Two 3.7-mile city rides and a 5K run with a podcast of electronic music of 150 bpm. My time was abysmal: though the beat was fine, I have no length to my stride at all. Part of that is stupid knees; most of it is lack of weight-training. I didn't expect to do 6 mph on pavement as I did once on a treadmill, but 4 mph is pathetic. Perhaps I could hire a lion to chase me. Or a jellyfish. I hate jellyfish.
Elizabeth Lewis's early Newbery Medal winner does not date as badly as Lawson's Honor book of 25 years later, but it shares the same faith in western ideas of progress. It presages the predominant themes of so many later Newberys--consequences and growing up--but still has the earlier ones--courage (The Dark Frigate, Call It Courage, Hitty: Her First Hundred Years) and responsibility and gung-ho western progress (Waterless Mountain, Invinicle Louisa, Caddie Woodlawn, Matchlock Gun).
Robert Lawson made me insane with the animals' worship of St. Francis in Rabbit Hill, as if animals had been unable to get along by themselves until about 800 years ago. This didn't annoy me quite as much, but it's certainly Horatio Alger-ish. A quick read, another Newbery Honor.
It's only .75 mile from the trailhead to the foot of the glacier, but there's a good grade to the start of it that must be a torrent in spring. It was 90 in Denver, less than that at the trailhead at 10,000 feet, and less than that again near the glacier, remaining snowpack, and the pond at the glacier's foot. The pond was lovely but, solitary as we were late on a Saturday afternoon, I didn't swim.
Stairmaster, 15' @ 68 steps per minute; elliptical, 15' @ 20/20 incline and level 11, 130 strides per minute. Hard cardio work that doesn't slaughter my knees: excellent.
Swim 800 meters: I guess I've never gone at this time to learn that at 6 p.m. on Sundays, most of the pool is dedicated to water polo.
This is how to manage a 90+ day in Denver: after breakfast, start in the back yard and work until it gets too hot, then in the front (west) yard until it gets too hot, and at noon, make a smoothie and read on the swing until the sun reaches that far into the porch. At that point, around 2, either work in the house or take the book into the backyard in the shade of the neighbor's tree. Later in the afternoon, when the sun has freed itself from that tree and hasn't entangled itself in the big silver maple across the street to spare the porch swing, go to the gym. Return in time to tote camp chairs and a picnic dinner to the park for the weekly jazz concert in the warm dusk.
Mark Helprin, and my new favorite book. When I looked up reviews on Amazon, only then did I recognize it, by its different cover, as something I saw frequently in college. A paean to New York City, New York, and winter; infused with gorgeous, meaty turns of phrase; illuminated by magical realism. A pleasure from end to end.
Because I seldom sleep well the night before travel, especially an early flight. Louis Sachar follows characters from Holes but barely mentions Camp Green Lake, which is good--Armpit has a job as a landscaper and his boss says he's a good digger, no surprise.
Nine hours in the air, plus a layover. I finished José Saramago's The Double in a day and worried that I had not brought enough books with me. It is my least favorite Saramago and I'm glad it wasn't my first, but it was the book I had with me on the plane, where I could give it my full attention. I love his ramblings and his authorial intrusions, but in this book the dog didn't have enough of a role.
Convict tang fish, rainbow parrot fish (my favorite, despite how garish it is), ringtail surgeonfish (my other favorite for its blacklight blue outline), angel fish, coral, sea cucumbers, some of these, some of those, a few of these other ones, and several others.
As ever, it took me a couple of breaths to adjust to breathing under water. Even seeing underwater is novel for me, since I usually don't wear contacts under goggles. But the scenery here justified the risk. Unfortunately, the water-resistant camera apparently wasn't, hence others' photographs (not that I was likely to capture a fish in a lens anyway).
