Breaking With Tradition

It's a (minor) Christmas miracle!

For the first time in living memory all the presents were bought, wrapped and shipped (without needing special overnight postage) in time to be received by Christmas Eve. Technically, there were no guarantees on the "receiving" part but the Post Office's assurance of "should arrive by" is sufficient since most of the intended recipients won't gather at the intended receiving location until the 27^th. And their presents will be waiting for them!

And we've been getting our presents from them over the past couple of days so it seems to be happening in both directions.

This has not occurred in our family in well over a decade, probably closer to two. We have long accepted that Christmas tradition consists of rising early on the morn, gathering around the lit tree, eating a hearty breakfast, watching a parade and a football game or three and then opening presents day by day as they trickle in over the ensuing fortnight. Anything arriving by New Year's Day is considered on-time. It's usually only the pets that ever find anything for themselves under the tree.

This year, we'll do it all in one sitting.

It's going to feel like a very short holiday this time around.

Cats' Christmas

We had a feline family fight a couple of weeks ago. Mom Jasmine and Mittens started a ruckus in my brother's room one night. It sounded loud and angry and serious. Paribanour surprised me by immediately leaping out of her chair and running into the room where she broke up the fight and chased Jasmine back into the living room. All the tails were bushy and all the fur was bristling for days (Paribanour gets a cool, spiky, Mohawky thing running down her spine when she's all het up). Jasmine and Mittens couldn't stand to be in the same room together and even took meals apart. They've finally gotten over whatever it was (or maybe just forgot) and have started grooming each other again. Might be the desire to share the space under the Christmas tree.

The Christmas tree is up. And decorated. So far the cats have knocked down one ornament and that was probably my fault for placing it too low. They have not been playing with the tree although Mittens has claimed the space right against the base as her nap area and both she and Jasmine take turns snuggling up around the penguins or, when they desire to not be seen, tunneling under the tree skirt.

There are a half dozen largish wreaths on the dining room table waiting to be placed and I found Jasmine curled up inside one this morning. She looked both comfortable and cute so I left her there. For now.

This holiday season kind of snuck up on us thanks to the warm weather. We've had the air off and the windows open continuously pretty much since Hallowe'en (with one exception for a week of torrential rain mid-November). The cats, for the most part, are behaving themselves around the screens and not clawing holes even when there is some animal out there in the night darkness whimpering under the mango.

Mittens, the littlest one who had the big adventure, is the exception. She's a climber and can not resist working her way to the very top of the floor-to-ceiling screen by the front door. She makes a fair amount of racket in the process whereupon I go out to investigate to find her at or above eye level, looking like one of those plush toys with the suction cups on its feet that people stick to their car windows. I look at her. She looks at me. I quietly ask, "What are you doing?" She puts her nose against the screen, looks at me again, and slowly climbs back down. Repeat every third day.

The Hallowe'en candy is gone, except for one Reese's cup I've been hoarding, and not counting the three bags my brother stored away in a closet thinking (erroneously) that they'll still be there for next Hallowe'en.

The Thanksgiving leftovers are gone, except for four containers of turkey soup, and not counting excess food that didn't get cooked and is just waiting its turn in a normal meal.

The penguins are out and the cats are (now, temporarily at least) on their best behavior.

Let's do Christmas!

Is This What Democracy Feels Like?

I have been voting now for near on fifty years, ever since I was old enough to register. I have missed maybe two or three elections in all that time. Never before have all of my choices/candidates won. In fact, the vast majority of my candidates over the years have lost mostly because I do not vote a party line in any election and usually go for the third (or fourth) party candidates. Also, recently I've tended to live in very lopsidedly one-party states. The only presidential candidate I ever voted for who won was Barack Obama.

Imagine my surprise when the returns came back this week from Tuesday's local election.

All the candidates I chose won. Admittedly there were only three of them, but still. Every charter amendment I voted for passed and the ones I opposed lost.

I'm not quite sure how to deal with this strange sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, but I doubt it will survive next year's election.

 

A Night on the Town

Mittens, the little clone of her mom, stepped out last night. Technically, she fell out. She (or her sister or her mom) managed to tear a hole in the screen at the base of one of the dining room windows and she went through. I believe accidentally although I can't be sure. She likes climbing screens and can frequently be found hanging by her claws at human eye level, or higher, in the front foyer. (When I confront her and ask, "What are you doing?" she just looks over her shoulder at me and slowly climbs down backwards.)

The front door and several windows were open because Rainy Season is over, despite hanging on long enough past its scheduled end to completely ruin any chance of seeing the last Super Blood Moon Eclipse, and temperatures at night have dropped to the point where air conditioning is superfluous. It's nice to let real uncanned air in finally.

I didn't realize Mittens was outside until she tried to get back in the front door and her sister, who also didn't know didn't recognize her and started hissing and growling at her through the screen. Mittens was already scared at finding herself out in the world, her sister's reaction didn't help at all, and when I tried to open the front screen door she freaked out and ran (stopping just long enough to try jumping back in the window which didn't work).

After securing Paribanour back inside, I left the front screen door open and placed some food and water in the foyer to entice Mittens back in. I figured it took the better part of three hours before coming out of my closet after her adventure with the paper bag and it might take that long for her to calm down again.

I spent those three hours wandering around in the dark calling, "Here, kitty, kitty," knowing full well the futility. She is completely unequipped to deal with the world. The most she's ever seen out the windows are birds and squirrels. She has no concept of dogs, opossums, hawks, alligators, coyotes or cars. I hoped she would stay on our property and hide in the nearest underbrush and, if that's what she did, she did it well because I couldn't find her.

Jasmine and Paribanour, meanwhile, were acting very tense and alert. They knew something was wrong. In the end, they started staring out the glass doors into the lanai and when I turned on the light there was Mittens . . . who ran again when the lights came on.

So I moved the food and water from the front foyer to the lanai.

Five minutes later Mittens knocked on the front door to come in. (She does that. The other cats, when they're in the foyer, just gaze longingly through the side window hoping to catch a human's attention when they want in. Mittens has learned to knock.)

At first she was a little skittish and the others a bit standoffish. She was still excited and had, I suppose, picked up a bunch of outdoor smells which unnerved the other two. Eventually everyone got over it and I was able to tell my brother a humorous story when he got home.

All the windows will remain closed until repairs are effected.

Crikey! What a Bunch of Cheapskates!

I was at the library, which is one of the early voting locations, and decided to get my civic duty over with.

There were seven or eight volunteers and poll watchers there to serve me, the lone voter (although I had seen other people going in and out earlier). The ID-checker-man said my signature on the electronic card reader thingy looked just like the one on my license which I'm not sure was a compliment but it did allow me to go and get my ballot.

I voted "Yes" on all the charter amendments except for lowering the veto requirements and lowering the referendum requirements. I also voted for the non-ideological, non-Tea Party candidates for council, at least as far as I could tell in a non-partisan, no-label election.

And I was shocked (shocked, I say!) to discover that the change in how elected city officials' pay would be determined means that the $36,600 and $32,600 salaries listed in the amendment will represent a 50% increase over what they're being paid now! Are you kidding me?! This is the tenth largest city in the state by population, almost 155,000 people, and we've been paying these guys between $19- and $23,000 a year to run the place?? It may have been a part-time job when the city was first incorporated but it sure ain't now.

Well, I did my part. Now we'll just have to wait until after the official election day, this Tuesday, to find out just what kind of tightwads the rest of the neighbors are. My hopes are not high.

Ignorance Under the Law

Confession time. When I moved to this city I never took the time to sit down and actually read the city charter. In fact, I never read the charter of Salt Lake City when I lived there, nor of any other place I've ever lived. Every incorporated municipality has one, right?

