In the Evening

 (This is an old story from another blog I had.  It was written about eight years ago. However, I tweaked it a bit mostly for grammar)

 

I'm walkin' home tonight

The streets are glowing 'neath the pale moonlight

I look around, there's not a soul in sight

And I'm walkin' home

Once again I hear my mother's voice

And all us kids making a bunch of noise

If I'm not careful I might start to cry

Just walkin' home tonight

 

From Walking Home by Iris Dement

 

Whenever I hear Iris Dement singing Walking Home, I always think of Pedricktown, New Jersey. Pedricktown was in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s one of the many small farming towns that fed this country.  You could always smell the dirt of the sandy soil freshly turned to allow the planting of corn, tomatoes, peppers and asparagus. Stake trucks rumbled up and down the narrow streets. People rolled up their sleeves in Pedricktown and turned seed into truck vegetables year after year. Once a year on Memorial Day the boy scouts, the girl scouts, firetrucks and soldiers from the nearby Nike base marched with flourish showing real patriotic pride.

 

The corner of Railroad Avenue and Mill Street was the center of Pedricktown, a place which will always be my hometown. The bank, the grocery store and the gas station occupied that corner. All meaningful activity of small-town life passed through the crossroads.  Within a block of where Railroad Avenue crossed Mill Street you also had the post office, a luncheonette and the Oddfellows meeting hall. The people, the events, the beliefs, and the environment of that place shaped me.  In so many ways coming from that small farming today dictated what I became. 

At the start of the song where Ms. Dement is singing about the street glowing ‘neath the pale moonlight. Me, I can see a different kind of glow.  In my mind’s eyer I see the steely blue light that the lamps on those old wooden telephone poles right around the center of Pedricktown gave off. The light in front of the Oddfellows Hall on West Mill Street stands out to me because I could see that light so clearly out my bedroom window. As it shone down the light made the bricks of the old post office and just about everything else look like a faded-out aged photograph. 

I remember walking out at 8:00 p.m. on so many spring nights over the years.  I would head out only after I had finished my homework. Once out on the sidewalk I was looking for my friends. Were they going to be sitting on Sweeten’s grocery store’s stoop? Were they going to be standing in a clump of teen angst and boredom in in front of Draybold’s luncheonette? Would I find them behind the massive old elementary school? Maybe they were riding around in 63 Chevys or in Bear Bishop’s massive old gray Plymouth. If they were cruising, I just needed to stand at the crossroads and eventually they would come by. 

When I came out the side door of my house, I would usually head out to the Mill Street. This was the east/west route through town and to get to it I would have to pass under those elephant eared leaves of our Catalpa tree. Closing the steel link gate, which kept a yappy black Scotty dog in, I usually turned to my right and headed down toward Sweeten’s. Chances were if I turned left and headed down by Cherry Street, I would run into my old man leaning against our house sneaking a cigarette. He didn’t want my mother to see him. He was supposed to quit. He didn’t. It helped kill him. No sadness now, what happened then is just what it is. 

My shirt pocket held a soft pack of Marlboro red. When out of sight of the house I would light one up. If my old man saw me smoking, I was in trouble. To this day I can remember the lecture, “Your Mom has asthma, you don’t do to well in the breathing department yourself and quitting cigarettes as you get older is hard. So boy, stop now.” Took me a decade to figure out he wasn’t stupid. When I realized he was a little bit smart I did quit. Might have been the inability to walk up four flights of stairs without wheezing that taught me he was right. 

When I walked out on the streets of Pedricktown at night I knew caring (or prying) eyes were watching my steps no matter which direction I headed. Reports taken from behind curtains in various houses up and down the short streets of this small town would find their way to my father.  Depending on the report he would either let it slide or we would have a “discussion.” No CCTV was needed, human eyes monitored your every move. Mostly I think concern and care was the motivation of Pedricktown’s immersive human surveillance network.

Ms. Dement talks about hearing her mother’s voice call. I remember similar calls from a slightly younger age. I remember other’s people’s mother voices too calling out for their kids to come home. No cell phones blurped out an odd tinkling sound to say a text had come requiring the phone’s holder to come home. You heard the timbre of the voices yelling out your name. The edge to the voice told you if it was a merely a warning or if you were really late and deeply in trouble. 

Iris talks about her father teaching her everything she knew. Me, I remember refusing to listen to my old man. But every old man in Pedricktown had some kernel of wisdom they wanted to share. And dammit they were going to share it with you. You could not escape small town wisdom. 