I forgot all the things you forget in the last moments before escape, but at least now I have these great neighbors. I had a vegetable-watering neighbor and a potted plants-watering neighbor and the unbidden promotional newspaper- and flier-spotting neighbor; and while I remembered to bring a bag of cherries to AEK last night when I dropped in at bookclub (Michael Pollan's Botany of Desire), I didn't notice the tomatoes, avocados, apples, and bananas until Wednesday morning. I sent another email announcing their availability on the porch.
On the flight to San Francisco, I read; in the noisy Red Carpet club, distracted, I watched "Sense and Sensibility"; on the flight to Lihue, I read. I will never fly without earplugs and a horseshoe neck pillow again. When the pilot pointed out an island to the south and RDC said, "Oh, wow," I corrected, "No, it's pronounced 'O-ah-hu.'"
And so we landed in Kauai. We had a red convertible so even though we were on the wrong island we were "Magnum, P.I.," except I have forgotten the theme music. The airport and Lihue look like Anywhere, U.S.A., but then you leave Lihue for the rest of the island.
We passed through the Tree Tunnel on the way to our lodging. You put your head back (if you're the passenger in a convertible) and, since the speed limit is 20 and they mean it, get three whole minutes to zone out under swamp mahogany.
Once we'd found our room, we threw on bathing suits in about four seconds and went to find the beach. And that is where we stayed for the next day. I brought, and not only brought but applied, SPF 30 sunscreen, plus I stayed in the shade of various trees (palms are tricky: even if rotation didn't move my spot into the sun, palm fronds dance a lot in the wind). I got a tiny streak of red on my butt, probably while snorkeling, but that was all.
No sunburn, but the little waterproof camera I took died on my third shot. So until RDC posts his own photographs, I rely on the kindness of strangers at flickr.
Today we saw Kauai from the air. We took a helicopter tour through Waimea Canyon and over Mt. Wai'ale'ale and above Alakai Swamp and along Na Pali coast and heavens above, parts of this island are heaven on earth.
Then we saw Wailua Falls, only from its overlook because we hadn't yet figured out that signs saying "Danger! Do not pass fence!" do not mean "We'll arrest you if you pass this fence, you trespassing malihini" but only "You might break your crazy neck." Another person was willing to break his crazy-ass neck and every single other bone in his body for those falls, though: he rock-hopped from the riverbank across and downstream to stone forming the very lip of the falls, and there he stood, on a surface damp and slippery with spume, so on the edge that his feet sloped downward and his toes grasped at nothing, and played his guitar for the the falls.
For the rest of our visit, upon whatever inaccessible cliff or peak or rock in the surf we saw, we'd point out the guitar player.
The other falls we attempted were Kipu Falls, just a walk downstream for two seconds but to approach the pool below you had to cross the stream, in waist-high water just above the falls, and then clamber down what looked from as close as we got like rope made of twine. RDC didn't want to cross with his camera, and we had been warned most strongly not to leave anything in our car--a cop was taking a report at the access road from someone who'd just had his car robbed, and I didn't think it fair to go if RDC couldn't, so we didn't swim beneath Kipu either.
But we swam at the beach when we got home in the late afternoon, and we'd swum in the morning before we left, and though I've never swum under a waterfall, I can't get enough of ocean either. Floating face up, I could nearly nap (except for the current and the surf); face down, I looked at fishes (I kept my goggles on).
Next time I go to this island, and I have to go again, I am going to stay on the north side of the island. I think. Its waters are more dangerous and I wouldn't kid myself about swimming here, but it's less developed and geographically more stunning. Because of Na Pali coast, the island is not ringed by road. So we followed it widdershins to the end, gorgeous and goddamn slow and so at least gorgeous, to hike part of the Kalalau Trail. We did not aspire to the Kalalau Beach, eleven miles out, only to Hanakapi'ai Beach and up to Hanakapi'ai Falls, four miles or less one way.
We didn't manage even that. We didn't start until late morning, and then what with the steep trail with lots of fun big rocks and the pausing to gawp and to photograph, we didn't get to the beach until after 1. The trail upstream is unmaintained and, we heard, more treacherous and we had not availed ourselves of proper provisions so what the hell, we played on the beach.