Has anyone read their city's charter or incorporating documents?

Ever?

And I don't count lawyers hired by or contracted to a city who must read it as part of their jobs, nor lawyers for people who might want legal recourse against a municipality. I'm referring to real people.

And yet, this fall, we, the voters who have never read our charter, are being asked to amend it in seven different places. Because we're the ones in charge, after all.

Most of the amendments seem sensible enough:

• Change the amount of severance pay due to city officers when they get fired from four months to four months or whatever is required by state law, whichever is less. (Yes, let's follow state law, please.)
• Change the mayor's and city council's salaries to a fixed amount instead of one based on the number of registered voters. (Who came up with that weird formula in the first place? And the mayor's salary will be only $36,600 a year? Council members, $32,600. For a city with a population just shy of 155,000 people? Really?)
• Change the charter to specify that emergency regulations must be enacted in accordance with state law. (There's the second reference to behaving according to state law. How were we doing it before?)
• Bring our anti-discrimination ordinances up to par by including color, religion sexual orientation, national origin, age, handicap, marital status and/or any class protected by state or federal law. (Yay! I don't have any idea how many of those were not covered before and I wish it were possible to just say "Don't discriminate," but since people in power apparently need to be told in detail this will do nicely for now. And again with the obeying state law thing.)

Two proposed amendments, I don't know what their effect will be or what the intent really is:

• Reduce the number of signatures needed to force a referendum from 15% to 10%. (There's a fine line between allowing citizens to bypass a recalcitrant council and encouraging cranks to petition for their every little hobby horse. If we cross that line it could be nigh impossible to claw back to it. Technically, each of these amendments constitutes its own referendum, already. Just based on the published letters to the editor, I'm inclined to believe we have enough Tea Partiers in town to really gum up the works if given the chance. I'm leaning towards, "No.")
• Reduce the number of members on future Charter Review Commissions (O.K., I guess these folks have read the charter. Don't know how many are lawyers, though.) from nine to seven with two alternates. (Seems like a housekeeping kind of thing. Perhaps they didn't all get along this time. I'll likely go for it.)

And one proposal is a no go from the start:

• Reduce the number of votes needed to override the mayor's line-item veto from two-thirds to a simply majority (but not less than four). (Sorry, no. This is a power grab by the council that will enable them to get their pet projects approved at the expense of the entire city using the good-ol'-boy, buddy-buddy, "I'll override yours if you override mine," system. Our council has too many goofballs (and developers/politicians in developers' pockets) on it to trust them. Perhaps we could get more competent people if we paid them more?)

So there we are. We are charged with changing the rules by which we govern ourselves. It's kind of inspiring although it does make me wonder what else we're still doing that isn't "in accordance with state law."

Not enough to go read the damned charter, though.

She Who Hesitates

Ours are indoor cats. Nevertheless, they like to go "out," out being the screened in foyer leading to the front door which has hidden gaps somewhere down in the corners that allow smallish lizards (and, once, a baby black snake) in. The cats know they can occasionally chase a lizard, although they haven't caught one in months.

Recently, Jasmine, the mom, has got it in her head that she is the one to go out first and if she is preempted for any reason will not go at all. She will saunter, trot and (very rarely) gallop to the door indicating her wish to visit the foyer. On having the door opened for her she then stops dead pondering the commitment required to choose here or there, in or out.

The kids, on the other hand, experience no such existential qualms. They hear the door open and come running. If Jasmine makes up her mind before they arrive they will happily follow her out. If she remains racked by indecision they will scamper on past as if this were their first invitation to an incredible adventure.

Which pisses her off to no end.

If she was standing, she'll sit. If sitting, she'll glare at them until we give up coaxing and close the door. Or sometimes she'll just look at us to say, "Good riddance to them, I didn't want to go out there anyway" and then walk away.

But she does care. Once in a while, when the kids are either entering or leaving, if they are in range, she give one or the other a hiss and a swipe of her paw. But she absolutely will not go out unless she's first.

The funny thing is: the deference she demands would be hers if she were just a bit more decisive.

In a couple of weeks it shouldn't matter anyway. As the temperatures cool down and the humidity drops we'll be able to turn off the air conditioning, throw up the windows and leave the door open while we're home.

(Non-)Participatory Democracy

We finished up a week or so of early voting last week followed by the official primary vote day to select the candidates for each political party who will now run against each other for various local offices.

I say "we" although that "we" doesn't include "me" since I am unaffiliated and not allowed to involve myself in the parties' selection of their candidates, it being an internal party matter. (There is an interesting exception: If only one party will have a candidate for a particular office in the general election, a situation which can and does happen in this heavily conservative area where liberals have trouble finding people willing to be sacrificial lambs, then the primary for that office effectively becomes the general for that office and is open to all voters. That did not happen this time around.)

Someone wrote a letter to the paper complaining that the turnout was only 18%. It wasn't clear if that was of the total electorate (which wouldn't be quite fair since about 30% of the voters were, like myself, ineligible due to our independent status) or just of the party members. Either way is still pretty pathetic.

I am seriously thinking of registering with a political party in order to be able to vote in one or the other of the upcoming presidential primaries next spring. I just haven't decided whether to register Democrat in order to vote for Bernie Sanders because I think he's great, or Republican so I can vote for Donald Trump and try to monkeywrench their process. High road, low road. Which shall it be?

An interesting side note to last week's primaries: One of the early voting places was the town library and for the first day or two the Christians who have their little display out in front by the meeting room door moved over to the far side of the main entrance. Then they moved back for the rest of the week. I guess somebody figured out they weren't stumping for any listed candidate and weren't violating the ban on campaigning within a hundred yards of a polling place. Besides, they only talk amongst themselves unless someone approaches them and initiates the conversation.

Even More Sh*t My Brother Has Been Dragging Home On a Semi-Regular Basis

I don't know where he's been finding this supply, but my brother, in his continuing kleptomania, has now brought home, in several loads over the course of the summer, a couple dozen or so large wood frames. I didn't realize how many he had until we spent Labor Day clearing the underbrush out of a corner of the yard and uncovered a stash.

They're rectangular, about 2.5 x 4 feet, built of rough 2 x 8 boards held together by a metal band. Stacked three or four high they look as if they could be made into raised beds for container gardening except who knows what the wood may have been treated with. They are now strategically hidden in piles in various obscure corners of the property where city code enforcement is unlikely to spot them.

There are another half dozen in the bed of his pickup truck.

My brother says he's holding them for a friend to burn sometime this fall. Makes as much sense as anything else.

Ours are redder and darker than these.

Last week he showed up with two bunches of red bananas, still on the stalks, which he left in the driveway. No idea where he found/stole/was given them.

One bunch is still out there, the squirrels having claimed it. The smaller bunch, with a half dozen bananas, made it inside. They're dark red, the color of old blood, thick and stubby with a tough skin. And delicious. Dense and chewy and very sweet with a slight citrusy taste, exactly how bananas tasted when I was a child and don't anymore.

Now I wonder if we could plant the survivors from the squirrels' bunch.

Storm Watch: And Finally, Depression

Erika apparently couldn't handle the 10,000 foot mountains of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. It seems to have broken up and degenerated into a mere tropical depression that will now sweep over Cuba and out into the Gulf. There's a slight possibility it could reform once it's out over open water again but, odds are we'll just get a lot of windy rain from the west.

The State of Emergency has been cancelled.

Sanibel Islanders who got reentry passes can keep them for possible future use.

The South Florida Water Water Management District had announced plans to lower the water levels in their canals over the weekend. No word on whether that's still on or not.

Looks like we'll just have to file away our amazing survival stories for another time.