You got shared communal wisdom at the meat counter in Sweeten’s when Jim Dunk smiled as he prepared your meat order and talked. Sometimes it happened when you were taking a check to the bank for your Mom and growling old Mr. Langford said something. Maybe it came when you were sitting on those stools near the candy counter in Draybold’s. Someone in there invariably would have something to say, and if you were waiting for a hamburger off the grill to go with you ten cent Coke you couldn’t escape the lecture. No matter how hard you tried not to, invariably you would listen. Sometimes something useful would seep in. 

Sometimes after hitting Mill Street I wouldn’t find anyone. At that point I would just walk. When I set out down one of the four directions those streets led, there would not be a soul in sight. This absence of people would start me on a trek part search, part the burning off of youthful energy. 

I might head east down to the bridge. When down there I would watch the muddy brown water of the creek flow by. Or I might turn up Railroad Avenue and walk north to the railroad tracks. How many times had I listened to the town’s siren wailing when a train hit a car trying to beat it across the tracks down at that crossing? If I was energetic, I could go on from the tracks to the auction block. During the day local produce was brokered to buyers here. At night it was empty save for a few empty produce crates and maybe a parked semi truck stake trailer.

Turning south I could walk by the scale house where the produce trucks were weighed to see how much would be paid for their cargos of Jersey tomatoes and bell peppers. This way would take me past the school. Sometimes I would end up sitting in the Methodist Cemetery that sat on the edge of the swamp located just a bit behind the school.  If I kept on this way, I walked a pretty empty stretch down Freed’s Road or to the Oldman’s Creek down by the Darlington’s. The last possible route would take you west to the Baptist Church.  I knew that path well, it was one I walked to church and Sunday School.  It was where I was baptized.  It was where my grandfather and uncle were buried.

In my day the Railroad Avenue walk would take you to the best chances of finding people drinking beer. Go south and they might be sitting behind the bank. Go north and they might be at the auction block. There was an odd chance someone with a pony bottle might be standing behind the school. Searching people out wasn’t always about the beer but it was always about the companionship. When you had friends from P-City they stuck with you. When we got sent to PGHS, our regional high school, you hung together with other P-City people. The tie wasn’t like blood, but it was damn close. We felt we were different than the kids from Carney’s Point and Penns Grove. Hell, being from Pedricktown was almost like being part of a clan. 

On the right night the feeling was warm and comforting. Pedrickown always felt safe. Sometimes it seemed a million miles away from the real world. Living in our small town had an order to it. It might have been youthful bliss and ignorance but I don’t think so. I have never found as tight knit a community since I left. You know you were small town bred when you can remember rotten tomato fights among creosote transport crates and drunk guys riding tractors through town singing at the top of their lungs.  You might even remember that one naked motorcycle rider getting whacked by mosquitos all over his chest as he flew through town.

Boring to the Extreme

Today, on this fine grey middle American morning, I awoke up at 7:10.  Although I am just guessing, I think I probably went to sleep somewhere between midnight and 1230.  Yeah, I climbed into bed and started to read a really trashy action book on my iPad.  A point arrived where the screen had hit my face three times and I realized I had read the same page four times.  At such a moment it is time to set down the book and drift off.

 

Earlier last evening we had gotten together with our neighbors. We spent at least an hour sitting around their fire pit.  Good conversation was had, treats were exchanged in the form of delightful Christmas baked goods and wine was consumed.  Of course, it was Portuguese wine.  I probably consumed about 6 ounces of red.  Tell you right now I was living wild and large consuming that much vhino. I can also tell you that wine consumption spurs on the cranky old JTT dream machine.

 

When the iPad thumped down on the floor beside the bed, the dream machine kicked in. The dream I dreamed just before I opened my eyes this morning was one of cooking.  I think as I try to pull the strands of the dream together that I was making some large piece of red meat and it needed a special rub.  I was searching for the ingredients when my eyelids fluttered and this day inserted itself into the story of my life.  My wife suggests the food dream arose because I still smelled of smoke from the fire pit.  Might be some truth in that analysis.

 

I also remember dreaming a work dream. In the dream I was just gazing out my office window, that’s it.  For about 20 out of the last 40 nights, I’ve dreamed about my job at Farhat, Tyler and Associates. Note well I have not been employed there for several decades.  Most of those dreams are about mundane thing, doing timesheets for billable hours, doing research on the law regarding dogs.  (Yes, there is all kind of dog law out there). My guess is these dreams are coming up because for the close to 14 years I worked there we had some great Christmas parties.  Somewhere there is a tape of me singing the singularly worst karaoke version of Roger Miller’s “King of the Road.” Single malt scotch and my reaction to medications probably played a part in the creation of that abomination.