A suitably wide, deep sandbar allowed a nice safe kiddie pool of ocean water that might have been hot and calm had Hanakai'ai River not flowed into it. So it was warm with a noticeable current and not outrageously salty. Beyond the sandbar, surf pounded cliffs and boulders and even I was not tempted. RDC photographed this and that and I paddled in the kiddie pool and finally rinsed off in the cool fresh water as it tumbled and fell toward the ocean. No huge falls, but nice ones nonetheless.
The stink we emitted was admirable, from stink's point of view, when we returned to the trailhead. This is conveniently alongside Ke'e Beach--protected, shallow, lovely, green, with cliffs overhead. I scrubbed my skin with sand from the bottom and began to feel less like slime mold during a quick swim. It had to be quick because that sunscreeen I had not sweat and swum off I had now scrubbed off. Also because we were ravenous.
We had Bubba burgers in Hanalei--one of two meals I would enjoy during the week in one of only two villages that seemed worth exploring--and motored back to the south shore for more swimming.
We rented cabanas, not to have to chase shade all day; I read Omnivore's Dilemma and RDC read The Last Season; we watched surfers and surf crash on the reef aways out; and, oh yeah, we swam and snorkeled and floated and bodysurfed in the perfect water on the glorious beach. Life is good.
Last year I found Michael Pollan's Botany of Desire fascinating, and this, particularly after Fast Food Nation and "Supersize Me" and with my being such a Whole Foods whore, fascinated me. I knew corn was pernicious, and now I know it better; I knew Whole Foods was a delusion, and now I know by how much; I have wondered if any farming is sustainable over the long term (look at the Fertile Crescent after only a few millennia of irrigation and agriculture), and maybe it can be; and I'm glad I don't have to gut my own meat.
Readable, unpoliticized, honest, and unself-righteous. I had hoped Eric Schlosser could be our next Rachel Carson. Maybe Michael Pollan can be.
Okay, I didn't hike 22 miles down to the Colorado River and back in one day and maybe therefore cannot say that I have seen the Grand Canyon. But I've looked into it from many angles and hiked a whole half mile along a trail into it (not a half-mile altitude change), and while it's grandly big and grandly lovely, it's just a little too large for me to make friends with. I liked the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. Perhaps I should raft through the Grand to correct my opinion. Mmm...
I also liked Waimea Canyon better. For one thing, it's greener. Its cliffs are red, like Colorado, and it gets 19" of rain a year itself, but it enjoys runoff from Mt. Wai'ale'ale, which gets over 400" a year, and you can see ocean to the south.
At the top of the road up the Canyon is Kalalau Lookout. While the canyon was perfectly sunny, beyond it clouds descended. While we hoped to see something like this, instead we saw something like this, only cloudier. Like this, except more so.
We walked a mile after that to a trailhead, and a mile along the ridge that forms the head of Kalalau Valley. Makai (toward the sea), clouds socked in the view even below us, which we could glimpse only as damn steep. Mauka (toward the mountain), under pristine blue sky and sun, stretched forest and forest and more forest in more shades of green than anywhere, back to the edges of the canyon. Pretty much we walked from the right crest to the left here. The last bit was not walking but hiking, almost climbing, over roots and stepped trail, very fun.
This day we had our shortest swim, little more than a dip, but I didn't want there to be a day when I didn't immerse myself in the ocean at all so swim I did.
Our last splurge was a catamaran tour of the west side of the island. We had to be at the dock at 6:00 a.m., which is best forgotten, and churned diesel clockwise around the island to the Na Pali coast. It was spectacular, eye-bendingly beautiful from a helicopter, from the Kalalau trail, and in the single glimpse through a momentary lapse in cloud cover from Pihea trail, and it continued to be mind-boggingly gorgeous from the ocean.