Storm Watch: Well, That Escalated Quickly

Our thoroughly corrupt, Tea Party governor has declared a state of emergency in advance of Tropical Storm Erika.

I have no respect for this man who should be behind bars and would be if the 1% stopped covering for each other but this was probably a good idea, all in all. Mind you, we still don't know where . . . or if . . . Erika might hit us. It was forecast to go north of Puerto Rico and then turn up the Florida coast. Instead, it moved south of the island and is expected to cross over Hispaniola which might kill it thanks to the mountainous terrain. If it does survive or reform after the Dominican Republic it will be further west before making its northerly turn which means a much better chance of hitting the Florida mainland and of being much closer to us.

In fact, the most recent predicted track, assuming Erika survives Hispaniola, puts the center of the storm directly over us before noon Monday.

The state of emergency activates the Florida National Guard in addition to preparing the way to apply for federal aid. It also gives the media a handle to help focus people's attention. Considering how little experience a lot of folks down here have with cyclonic storms right now, that's probably a good thing.

Police on Sanibel Island have begun issuing re-entry passes to residents (orange for homeowners, blue for businesses) for use in the event the island needs to be evacuated.

Of course, Erika might not survive the Dominican mountains. It might not turn at all but go straight into the Gulf of Mexico. But it's already killed a dozen or more people so better to be over prepared than under.

Storm Watch: The Tempest or Much Ado About Nothing?

Our local newspaper and NPR station have begun issuing storm "notices" regarding tropical storm Erika. "Notices" has to be the least threatening, most benign sort of warning possible. Essentially, they're tracking the storm giving expected arrival times along the predicted path: US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic. They have not yet predicted a landfall on the mainland.

I understand the early concern. It's been almost exactly ten years (minus two months) since the last hurricane, Wilma, hit Florida and there are literally tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of newish arrivals here who have never experienced any sort of cyclonic storm before.

Erika is supposed to be off the coast by Miami sometime Monday. Current projections call for a northward turn that might take it up the coast (either on or off land). If that's the case, we should see some winds and, probably, a fair amount of rain although we've been getting plenty enough of that on a daily basis anyway, thank you very much. For the last couple of nights we've been directly under small, short-lived but incredibly intense thunderstorm cells with continuous close lightning and wall rattling thunder.

If, however, Erika doesn't turn, it will cross the peninsula directly toward us and we could be on the receiving end of a small but very real hurricane.

Freakout!

The littlest cat, Mittens, the tuxedo cat clone of her mother, likes her privacy and will disappear for most of the day, sleeping in closets, boxes, behind books, etc., mostly coming out for meals. (Despite this, she is a friendly kitty and, almost every night, accompanies me down the hallway to my room when I'm ready to retire, climbing on the furniture, changing the discs and/or tracks on my CD player, knocking over books and begging to be petted.)

Yesterday afternoon, she was in my brother's room napping in a large twine-handled, flat-bottomed, paper shopping bag, the kind with the store's logo printed on the sides. Unfortunately, when she woke up she tried to exit the bag through the twine handle which was big enough to accommodate her head but not the rest of her. She turned so the rest of her was outside the bag but couldn't figure out how to free her head.

So she panicked.

She ran.

She ran around my brother's room, around and over his bed, knocking clothes on the floor. Around his easy chair, spilling another bag containing empty aluminum cans awaiting recycling. She ran out into the living room, dragging the designer bag around her neck, spilling a couple of Mom's ceramic vases (miraculously not breaking them), skidded across the coffee table scattering magazines and newspapers, up one side of the couch and down the other.

The more she ran the more the bag flapped behind her and as it flapped it turned and as it turned the twine noose tightened around her neck scaring her even more.

My brother chased her as she crashed through the dining room and flipped a chair over. The other cats scattered.

We finally cornered her in my room next to my easy chair she loves to claw, under the table she hops on to preen for my attention every night. My brother held her still, wild-eyed and panting, while I carefully untwisted the bag and pulled the handle over her head. She was so traumatized she didn't even notice us laughing our heads off.

As soon as she was free she made a beeline for my closet, climbed a couple of boxes and hid behind my shirts. She stayed in there for a little over two hours. Her mom and sister came into the room a couple of times and just sat by the closet door. It was nice to know they were concerned.

We shall have to wait and see what lessons, if any, were learned.

The Community Library

The lady collecting signatures on the petition to include medical marijuana on the ballot (again) for next year's election was out in front of the library all this week, sharing space with the Christians who are something of a permanent, although, as far as I can tell, ineffectual, presence.

She has a nice homemade-looking display on her card table and says "Hi," to everyone walking in. When I stopped to talk to her she said she just greets everyone entering and only engages them on the way out. I told her I probably wouldn't be leaving until closing time so, unless she was planning on hanging around until then she should really talk to me (and a lot of others, too) every chance she got. She admitted she hadn't considered that possibility and wasn't planning on staying that late so I signed the petition right then and there. For the record, the initiative won a majority last time but, since it's trying to amend the state constitution, needs two thirds of the vote to go into effect and "only" received about 60%. The main sponsor, a very successful ambulance-chasing law firm, vowed to try again and so . . . here we are.

Meanwhile, inside, the notice for the ayurveda yoga classes has been replaced with one announcing the upcoming tai-chi sessions.

The Christians, despite a professional looking literature display just seem to sit out in the heat and talk amongst themselves.

The Recurring Architecture of My Dreams: Part 2 The Adult Years

So, those were my childhood dreams and the beginnings of fixed-place, lucid dreaming.

My adult recurring, lucid dreams occur in three locations:

The first is an overcrowded bus zipping along a narrow, forested mountain road somewhere in the Andes (where, for the record, I've never been). We're travelling fast on a downhill slope, mountain to the right, sheer drop off to the left when we fail to negotiate a sharp right turn and go sailing over the edge high above a city of jumbled low buildings with red tile roofs. I distinctly remember the first time this happened, part way through the fall thinking to myself, "No. I don't like this at all. Let's back up and try again," but couldn't and woke up just before impact. The second time, I did succeed in rewinding the scene a bit and became more successful at controlling the fall and the accident with each subsequent iteration. I haven't had this particular dream in years, now, and suspect it's because there's no more challenge left.

The second dream has no specific action but takes place in a large, dark, multi-story wood-frame house (at least it's all unpainted wood on the inside, I've never seen the outside. I assume it's in the Federal style) which is essentially a hollow cube with balconies on each floor running completely around an open, empty, atrium-like core. There are numerous wooden doors on each floor all the way around. I've only been in a few of them but, with one exception, they are all dark and empty with wooden floors and walls and, inevitably a secret panel behind the far wall opening on a warren of hidden passages allowing me to access almost any other room of the house without being seen (which is important for unknown reasons). The exception is a door that opens into a suite of bright, airy, cheery, sunny, interconnected rooms with numerous windows, comfortably furnished with tables and chairs, flowers and pictures, and suitable for entertaining company on a summer afternoon. No one, however, is ever there.

The third dream happens in a casino. This casino is set in a large open field surrounded by thick forest. There is a single road in through the woods which then circles the casino and leads to a large separate parking garage. The casino itself is ultra modern, three or four floors of polished wood and aluminum in the form of an oval, itself encased in a wider oval of glass in a steel frame. There's maybe a thirty foot space between the inner (wood) wall and the outer (glass) one. There are no windows or other openings in the wood casino walls except for the doors which I have never opened. I have neither been in nor seen the gaming floors. However, between the inner and outer walls there are a number of lounges, bars, restaurants, etc., reachable by escalators between floors. There are people here, unidentifiable background extras, but people nonetheless. They are all well-dressed. The only restaurant I have been in, unfortunately, is the buffet on the ground floor, where I waited in line for typical buffet fare and had a hard time finding a table. One time, I found what I thought was a restroom on the ground floor that turned out to have, in addition to a bewildering array of facilities, an extensive locker room, all arranged in a symmetrical array of dark, carved Gothic stone pillars, alcoves and passageways. And once, I started my journey to the casino from several miles away on a typical American highway, several lanes of fast traffic bordered by strings of neon-lit strip malls and "fast casual" chain restaurants. Night was coming on and the sky was purple with a bright orange sunset afterglow on the horizon. I turned left across traffic down a small lane into the woods and thence out to the casino which was bright against the dark sky and forest.

