raining, the grass is greening up and growing fast and the lawn mower is busted again. From the symptoms, I'm thinking the drive belt has irretrievably stretched out of shape.

You know it's humid when the weather report lists the current temperature as 87F "but feels like 100F." For the record, yes, it does.

The most active burrowing owl habitat around this season is on my way to the library. An adult is always perched on one of the little cruciform burrow-marking stakes and usually one or more of the family is on the ground nearby. I went by once and there were four of them on the ground surrounding the one on the perch. There are a number of open lots nearby so this place may have some really easy hunting.

I just heard "Car Talk" will be coming to an end this fall after 25 years. Almost everything I know automotively (which admittedly is not much) I learned from those guys.

Yesterday would've been Mom's 92nd birthday. My brother bought four pints of Ben & Jerry's, two for him and two for me. They were on sale. Happy Birthday! (I'm going to make mine last at least a month.)

Green Parrots Return and the Crow Family Picnic

Yay! The green parrots are back!

I was reading yesterday (Paul Krugman, Conscience of a Liberal, a little outdated (2005) but, for some reason, in our library's new book section) when I caught, out of the corner of my eye, a flash of bright green by the birdbath and my brother yelled "Guess who's back?" from the other room. A pair of green parrots, that's who. They perched on the edge of the birdbath and nuzzled each other, bobbing their heads, and taking sips of water. One or the other, sometimes both, would fly off for a bit and then return. They were perfectly willing to chase the crows away from the bath. Their calls were so loud we could hear them with the windows closed. Eventually, they flew off but their nest is somewhere nearby.

This morning, with no parrots around to interfere, a crow family came by to visit the birdbath. Mom and Dad and three juveniles. The adults were black, sleek and glossy with piercing yellow eyes. The kids, slightly smaller but all fully fledged, were a dark gray. The parents showed how to use the birdbath for both drinking and bathing. The kids caught on quickly and two of them went in at the same time, splashing each other (crows do love to splash) and mock fighting until I thought all the water would be gone. Meanwhile, the adults were off in the lawn finding munchable bugs which they brought back, showed the kids how to wash, and then fed to the youngsters.

Suddenly, one of them discovered the mockingbird's nest (which must have been abandoned because no mockingbird came out to defend it) and they all swarmed it, poking around, approaching it from different angles and actually sitting in it. It seemed to fascinate them.

A fun day out for the whole family.

(Bartleby lay watching the whole thing from four feet away until she got bored and turned to face the other way.)

(Another) Sign of the Times

I pulled up behind a contractor's white pickup truck over the weekend. The company was named Savior Plumbing.

I can't tell if the name is a pun ("Save Your Plumbing"), a comment on how customers react to the service ("I can flush again! You're my savior!"), or an indication that He has branched out from his original occupation as carpenter.

Keeping Our Priorities Straight

So, right on time, The Season starts and the forecasters increase the expected number of named storms. Not a big increase but, considering the head start we got, not surprising.

All the warnings have gone out and are being ignored as usual prompting a slew of fear mongering to get people to pay attention. Pretty much business as usual.

More importantly: Happy National Doughnut Day everyone!!