It was a big sea, with seven- to eight-foot waves, and I have previously been seasick, nauseated though managing to hold my gorge. I have decided that this is from the fumes and throbbing of ferry-type whale-watching vessels' motors, because it doesn't happen on regular boats, like Key West snorkel boats, or even on highly irregular Zodiac boats that jump and skitter over the whirlpools and waterfalls in the strong tides off Vancover Island. But it did happen crossing Lake Champlain on a ferry. Anyway, here I was fine, I am glad to say.
On the way out, we saw spinner dolphins and green turtles. The dolphins rode the bow waves and lived up to their names by spinning (along their longitudinal lines) as they leaped. The turtles were mostly green and solemn-looking.
If the wind had been amenable, we would have sailed back a lot faster than the motor could bring us, but it wasn't. Instead, RDC and I lay on the "trampolines"--a seemingly solid mesh strung between the two bows that water permeates--and bounced and jounced all the way and got impressively wet. Just as wet as we would have got snorkeling, which the captain judged the water too choppy to allow. We could swim and snorkel afterward, at our own beach, and we did. We even managed to find our second good meal, at Pomodoro.
In between the way out and the way back was the way, and the way was amazing.
Charles Palliser. I don't remember when or why I picked it up, but I've had it for years. I do remember SPM saying that his Quincunx is one of the best things he's ever read. I liked this just fine. I felt as enmeshed in an English cathedral town in the late Victorian period as I did in New York of the Belle Epoch in Winter's Tale, and I might have even shivered in the smothering fog if I had not been, you know, on a beach in the tropics.
Another full day on the beach, again with cabanas. The SPF 50 I'd acquired specifically for the boat had performed admirably and I especially wanted not to sit in a plane for nine hours with burned skin, and woohoo, I didn't. Coolboss said that, frankly, she was surprised, and Scarf said I had made the jump to full-fledged adulthood. More swimming. More reading. More swimming. More sunning. More swimming.
We pulled ourselves from the water with just enough time to shower and dress and eat before our evening flight. And that was that.
Perfect water, lovely snorkeling, challenging endurance swimming (I always breathed to landward, whole lengths of beach to one side or the other), great weather (despite the clouds obscuring the view down into Kalalau Velley), the ocean everywhere you looked, three books, waterfalls in lots of places you looked, tours by helicopter and catamaran, two good hikes, swimming every day, salt water and fresh, sleeping with the balcony door open to the sound of crashing surf, no sunburns, no flight delays, and lots of water. A good time.
Eric Blehm, about the disappearance of a backcountry ranger, veteran of 28 summers patrolling the Sierra Nevada. A friend of RDC's recommended it to him before we left, and this was one of his vacation books. I started it on the last day at the beach when I decided that I am still not ready to devote myself properly to José Saramago's Journey to Portugal. Contrary to the westward flight, the homeward one was overnight: mask, no reading.
Someone likened it to Into the Wild. I would not: I had no sympathy for Christopher McCandless's unplanned, untaught jaunt. This ranger was flawed, but none of his faults was an ignorance of or respect for his chosen territory. Also to Into Thin Air, for the pacing and placing of backstory. That I can see, somewhat, but Blehm is no Krakauer.
Instead of swimming another 1000 meters, I lay in the shallow water of the wide steps into the lap pool with my new book (The Quincunx) on the deck and read a chapter.
Lord, what a heavenly day. No hotter than 80 after a smidge of rain Friday night.
Home again, I attacked the baobab trees in the backyard--the cherry sprouts and insidious sumac--that had threatened to split my small planet asunder in the week of my absence. I discovered that two of the pumpkin hills I planted did sprout and removed their competition (cherry sprouts and bindweed), and I rubbed the needles off the branches of the Yule tree to add to the compost. (I donated only the trunk and major limbs to TreeCycle.)
Then I ate raspberries straight off the cane. Also I read on the porch swing for a spell.
Perhaps because I identify more with the theme of losing your best friend more than with the generalized angst of growing up, I preferred this to Lynne Rae Perkins's Newbery-winning Criss Cross. The drifting apart, the not understanding, yeah. Ow.