The reason these have all come back to mind recently, is that I may have started a fourth location, although it is still quite undefined in comparison. Twice now I've dreamt I was looking out a standard size window opening (there is no frame or glass) in a wall made either of concrete or stuccoed cinder block. Outside the window is a long, thin pole, much like a flag pole. I can see neither the top nor bottom. I can reach outside the window but not far enough to touch the pole. And climbing it is some sort of ghoul. This thing is almost human size. It's skin is made of dark gray leathery patches sewn together haphazardly, all except for its face which is pinkish-orange flesh sagging and folded as if melting. It has large eyes (can't recall a color) over which its eyelids droop. It has a long melty nose. The first time, I managed to reach out and push the beast back a bit, but in the second dream I missed and it crawled up out of sight.

All things considered, I'd rather hang out at the casino (or in the sun room).

The Recurring Architecture of My Dreams, Part I: The Early Years

I had a dream over the weekend and it has caused me to think about my history of dreams and some of their standard settings. This last one was some place new yet familiar.

I can remember dreams going back to my early childhood (five or six years old). The two earliest were non-repeating: the first has no setting just a dark background and involves a standard wooden school ruler, 12 inches long with flat bottom and slightly beveled top, fractional inch segments* imprinted in black and the small metal insert running the length against which you could run your pen or pencil to draw a perfect straight line. I hold the ruler in my right hand (I'm left-handed) while a pale green, luminescent spider about an inch long slowly crawls from the far end toward me. I watch as it passes each printed tick mark on the ruler, starting and stopping, glowing faintly as it closes and I can not let go no matter how hard I try until I wake just before it touches me.

The second one seems more. . . normal . . . for a five/six year old: The new suburban neighborhood in which we lived backed up to, and was named for, a long, forested ridge on the other side of which was a reservoir. On the crest of the ridge, one tree stood above all the others, a pine with a peculiar top which, if you squinted just right, or had very poor eyesight as I do and couldn't focus properly, looked an awful lot like a Tyrannosaur. Which, in my dream, it became and waved its tiny arms about and chomped its huge jaws but never came down into our little valley because it was still rooted up there.

Both of those dreams are over fifty years old and only happened once.

The first of my recurring dreams started shortly after. It was also the first of my lucid dreams. It was the flying dream.

I remember lying on my back, under the covers, yet not touching the bed. With a little effort I could swing my body sideways, left then right, until I was moving like a pendulum or someone swinging in a hammock. Soon I was flying two or three times a week. I still remember the delight I felt when I eventually realized I could control how far I could arc the swing and when I first performed a full barrel roll.

At some point, I turned over so I was facing down and thus began moving through space. Left, right forward and (with some difficulty) back were mine. The only thing I never got the hang of was altitude control and I remained at a constant (and not coincidental since that just happened to be the height of my bed) three feet off the ground. And this is where the first of the recurring locations came in as I found myself repeatedly navigating through my brightly lit, empty school, into and out of classrooms and up and down the clean, polished hallway, no one else around, until, inevitably, the one long hallway would narrow down in a kind of forced perspective and I found myself with shoulders wedged against the walls unable to move and woke up. The school setting was accurate down to the desk arrangements, lights and radiators in the classrooms, including the overall floor plan. As dream settings go, except for the last little bit, it was quite mundane.

A couple years later we moved to another town and those dreams ended,

* There was no such thing as metric in those days. I wear an onion on my belt.

Ten Weeks, Give or Take

And that's the answer to that question. Not bad, actually.

Back in April I was photographed by the Googlemobile on my way to the library. I have to confess, after the first few weeks I stopped checking every day and lately have been looking only once or twice a week so I don't know exactly when it went up, but the new street view is there now and there I am making my turn.

Can't tell that it's me, but it is.

They didn't blur me out or anything, the shot is just too far away and fuzzy. My brother could tell. No one else ever will.

High Summer

We raised the flag on the new flagpole on Flag Day even though the cement never set properly, mostly due to the continuing rains, and the pole itself wobbles a bit in the sleeve. Also, we didn't raise the flag so much as raised the pole with the flag attached since the pole is extendable but doesn't have a lanyard and the flag snaps directly to the fixed clips. Nevertheless, it is tall, above the lowest power lines so it was a good idea to shift it back a few feet, and looks good.

Flag Day is also my brother's birthday, so we had the traditional shrimp and scallops sauteed in olive oil and garlic butter with threads of red and yellow sweet peppers served over linguine, corn on the cob and biscuits on the side and apple pie for dessert. We were halfway through the meal when my brother realized the lack of lanyard on the flag pole meant he couldn't fly the flag at half staff if necessary but the old pole had no hoist either and that was never a problem in all the previous decades. If the necessity ever arises, he can just take the flag down.

The mango harvest is slowing a bit. The squirrel and birds and insects have had more than their share and a lot of the fruits dropped too small this year but we have a dozen containers in the refrigerator half a dozen bags in the freezer and still there are another dozen on the counter waiting to be processed. And that doesn't count the ones that have been given away or made into salsa or mango bread already. I'll be making two more loaves tomorrow to give to the nurses when I go in for this month's platelet donation Thursday.

We're having to harvest the tomatoes a little before full ripeness due to the rain which is causing them to swell and burst. The peppers don't seem to have that problem.

Every week my brother cranks the air conditioning down another notch in order to sleep at night. We started the season set at 83F (28C) but now it's sometimes down to 79F (26C) which can seem downright chilly. It's the humidity that's making him uncomfortable more than the heat.

Flag(pole) of Our Father

My brother recently bought a flag pole to replace the one our Dad installed when he and Mom bought the house.

What Dad installed could be called a flag pole only in the technical sense that it was indeed a pole and it often had a flag attached to it. It was a plain metal tube sticking ten feet out of the ground with holes drilled into it through which lines could be run and tied to the flag's grommets. The one my brother bought is anodized metal, extensible to about 25 feet, with a goldish finial on top and two preset snap hooks for attaching the flag.

Of course the snap hooks turned out to be one inch too far apart to mount the nice new flag my brother bought to replace the worn one that started this whole project so he'll use the cheap, lightweight, printed flag that came with the pole (and fits) until it fades and then drill a new hole for the lower snap hook.

Yesterday, despite 95F temperatures, 95% humidity and almost 100% cloud cover and thunder rumbling on the horizon, we went out to install the new pole.

Dad was a firm believer in over-engineering projects. In his opinion, the pyramids were done a bit slapdash. And so, of course, the old pole turned out not to be ten feet long but rather fifteen with five buried firmly in the ground. We finally wrestled it out with much cursing and sweating and dug a new hole about a meter further back from the street to avoid the overhead power lines to which the new pole, when fully extended, can come dangerously close. Our hole was not nearly so deep mostly because we used concrete to secure the base and not just earth.

I refilled the old hole with rubble from the new and made sure the shovel, carpenter's level, etc., were all put away so this doesn't qualify as a redneck 70% project. We'll refrain from hoisting the new flag for a few days until we're sure the concrete as set fully.

It never did rain although there were a few bolts of lightning later in the evening.

A Delicious Weekend of Neurotoxins

So it turns out tilefish is very tasty: mild, sweet, firm and flaky. Goes well with home-made mango salsa on a bed of jasmine rice, salad on the side. Or an ear of buttered sweet corn. Can be baked, broiled or fried.

It is also loaded with mercury. Right up there with swordfish.

Some of the sites I checked said limit to one serving per month. Others said don't touch it. All of them said absolutely not for children or pregnant (or potentially pregnant) women. Surprisingly, the official Florida government guide which breaks down fish contamination risks by river, lake and coastal zone by named species and even includes various types of puffer fish (fugu) doesn't so much as mention tilefish, let alone list any warning.

I maybe should have checked those sites before indulging.

As it is, my brother and I are neither children nor female and we eat so little fish as a rule that our cumulative mercury levels are most likely quite low. Any degradation in cognitive functions is just age-related. Probably. Still, I sealed up most of the fillets and stuffed them in the freezer so we can space out our consumption. I figure the risks are low enough and the fish is tasty enough to not warrant throwing them away.

On the bright side, it's raining mangoes, a new half-dozen tomatoes ripen almost every day and the peppers are getting thick. And they're all free-range organic so they counteract any effects from the fish.

Right?

Miscellania: Deep Sea Edition

I came home last night to find what I thought was a rather large fish all wrapped up in the refrigerator but when my brother returned home he explained it was actually two fish that, while large for the refrigerator, were actually fairly smallish representatives of their species. It seems a friend of his has a boat and goes out in the deep Gulf (900 feet/275 meters) which is where he caught some tilefish. Our chilling tilefish are each almost two feet long; full-grown adults are often up to five feet. So it looks like this Memorial Day grilling will be seafood.

Not my brother's friend. Just
an example of  a largish tilefish.

So far Rainy Season has been hit or miss and the construction workers across the way have managed to dodge the occasional storm to finish installing doors (except the garage door), basic plumbing including vent pipes, basic asphalt shingle roofing and, possibly, basic electric. Some interior walls are up. Last week, one guy on a family roofing team across the river was killed by lightning and one of his brothers injured when they thought a storm had passed and went back up to continue their project. Two other brothers were there but unhurt.

This last platelet donation went reasonably well. Only a few complaints from the machine and none from me. I turned down the T-shirt, the penlight flashlight and the coupon for lunch at the hospital commissary but I did accept the $25 gasoline gift card which I gave to my brother. That's not a regular perk but something they offer based on cumulative donations although I don't know what my total is at this point except it's not whatever I thought it was.

Tomatoes and peppers are coming along nicely. The mangoes are starting to overwhelm. I seem to always have 8-10 on the counter at any one time waiting to be processed. Mango salsa for the tilefish!

The Clockwork Calendar

The weather folks announced Rainy Season is scheduled to begin this week. So far the clouds have rolled in on schedule every afternoon along with occasional thunder but no actual rain, yet.

In anticipation, the builders not only put up the under-roof on the new house across the way last week, but also managed to nail down the tar paper covering and install the windows so the interior is mostly waterproof now (although there are no doors either on the house or garage). The interior framing is installed as well but I haven't seen anyone around in close to a week now.

Meanwhile, while we're waiting for the rain:

There are butterflies everywhere. Mostly sulphurs and zebras of various shades of black and yellow. I saw a beautiful copper colored one this morning, like a small, dark Monarch, that blended in well with the dead leaves.

We have several buckets set up along the front walkway, three or four with tomatoes and a couple with peppers. We picked a couple of cherry tomatoes already and there's a nice bell pepper that'll be ready in a day or two. Others are ripening and more flowers are blooming every day. I've already chopped up a couple of ripe mangoes and there are more turning yellow-red. We have several green ones my brother brought in but I don't know if they fell or if he just picked them unripe. They're starting to soften so I'll cut them up and see if they're edible as is or if I have to cook them. So far this year, they're all on the smallish side but, if the rains do come as predicted, they could still grow more.

The bucket of sticks in water by the front door, which is just one of several scattered along the side of the house, has come to life after a couple of years and  seems to be blossoming into frangipani. As a matter of fact, they all are. The bougainvillea is in full bloom as is the desert rose and a dozen or so lilies between the house and the walkway. And the new coconut palm and banana tree have both outgrown their pots. (The banana's easy but the coconut will have to be placed far enough from where people and cars normally go so falling fruit doesn't kill or injure someone or damage a vehicle.)

The only downside right now is that the clouds have brought humidity to go with the heat and so we've had to close up the house again after a couple of glorious weeks and turn on the A/C.

Update: Right after posting this the clouds rolled in, the lightning struck and thunder roared and the rain came pelting down in sheets so thick you can't see the road out front. Rainy Season, right on time.

Redneck Studies: Consistent Randomness

In addition to my long-standing observations regarding the native redneck's (i.e., my brother's) inability to pursue any project to completion, I have also noticed a distinct tendency toward increasing randomness in his immediate surroundings.

On occasion, and for no apparent reason, he will go through the pantry and move cans and boxes of supplies from one shelf to another. I can't determine if he was actually looking for a specific item since nothing ever seems to be gone or used. They're all just moved. It happens, to a lesser extent (possibly because he hates leaving the door open), with the refrigerator as well.

Similarly, the lawn mower and various other yard implements can be found at any of three or four possible storage sites, not dependent upon where they were last used.

Late yesterday evening, he suddenly began stomping around the house in a foul mood, opening various drawers and going through the recyclable trash in his room and the kitchen. Being the first Sunday of the month, he had decided to pay a bunch of household bills. and now couldn't find them. We're talking mortgage, utilities, storage unit(s), credit cards--the works. He ransacked the house, and then his truck, and then the house again before giving up for the night. I know he was afraid he might have put them in with the other trash paper and thrown them out last week.

This morning he got up early and started rummaging through his truck again, scraping it out down to the floor mats. When I went out the first thing I noticed was a stack of envelopes sitting on one of the lawn chairs by the fire pit he never quite finished installing so I said, "I see you found all your bills."

"No I didn't."

"What's all that stuff on the chair, then?"

"What chair?"

"The lawn chair. There's what looks like a pile of bills and a bag of pistachios on it."

"That's probably the bills." He left off cleaning the truck* and went inside still pissed off but now at himself. Your welcome.

We've had a run of a few absolutely glorious days, warm, sunny, dry and breezy, perfect for sitting outside. I did so a couple of days ago with a book and iced tea, reading and watching the blue jays and mockingbirds fight over ownership of the bugs in the lawn (blue jays are more obnoxious and tend to win), and saying "Hi" to our black snake as she came home in the early evening from wherever she goes during the day (she stopped about four feet away when she noticed me and we acknowledged each other for a few minutes before she made a wide semi-circle to go around and back to her woodpile).

In short, it's been pretty much perfect outside and my brother had decided to do the bills outdoors and got everything set before he went inside, became distracted and completely forgot what he had intended to do and where. He'd walked right by them on his way to his truck and never noticed because, to my knowledge, he's never sat outside to pay the bills before. It was just another random (though thoroughly supportable) notion.

*And will not continue, now, until he can't find something else in the future.

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters!

The workers on the new house going up across the way finished blocking up the outside walls last Friday, the same day a load of prefabricated wood a-frame roof trusses arrived. Exactly the right number and exactly the right sizes to mock up the garage, the main body of the house and the gable on the opposite side from the garage. They're obviously working from a standardized, factory approved plan.

Yesterday morning the crew, or perhaps a new one made up of carpenters instead of masons, showed up to begin installation and this morning they were done which was a good thing because the rain came down in sheets around noon. They all left for the day.