My first Sue Stauffacher was good enough that I want to read others by her. The "joint jive" was forced at times--it made me cringe in remembrance of a creative writing assignment in I hope no later than seventh grade that consisted of as much CB-radio jargon as I could manage, from a little book I probably found at a tag sale. Possibly I can blame this on...Alvin's Swap Shop? Isn't that the one where a Caribbean boy somehow got to the States and then to Alvin's town by way of a trucker? There was a stamp and a shell, I think. One of the Alvin books, anyway, I'm pretty sure.
Anyway. Still extremely handy that a child with a spine out of alignment from a dislocated shoulder and with obviously poor nutrition is strong enough to climb a rope. Also handy that, despite her considerable responsibilities, she reads enough to nickname someone Homer Price. Also handy that all the crumb snatchers haven't been warped. Despite such conveniences, a fine book.
Another thing I love about my neighborhood is free concerts in City Park on summer Sunday evenings. Possibly also that we can just walk to them, because they're not of such a calibre that I would otherwise make a particular effort for them. But plenty of other people do, and the streets fill up.
Ha! I just thought of this--that the curmudgeons who overtake every neighborhood meeting with parking issues because they seem to believe they have a right to the stretch of curb in front of their dwellings probably hate the concerts because they attract, gasp, traffic!
Yes, car and bike and foot traffic all, and dogs, and toddlers dancing, games of Frisbee and catch and and people you know and people you don't know reclining on blankets and noshing as if at a Roman feast and talking into sunset.
Mia is not so good with other dogs, so she didn't come, but Morgan did, she of the softest ears in the entire dog world. I petted her snout, that spatch of short fur just behind the nose being one of my favorite things in the world, but at least didn't tickle the hair between the pads of her hind paws, what with the bad hips. I have that much mercy.
Sunday night at City Park Jazz, London and Wolfman (as in "Werewolves of London," and for his name) mentioned they were going to the Botanic Gardens to see Aimee Mann and Richard Thompson. I suggested the four of us walk over together, but London teaches until 5:30 so that didn't work, but we could carpool. Which of us has the smallest car? I asked. They have: a Mini Cooper! Wheee!
Now, I didn't know a thing about Richard Thompson before. His name was familiar, as was "and Linda," and I thought he was a folky singer-songwriter. That's all. So he came out and sang a few songs and then spoke. He's British: who knew? In my head, folk singers are American by default--Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Simon & Garfunkel. The venue is lovely, of course. Kal didn't know Aimee Mann but said she'd see anyone there, and I countered "almost anyone" and that Hawaiian music would send any sane person screaming across the Pacific. I haven't found a setlist yet but he had a funny song about penile performance in old age and "Dad's Gonna Kill Me" which I thought was just his "Goodbye English Rose" version of perhaps "'Nam's Gonna Kill Me," because he said as Vietnam soldiers call the country 'Nam so do those of the current war call Baghdad just 'dad. His last two songs got the most response from the audience, one I particularly liked all of whose lyrics have now fled my head, and a tune I guess is named "Valerie" showcasing his guitarissimo. He reminded me, in my ignorance, of Leonard Cohen, for deep voice and solo guitar, which I mean as a compliment.
Aimee Mann didn't keep me waiting. I have to thank Egg again for bringing her to my attention and calling Bachelor No. 2 one of the best albums ever. I hadn't brought a pen, but in the 90 minutes she had, she and her band played at least the following, order uncertain except the last three:
Goodbye, Caroline
You’re with Stupid Now
Save Me
One
You Do
Video
It’s Not Safe
You Could Make a Killing
Medicine Wheel
Nothing Is Good Enough
Frankenstein
Wise Up
Deathly
I was so happy that she sang "Nothing Is Good Enough" that I determined that that would be enough. After "Frankenstein" (during which she called for volunteers to fill in percussion), she said that that was usually her last song but could we please imagine she had already left the stage and come back for an encore and skip the pretense? And went into "Wise Up," my absolute favorite. This had the same effect on me that "Solsbury Hill" did at Peter Gabriel four years ago, exploding me to my feet. I scurried to the edge of the stage--which I could not do at Peter Gabriel--for the final two songs.