It's supposed to rain again tomorrow so they probably won't be back to cover the framing with an actual roof until probably Friday when everything should have dried out.

But, at least, it is starting to look a bit like a house.

Suburban Zooarcheology

I came home yesterday evening to find my brother had lopped off more than a dozen fronds from the pineapple palm out front. It is now possible for a full-size adult human to walk around the tree without ducking. (He did a similar chop job with the orange tree by the driveway last week that went even further. I'm not sure whether he got carried away with the pruning or he was cutting it down and just stopped part way through. See: Redneck Studies: The 70% Complete Solution.)

There's a good view of those nasty spikes

I discovered two things as I gathered up the fronds and placed them by the side of the road for trash pick up.*

First: Pineapple palm fronds have long, thin, spiky and incredibly sharp stiletto-like leaves at their base which are quite capable of stabbing one in the hand, thigh, calf or anywhere else that gets too close and they will draw blood.

Second (and less painful but much more interesting): A 'possum up and died under the pineapple palm. I found parts of its disarticulated skeleton pressed into the ground. I have the skull, both halves of the mandible, both femurs, and several vertabrae (probably lumbar, but I can't be sure without others to compare them with). No ribs, no tail bones, no other leg or foot bones although I may just have missed them since they would be very small and it was getting dark.

The bones I do have are in perfect condition. No breakage, no scratches, no teeth missing. And clean. The animal must have died a while ago because there was no soft matter anywhere. (There was the very faintest odor which was sufficient to intrigue Paribanour when I went inside and presented my hands to her but it was faint enough that the other cats were totally uninterested.) skullsunlimited.com is asking $50 for just a skull (of course) and mine is every bit as good and I have the other bits, too.

These are from washington.edu and not mine, but mine look just like this

They're all laid out right now on a fertilizer bag by the front door until I can find a proper way to display them. Some sort of shadow box or something. In the meantime, I'll go back out under the tree and see if I can find any more pieces.

UPDATE: I went back out last evening while it was still light and found the pelvis, more long bones (not sure which), some more vertabrae including tail bones, and several ribs. Still haven't seen any of the very small foot bones.

* We get three trucks coming through on trash day. One automated truck for recyclables in their designated container, another automated truck for non-recyclables in their separate container, and one truck with humans attached picking up "yard waste," basically anything plantish larger than lawn clippings that used to be growing on the property.

Watching the Concrete Set

The new house being built just down the road seems to be going up in fits and starts. Each separate step seems to take half a day at most, followed by days of prepping(?), planning(?), scheduling(?) the next step.

The first load of concrete was used to make the outline of the foundation for the entire house, including garage. The first load of cinder blocks, several days later was placed to encase the line of concrete. A few days after that, the small bulldozer came back and refilled and leveled the space enclosed by the wall so the actual poured foundation would be only a few inches think instead of the foot or so height of the wall.

In the only case of two things happening at the same time I've seen so far, while the bulldozer was bulldozing, a crew with entrenching tools dug up the road median and the verge on our side (down by Neighbor Dan) which is where the the city water mains run. They didn't dig up the street itself so I suppose they bored under the pavement in order to run their pipes. I didn't see it happen but everything's filled in again so there must be a connection set up.

Last week more cement mixer trucks came by and poured the foundation for the house and garage and also put in the driveway. That took a little more than two hours, including the smoothing and leveling. The entire work crew spent the rest of the day sitting around watching the concrete set. I suppose wet cement presents an attractive nuisance and we certainly have kids in the area who would take advantage of the opportunity to put footprints, hand prints, initials and other graffiti wherever they thought they could get away with it, but surely one guard would have been sufficient, no?

Yesterday, several skids of cinder blocks were dropped off and, already today, the outer wall of the house is up over six feet high.

They may not work often, but when they do, they work fast.

Jump Starting the Cats

We turned on the air conditioning for the second time last evening. Just for the night. It was muggy and sticky and my brother wanted to get a good night's sleep as he had to get up early this morning. So we went around closing all the windows and the front door and cranked up the air, mostly to remove the humidity.

Prior to this, the cats had been flaking out in various locations. Mittens was in my room lying on a bookshelf by an open window. Jasmine was splayed out in the foyer not even pretending to look for lizards and had to be shoveled inside so we could close the door. Paribanour was installed in her usual spot atop the TV. Not one of them had so much as twitched for more than an hour.

The dehumidification was palpable almost immediately. I put down their evening kibble.

Within minutes they were chasing each other around the house, banging into furniture, bouncing off the walls and skittering around their humans. Up the end and across the top of the couch, onto my chair and over me, through the kitchen into the dining room, down the hall crashing into the closet door and then racing full-speed back through the living room into my brother's room and another crash. Repeat with variations.

After about twenty minutes of frenetic mayhem, they all collapsed in the living room.

The air conditioning is off again, for now.

Questions On Being Street Viewed

On my way to the library yesterday, I turned right in front of the Googlemobile waiting at the intersection. Boom! There they were, just past the police radar trap. Since that was the street I was turning onto, I looked them straight in the camera lens. It was a beautiful, warm day and I had my windows down and everything.

The current Street View for that intersection is four years old. I will now check that spot on Google Maps every day for the answers to two questions. How long does it take Google to put up new views once the pictures have been taken? Assuming the camera is running constantly and their car was stopped for a minute or two due to cross traffic, will they select me (and others) out of the scene in favor of shots without traffic if possible? And, if they do use a shot with me in it, how will I look making my turn all pixelated?

O.K. Three. Three questions.

And did they catch the radar trap on camera?

Four.

Paris 1951: Three Photographs

I've taken a closer look at the three photos that came in the envelope with the postcards and business cards.

All of the photos are black and white, printed on the standard glossy-front matte-back commercial photo development stock with scalloped edges, lighter but similar to the postcards.

One is of the Eiffel Tower taken from the Trocadero, the standard tourist shot except there are no people on the plaza and only three way off in the distance.

The other two, which I originally believed to be aerial shots, were, in fact, taken from the very summit of the tower itself. One is centered on the Arc de Triomphe, and the other is centered on Le Grand Palais with Sacre Coeur on the horizon. The back of the last one has "Eglise Sacre Coeur" handwritten in pen. The back of the Arc de Triomphe shot simply says "arch" in the same hand, and the one of the tower is blank.

I presume there was a whole roll (at least) taken in and around the city but these are the only ones in the envelope and there are no negatives to be found.

None of these additional landmarks are included in the postcard "tour" although La Madeleine is distinctly visible beyond Le Grand Palais and both Place Vendome and La Bourse (positively) and L'Arc du Carroussel (possibly) are within the span of the image if not discernible.

Hmmm. I just noticed that this last photo also encompasses the neighborhoods from the two business cards which, from this perspective, would be just below Montmartre and Sacre Coeur.

So, is it simple tourism that ties these all together? The handwriting on the photos and the business cards is different. I don't know who "Georges" is nor "M. Presse" (both from the business cards). And who was staying at the now defunct Hotel Metropole?

The Spring Rush

So, last week a small bulldozer came and scraped half of the empty field across from us.

A couple days later some strange fencing went up. Actually, it was less like fencing and more like random fence gates separated by invisible fencing. I think it marks off the area in which the builders will be working but does not inhibit access in any way.

Yesterday, a cement mixer drove by and several construction guys showed up. At first I thought they were going to lay down the foundation slab even though the ground, despite being scraped, had not been leveled. When I came home, however, I discovered they had put in a short (one foot or so) retaining wall outlining the intended floor plan. Presumably, a slab will come later.

Today there's a crew out there with cinder blocks.

Our county assesses impact fees to cover the cost of new infrastructure caused by increased development. When the recession hit, they slashed the impact fees down to near-nothing to try easing the burden on a crashing building industry. Last month, now the economy's back on track, the county commissioners voted to restore about half the fees. There are fewer than 60 days left before the new fees go into effect so there is a scramble to get permits issued before then.

It would seem our builder across the way got his approvals.

Signs of Spring

The mango tree has blossomed, is still blossoming, produced so many blossoms we caught birds nibbling on them and yet the tree is still full of little mango fruits.

The jasmine is blossoming and the warm night air, clear and calm and full of bright, sharp, glittering stars smells like a Persian garden.

The green parrots are back, as are the ibis, the hawks and the vultures. And the blacksnake. And the toads which have been clinging to the glass doors of the lanai and driving the cats crazy with frustration.

All of the doors and windows have been open for over a month now, at least the ones with screens to keep the bugs out and the cats in. Somehow, the occasional lizard still manages to find its way in, though.

The bulldozer arrived bright and early and spent three hours scraping the topsoil off half the open field across the road in preparation for someone building a house there.

There's been an active For Sale sign on that field for a few months now. I can't tell if someone bought the whole field and intends to build on half of it or if only half of it sold. I'm sure it's zoned for two lots. In either case, a house on that site will severely cramp available parking for next Hallowe'en. But that's still several seasons (Spring, High, Summer, Rainy and Fall, at least) away for now.

Paris 1951: Connecting the Dots

So far I've been concentrating on the two business cards and trying to learn something of the businesses they represented, but there are also a number of postcards in the envelope labelled Paris 1951. Ten of them, to be exact. And three photos, one of the Eiffel tower and two aerial shots.

All of the postcards seem to have been manufactured between the wars judging from the models of the cars and buses. They appear to be black and white photos, hand colored and printed on card stock
varnished on the illustrated side published by "E. R." with the notification "Paris" and "Reproduction Interdite." Most have a one-line description/title on the front, the rest have it on the back. Some are numbered.

La Madeleine - Present Day

Place Vendome - c.1900

From west to east we start with the first card at the front portico of La Madeleine, the Greek style temple in the 8th arrondissement, facing east toward Boulevard des Capucines. The second card is Place Vendome, facing north looking directly at Napoleon on his column and, past him, up the Rue de la Paix. Both those streets meet at Place de l'Opera.

Le Louvre - c.1900

 

La Bourse - Present Day

Traveling east from Place de l'Opera along Rue Reaumer we come to the third card, La Bourse, seen from the southeast corner. Turning 180 degrees and heading toward the river leads to the fourth card, Le Louvre and what appears to be a low aerial view of the courtyard from behind and above the Arc de triomphe du Carrousel. (Honestly, I think I like the old view better, with all the gardens and trees rather than the paved over courtyard of today, even with the pyramid.)

L'Hotel-de-Ville - Back Then (Even the trees are the same now)

Continuing up the river we come to the fifth card, L'Hotel-de-Ville, although the photograph was taken from across the Pont d'Arcole on Ile de la Cite just outside the front door of the Hotel Dieu.

Card number six is a general view of Paris looking down the Seine. Aside from a background of low, gray, smoggy, obscuring haze worthy of 19th Century London (which the colorist has rendered in full lung-choking grit), the most notable feature of this card is not the seven bridges of the title but the fact that it looks west from just above L'Hotel-de-Ville to the location of the seventh card which is the only one that is no longer identifiable from its title.

Le Palais de Justice (5 Quai Horloge) - Present Day

The seventh card is titled Le Palais de Justice. The building itself, although cleaned up nicely, has no signage or any indication of its function other than flying both the French and EU flags over a small, plain black door and a couple of serious security cameras, merely the number 5 Quai Horloge on the side shown in the postcard, mostly because the grand main entrance worthy of a national supreme court is around the corner. The facade shown in the view does have a few impressive medieval towers, though.

Pantheon looking up Rue Soufflot - Today

The tour now continues across the river and south down Boulevard Saint-Michel to Place Edmond Rostand where the next photograph was taken from just behind the fountain at the base of Rue Soufflot looking east to the Pantheon. The scene today looks pretty much as it did then except for the increased numbers of people and cars and the fact the corner tobacconist has been replaced by a McDonald's.

Les Invalides

The last two postcards are linked together and require a trip westward, still on the Left Bank, to a spot almost due south of where we started: Les Invalides. The first view is looking north at the exterior and dome. Once again the gardens in the card have been paved over although the building itself has been cleaned. The last card is Napoleon's Tomb.

If one traces this path on a map, starting at La Madelaine and proceeding generally in the shortest direction to the next card (La Bourse being the major exception), it forms a circuit around central Paris less than ten miles long, a kind of open sack with the Sorbonne at its bottom and Place de la Concorde and Quai D'Orsay in the open mouth.

Is there a story to go with this tour beyond a simple afternoon walkabout? Perhaps the three original photographs might help clarify.

And It Rained, Too

Complete failure at the hospital yesterday.

I went in for my monthly platelet donation. The guy who took my blood pressure always gets a high reading (within acceptable range but always on the high side). I always joke/complain so this time he took another reading and the diastolic came in six points lower than the first try. He blames it on the machine but others have tested me on the same machine and he has tested me on the other machine more than once.

I had a premonition something wasn't right when the "pinch" of the needle insertion continued after the draw had started but that can happen sometimes if there is any moisture on the skin at the insertion point that then gets carried along with the tip of the needle. However, the draw started O.K. so the nurse stepped out to get lunch leaving me with the tech who did the blood pressure test.

No sooner was she gone than I felt fluttering in the vein and the machine started beeping. The fluttering usually means the tip of the needle is touching a valve in the vein which can randomly restrict its intake. The tech could feel it, too, and did his best to attend the machine but he wasn't comfortable trying to adjust either the machine or the needle in the vein. So we waited, rebooting the machine every few minutes as the poor draw caused beeping alarms.

When the nurse returned, we explained the situation and she reduced both the draw and return rates on the machine which made the fluttering go away but otherwise did no good. She then tried adjusting the needle and ended up holding it in her hand propping it against the inside of my elbow for a minute or so which was untenable in the long run.

She tried moving the needle into a stable position where she could leave it alone but, instead, hit the vein wall and punctured it. She realized what happened even before I felt the pain. She had the needle out and gauze on the site while I was still saying, "Ow!"

They had less than a half unit of platelets so that was useless. Because if the immediate removal of the needle none of the blood in the machine could be returned leaving me too low (according to SOP) to donate again before my next scheduled time in order to try making up for this one. All of the tubing and the half bag of platelets were disposed of (which would have happened anyway, for the tubing). And we all lost a good two hours of time. Plus, a lot of other donors have been calling in sick so the hospital isn't exactly swimming in platelets right now as it is.

I ended up with two cookies, some apple juice and a subdural hematoma which, while a pretty purple right now, will soon turn sickly green and then yellow before it fades.

Redneck Studies: The 70% Complete Solution

I've mentioned before my theory that the reason redneck properties end up looking like redneck properties is the subjects' congenital inability to complete any project. I hold to that premise.

Just a few recent items of note in passing:

My brother has a power wash machine that's been sitting in the garage for a couple years now. (I think the last time it was used was when Mom died and he blasted (most of) the outside of the house before the cousins came over for her wake.) A couple months ago he took it out and discovered just how easy it was to clean the driveway of twenty-odd years of weather, dirt and grime. He would do a smallish section at a time a couple times a week and we moved the vehicles around accordingly to accommodate.

Except he's apparently become bored with that now. The last 20-25% of the driveway, down by the street, hasn't been touched in weeks and there is no indication he intends to go any further. And it's not an even break between completed/untouched sections where he can pretend that it's a different color concrete or anything. It's just obviously not done.