After leaving almost an hour late, my flight landed at Logan only 20 minutes late, and I got to Jessie's within an hour.
I had planned to take the bus to the airport and had a good reason for that--my return flight would be late enough to warrant a cab--but when RDC came home from D.C. Thursday night, that reason skittered out of my head. I reserved a cab so I could spend four whole hours of the entire week with my husband. Then the cab driver, in addition to being late, was the stupidest ever: it was suspect at the start that he didn't know the best way to DIA from my house, but then that he didn't know the way from my house to Colorado Boulevard, not once but twice wanting to turn west away from it, made me fret. I wanted to sleep in the cab, as I would have in the bus, but I was watching to ensure he actually did exit at the correct spot and then, once on Peña Boulevard, could find the airport at the end of it. And then I wanted to get away from him as soon as possible, so instead of using a card I hurled the last of my cash at him and fled.
JetBlue's site posted the flight as late, but all the displays at the airport listed it as on time, making me nearly late. And--is this new?--a security guard asked to see my boarding pass as I walked through the portal. I didn't notice that this unexpected request had surprised me enough to forget my suitcase until I was exiting the train at Concourse A. So I took the train back, went through security again (boarding pass in hand), made TSA give my bag back (and the two TSAers I spoke to replied slowly and walked slower, as if unfamiliar with the time pressures of air travel, the fuckers), and yomped down the stairs to the train to the concourse to my gate, where my flight was in fact still late.
Now I had plenty of time to go to a cash machine, but I didn't, contenting myself with grumping at the lateness of the hour and the tedious conversation of my flightmates (yes, we all know that flights are late and that passengers are treated like cattle; please talk about something else now) that penetrated The Great Influenza. By the time I landed in Logan, three hours and 20 minutes of flight and slightly less sleep than that, I had entirely forgotten about the need for cash until I was standing in the (off-airport) rental car agency realizing I had no way whatsoever to pay the toll to get through the Ted Williams tunnel.
The only thing that went well in this trip's travel was the clerk, who gave me five bucks out of his own pocket. I wrote him a check, which I hopes he trusts enough to cash. Also, another clerk decided I was waiting too long for a car and upgraded me to the next available, which had power windows, woo.
Then I got to Jessie's. I was looking on the left side of the second-to-last street for her own, but immediately realized when I overshot. I never get her house number right and she had reminded me of the correct one and that her house color had changed, but wrong house numbers and her attempts at camouflage could not keep me away.
Jessie and I hadn't seen each other for almost three years, so that was fun. I wondered about the laughing and waking up her roommate, who as my Buffy-enabler I have reason to be nice to, but apparently he sleeps well. We gossiped about you and McTeague and insane family and I borrowed more cash from her because I am shameless.
And then I left with spandy directions which did me no good whatsoever since signs are just not comme il faut. It took me most of an hour to get to the Mass Pike, but once on it I threw caution to the winds (as much as I had left in me after Cambridge tried to suck me into its vortex) and got to my sister's house in not much more than an hour.
I am in book heaven, or was until I finished this. To have this--Charles Palliser's first book--and Winter's Tale both in less than a month means that, once again, I fear that I will never be able to read again lest I read something lesser.
It is Bleak House (and other major Dickens) and Mysteries of Udolpho (not that I've read that, Jane Austen fan or not) and Instance of the Fingerpost (for several contrary points of view) and in every way the best book ever. As Winter's Tale is a paean to New York City, so this is to Dickensian London. Palliser obviously loves Dickens, but he didn't write another David Copperfield in 1990. No, it's 1990s in outlook and style and uncertainty and unreliability and Dickens in its setting and convolutions and relativity.
I was so pleased to find this conversation about it. (It's rife with spoilers.) It gave me much to think about and of course made me want to reread it.