The Christmas tree, at least, came down a week after I removed the last of the ornaments. He insists there is one proper way to assemble and disassemble the tree and he knows what that is. So it's in its box . . . which is still sitting in the hallway two weeks later. I do not know the location of his storage unit, neither do I have a key.

Meanwhile, though, he suddenly had the urge last evening to clean out the roll-top desk. It needed it desperately, having accumulated probably a decade's worth of holiday cards, utility bills, batteries (dead and alive), pens (dead and alive), address books (mostly alive), insurance calendars (assuredly dead), and other assorted ephemera and impedimenta. He had apparently finished by the time I came home since he was in his room watching TV having left the chair he was using blocking the doorway and all the drawers and top of the desk wide open. Do you want cats in your roll-top desk? Because that's how you get cats in your roll-top desk. They'd climb on it occasionally even when it was shut. I closed everything up.

I believe he honestly does not see finishing detail. And certainly does not see it as part of the project. The project was to take down the tree. It's down. The project was to clean out the desk. It's clean. End of story.

I don't know what the deal is with the driveway.

Paris 1951: The American Connection

I have heard nothing back from Le Bistrot regarding the former occupant of their location, Au Porte d'Attache.

Today, I sent a similar request to the property management firm, G. Mauduit, which occupies the ground floor of, and presumably manages, the apartment building 36 rue Pigalle, the location of the late Morgan of Oregon, American Bar (The Only Yank in Montmartre). I am hopeful that a real estate firm may know more of the history of their property than a mere successor cafe, in the case of Le Bistrot, does.

My next step, if this line proves unfruitful, will be to try the Paris government property records. (The Hotel Metropole is no longer a hotel and I doubt any of the residents has the slightest knowledge of the history of the building. Also, I have no names or contact info for any of the residents, anyway.) I presume records of sale/purchase transactions, business licenses, etc. are all held at the city level and not the arrondissement.

I wonder what the possibilities of tracking down/identifying Mr. Morgan are?

UPDATE:

Imagine my surprise. I found a reference to Morgan of Oregon, of all places, in a copy of the June 2006 Pawcatuck Pilot, Official Newsletter of USS Pawcatuck AO-108 which reprints a section of a 1952 story of an apocryphal amalgamation of an engineer named "Alfred." As the tale recounts . . .

". . . His greatest sight was the Follies [sic] Bergere, in which he took part as a jockey on a wooden horse. After a day of events, he would always end up in Pigalle at Morgan’s of Oregon, an American bar. He would sit and talk for hours on end to anyone who was within earshot. After spending his last francs he would go to the door and leave and fall back at the sight, for outside was sunlight...then starting another day. After gathering his senses he would take his friend, Mrs. Morgan, and everyone else in the party to the Market Square for Onion Soup—the best in the world.. . ."

So, Mr. Morgan may, in fact, be Mrs. Morgan.

The game is afoot!

. . . And the End of Civilization As We Know It

Today is the day Florida's judicial stay on the enforcement of the declaration of unconstitutionality of the state's ban on same-sex marriages was lifted. It's convoluted.

Several years ago, along with a bunch of other red(dish) states, our legislature managed to work up enough of a paranoid frenzy among the insecure and easily frightened to get a constitutional amendment passed limiting marriage to the "traditional" one man, one woman format and besides, it's what Jesus wants. (Let's forget that "traditional marriage" as they defined it is barely more than a century old and for most of history was a transfer of property contract between men, and Biblical marriage was even worse involving slavery and polygamy (lookin' at you, Solomon!).)

Anyway, last year a federal judge, upon complaint from two guys wishing to wed in the north end of the state and two women in Miami, declared the ban unconstitutional under the federal 14th amendment which requires states to comply with federal law and ordered the clerks of the county in which the betrothed lived to issue the marriage licenses.

The state, in the full majesty of its official capacity, immediately freaked out and requested a stay of judgment to give it time to appeal the decision, which the judge granted.

Now, the thing about appeals is: higher courts are not usually required to hear them and, if they refuse, the original ruling, whatever it may be, stands. And no higher court, not even the Supreme Court where the extremely conservative Clarence Thomas was the justice who heard the request, agreed to take the case.

So the stay was set to expire at midnight last night.

And then the fun started. The state attorney general, still in full freak-out mode, declared that the ruling only applied to the plaintiffs and anyone else seeking a same-sex marriage could still be discriminated against. And the law firm for the county clerks' association warned the members that the clerks of all the other counties not covered by the ruling risked breaking the law by applying the ruling. So on New Year's Day the judge issued a clarification making it plain that his injunction against the constitutional ban applied to everyone across the state.

At which point some counties (specifically those encompassing Miami, Tampa and Key West) began celebrating, most counties began adjusting their forms and procedures, and a dozen counties in the deep redneck north of the state began contorting themselves to do the barest minimum mainly by refusing to perform any marriage ceremonies gay or straight on the logic that the judge's ruling applied only to marriage licenses not actual marriages. (At least they were smart enough to realize that continuing to perform straight marriage ceremonies would open themselves up to discrimination charges. And there are plenty of other options, both religious and secular, for couples to hold their services.)

And so, despite the trembling of the earth, rising of the waters, lightning splitting stone, and howling winds, society has not yet collapsed. And Florida is being dragged kicking and screaming right up to the edge of the twenty-first century.

2015 So Far

Well, this new year seems to be starting off different.

Three police cars showed up out on our main road about 1:45 a.m., parked in a line about a hundred feet apart with lights flashing and stayed there for an hour or so encouraging a party down that way to break up. It was a pretty good party, too, from the sound and sight of it, with music, fireworks and a large bonfire. (I'm pretty sure it was just a bonfire despite looking as if the host house was burning down with flames rising above the roof and thick smoke billowing out since the fire department never showed up.) It took a while for the dozen or so cars to leave.

Fortunately, the police didn't come any sooner since one of the neighbors down our street had been shooting off commercial-grade fireworks from the pavement in front of his house. They were very impressive (Literally. You could feel the force of the shockwave when they exploded.) and quite beautiful and very loud. The cats hid. They started well before midnight so after an hour and a half someone came out and yelled at them to knock it off. They yelled back, "Happy New Year!" The complainers yelled back, "Happy New Year, to you!" and went inside. A couple of shots later the fireworks ended. That's how civilization is supposed to work.

January is a Blue Month for my platelet donations this year: my every-four-weeks schedule means I will donate twice this month. The first one was scheduled for the first of the year which wasn't going to work for anybody so we moved it to Friday, the 2nd. The regular RN was still out on vacation and the hospital was low on platelets so the sub asked if I'd be willing to do a double, which I was. All went reasonably well with only minor beeping of the machine. When we were done, however, the bandage was not applied tightly enough (can't place blame since I participate in that process). I mentioned that I was feeling a little light-headed when I stood up and another donor said, "Maybe it's because you're leaking all over the place."

Sure enough, the bandage was soaked through, blood was running down my arm, and drops were spurting out all over the floor. I hadn't felt a thing. I sat back down and we got it stopped quickly enough. They spent several minutes scrubbing and decontaminating the floor. I went home, threw my shirt in the wash and took a nap. We all promised to be more observant next time.

My brother decided to put the cats on a diet. It's only the mom, Jasmine, that's fat but they all eat at the same time from shared plates so they're all being cut back in both volume and frequency. One of the enterprising little buggers quickly figured out how to self-serve by nibbling/tearing a small hole in the kibble bag. It was perfectly done and only released food when they stuck their faces in the hole. The only reason I noticed was because they acted totally disinterested when I put out the scheduled meal, instead of the hunger-fueled frenzy that had quickly become the norm. So now the bag is in a sealed bucket and they're unhappy again.