Oddly, I found the government's censorship during WWI vaguely reassuring, since it meant today's strangulation of the press is not without precedent. The tracing of the disease's origin, course, spread, and dissipation was interesting; and the author makes a good case for its having been influenza, not a small stroke, that weakened Wilson and allowed Clemonceau to name the terms so disastrous for Germany (and the rest of the world).
But the narrator I wanted to throttle. He emoted. He emoted so much. The author must be faulted for repeating "It was only influenza--only influenza" scores of times throughout the book, but the narrator takes the blame for dramatizing sentences like "The doctors were WRONG and they would soon LEARN...HOW WRONG."
I slept through the last hour and change and I don't even care.
I do have a slight connection to the epidemic. My other grandmother's older brother died in WWI, on Nov. 8, 1918--after cease-fire, three days before Armistice. She was 12 at the time and had idolized him. She lost another sibling, an older sister, to the flu either that fall, during its first rampage, or one of the subsequent two major waves. My grandfather, who fought in WWI as well, was meant to marry that older sister, but married the surviving younger one when she turned 16 (he was 26). I learned all this well after her death in 1989, but it gives me insight to her character. She idolized my grandfather as she had her brother, and at least this man, that brother's age, had survived. Meanwhile, she herself was second best, being merely the surviving sister of, rather than the preferred, girl. My father is named for his uncle.
We cleaned and raked and toted and cooked and polished and stashed the NSFW stuff and mostly it rained. When the water didn't rain, it hung in the air in a way I do not miss at all, especially when the sun emerged for three minutes together reducing the world to a steambath.
In the evening we ate on the water in Stonington and had ice cream in Mystic. English continues to elude me and when we browsed in a store that sold dog and cat accessories, I said "water jacket" instead of "life preserver" like Koko signing "water bird" when she didn't know "duck" and that was my sister's favorite phrase for the rest of the weekend.
Saturday she had a combination housewarming for herself and surprise retirement party for our mother's husband.
Two of BDL's gifts from two of his fellow cult members were books: Humility and Absolute Surrender and one by Bill O'Reilly. The giver of the latter couldn't just give it and be done but proselytize about O'Reilly and Fox News--I had disliked this man nearly instantly and now I had reason besides my suspicion of the cult and irritation with his demeanor, dress, and voice. I was sitting on the staircase, looking into the living room but not crowded in, and at the O'Reilly love I quietly rose and let myself outside through the second floor to breathe the warm wet air. Also by this means I avoided asking if anyone else thought that Bill O'Reilly had a lot to learn about humility and surrender.
On the other hand, at least there's an assumption among the cult that members are literate.
The real treat of the day was the attendance of CLH's and my history, economics, and (for her) Russian novels teacher and his wife. CLH didn't get the numbers she hoped for--who could have guessed that Saturdays in June are such popular days for weddings--and so, aside from my actual family and one friend of my sister's, they were the only people I could have a conversation with. He was pleased I remembered so much from his teaching, his teaching methods, and his personal attitudes. The night before CLH had asked what were the only three dates that he wanted us to remember, and I said 1066, 1789, and 1870. But she said 1066, 1215, and 1789. He didn't remember exactly which himself, though his other contender was 742, and he wondered at 1870. Emancipation of U.S. slaves and Russian serfs and the unification of Germany and Italy, I said. We talked about swimming and the gossip from LOLHS and Omnivore's Dilemma and Fathers and Sons. I guess he didn't offer his class in the Russian novel when I was in 12th grade.
I met some of my sister's colleagues, some of whom I liked fine. About one, after I finally extricated myself from his monologuing, I asided to CLH, "That man has to stop talking to me now." He wasn't even hitting on me: he merely has no sense of the dialogue aspect of conversation nor perception of the social cues everyone else has. Later in the day I suggested to my mother that we sneak out for cigarettes, and I was very proud of her for immediately understanding that I just wanted a break and to talk with my own mother for a few minutes by ourselves. Specifically, a break from people for whom "an" is an unknown article. My mother said I shouldn't judge people by that but could not give me a reason when I asked her why ever not. She told me about a cousin who was getting married this day and I said yes, the 24th of June is an excellent day for weddings. She caught on to that too, although it mystifies her that RDC and I could be apart on our anniversary. Last year we had houseguests, I said: we've never been romantic. And she even remembered that she was a houseguest. I was very proud. CLH praised me for how well we got along, and my mother didn't even complain when I hugged her (I'm "too strong").
At midnight, having been On since noon with perhaps nine hours of sleep in two days, but waiting until other coworkers showed up to spare her being alone with an unattended man, I excused myself. Sunday continued to pee with rain as we cleaned up (I suggested the next house she buy have, if not a dishwasher, a large enough sink, maybe with a window over it), and into the afternoon that I had looked forward to spending at my lake. Instead we had a late lunch with our mother and BDL and then a little more time on our own before, at 6, I left for Logan.
Between Norwich and Framingham the rain did not merely pee but piss and bucket. I actually drove under the speed limit. I returned the car, praising to a manager the clerk who'd helped me, caught the shuttle, and got to Logan in time to learn that my flight was two fucking hours late. I stretched out on the floor and watched "The Usual Suspects" and the beginning of "Traffic" before boarding, and once seated shoved The Great Influenza in my ears. At this point in the book, I cared so little about the disease that I wanted the author and the narrator to die of it. I couldn't take melatonin because a mechanical glitch threatened to postpone the flight further, but I fell asleep anyway during the nearly two hours we sat on the tarmac, waking only during takeoff, hooray, and missing the end of the audiobook and waking sometime during John Adams, which I will rewind.
I am never doing that again. I did it for the family reunion, foregoing sleep for blood family when my chosen family were all in France surrounding Siblet's birth. I visited my sister in September of last year, and she couldn't control the weather then either, but six days in Connecticut with only one afternoon at the lake? Yeesh. And I did it this time because she really really wanted me to. I'm not never doing that again but I am not going to do that again for a couple of years. An hour and half with Jessie and a pleasant conversation with my old teacher and maybe four hours--two on Friday evening and two on Sunday afternoon--to relax and talk with my sister do not justify hellish travel.
I tended to the front gardens a bit when I got home from work. I gave Maven more sage cuttings, which if left unhacked threatens to take over the world, and it turns out that she knows Babushka, who came tottering by. Babushka doesn't look well. I gave her sour cherries off the tree, raspberries off the cane, and some basil and spinach. Maven had some basil too. Then Kal called announcing a new subject of photography, photographs of whom the grandparents obviously had to see.
Lena is about three months old, black, is short-haired but has the tail of a long-haired cat, and thinks that old brother Marlowe's tail is the best toy ever.
The group selected both books one woman nominated, and I offered to host one of the two--since it was The Golden Compass. I was looking forward to it--the garden is lovely in June, and those of the neighborhood group who wanted to discuss it again were going to come--but the woman has new digs she wanted everyone to see and recently said she'd like to do it herself.
Talking about children's fantasy meant that Harry Potter came up. One member does not distinguish among fantasy books at all and asked the difference between Philip Pullman and J.K. Rowling. Rowling writes a story with action and not much theme, and not very skillfully; Pullman has plot and theme and character development and skill and imagination. Also, Rowling's world is full of inconsistencies--if food and shelter you magick forth can sustain you, why are the Weasleys poor?--but Pullman's is not.
I was pleased that several woman had immediately read the rest of the trilogy. No one took me up on my offer of a three-sentence summary for those who didn't want to finish it. I brought Pan and no one mocked me. Plus someone pointed out how evil Mrs. Coulter is and how prescient that makes Pullman seem--was Ann Coulter anywhere in 1997? No one could come up with a theory why her daemon doesn't have a name or speak better than that the absence of these basic characteristics makes him seem even meaner.