 

Well look at that, it is 930 and I’m finally getting around to my breakfast. First thing after I got up, I started a load of a laundry and I made coffee for everybody. Now that load is in the dryer and the second load is going. Motivated by my cooking dream I made John Lee and Francie French toast this morning. Couldn’t find the nutmeg so I threw in a little bit of almond extract to give it a different flavor. Nobody complained.  After they had eaten, I emptied out the dishwasher and reloaded it with the breakfast dishes.  Me,  I’m having oatmeal. Given all the treats and holiday sugared up foods I have to draw a line somewhere or I am going to bloat up and develop my own gravitational pull. 

 

Up next  is checking my to do list. Ah I see here’s a wee bit of shopping to be done. Plus, I’ve got a sort out that Christmas letter. Right now, on the top of the missive I have a place holder photo off our front balcony in Lisbon.  Francie took far more photos than I did this time and most of them are well composed and beautiful.  I will write up some text and I will let her fiddle with the design.  Did I mention it’s a gray and cloudy day here? Just of one of 250 we get each year. Oh yeah, for some unexplained reason I’ve been humming. “I Wonder Where the Lions Are” all morning. 

The Season of Light has Begun Both Liturgically and Physically.

(Rua Augusta Lisboa a few years ago)

Last night I walked out into a late November night. The air was crisp here on the northern border. Moving through my neighborhood I saw a fair number of houses with their Christmas lights already displayed. There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that American Thanksgiving weekend is the time when Christmas lights get strung, garland gets hung and Douglas Fir trees get axed, drilled, stood up and decorated. As I looked about observing the decorations, I noted this year seems to be a return to houses being draped in soft whites and blues. Only a few homes had multi colored twinkling blinking lights. 

 

The streets were damp as I walked because it had rained during the morning. The air was chilled but not unbearably freezing.  We’ve had a snow here already. ‘Twas a real snow and it came a solid week before Thanksgiving. That substantial white covering, well I think it put people into the mindset to accept that the season of light/lights has come.

 

After about 15 minutes I got to my destination. Three full months have passed since I’ve been inside the church to take the sacraments. Somehow, it seems fitting my return to worship comes on the first Sunday in Advent. The first candle was lit at last night’s service, the candle of hope and of promised redemption. 

 

Advent in my mind is a time of preparation and a time of returning to something akin to holiness. Advent is a perfect time to focus on the great commandments, love the divine with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. Easy to recite, hard to practice.

 

I can accept I am a poor being who has done wrong, and that also I have failed to do right. But even at my advanced age, the message of Advent to me is always the hope that my next action will be the next right action. Bring the light. Bring the song. Bring the joy. I may struggle with the concept of true faith but I do believe we can with joyful hearts make things better for our fellow humans.

 

After the service as I walked home, I found myself looking up at the sky. In the darkness the heavens seemed to roll on forever. My hope is that we matter. My hope is that our actions matter and that we can be agents for good. My belief is that we can make this world and the lives of those around us better. Welcome to the season of hope.

Good and Bad and Good and Bad and Good Ad Infinitum

I am up early today for me.  It is 8:45 and the sun is shining.  Did you catch that?  The sun is actually shining brightly and the roads and sidewalks are drying out.  Oh, what a wonderful feeling.  I got up early because I have a workman coming over today to assemble a couple of wardrobes from Ikea.  One of the things about Portuguese apartments is that many do not have built in closets (or appliances, or light fixtures). We have taken care of the appliances.  The light fixtures will have to wait. This will be the last major step toward getting the place in shape for a time.

 

The sun together with the appointment on the wardrobes getting completed combine to be a good thing.

 

I scanned the American news and the papers this morning as I ate my muesli and drank reheated decaf.  The fourth estate imply a Republican wave is coming on Tuesday.  Me, personally, I see this as a bad thing.  I think the public has been played by our friends the Saudis and our enemies the Russians and most of OPEC.  Me, I don’t want to go back to the 1950s where women had no control of their bodies and where visible minorities were openly discriminated against. Gas prices are up.  Gas prices are up and inflation is up because these folks cut oil production just before an American election.  

 

Can we say our enemy Russia and our friend (?) the Saudis want to hamstring an American President who doesn’t look up and have a lovey dovey relation with autocrats and dictators like Putin, MBS and Duterte? Back-alley abortions and economic Darwinism, yeah you go ahead and vote red and wait until your daughter or son’s girlfriend (or niece or granddaughter) gets knocked up, see how you feel then. Yeah, a red wave will be a bad thing. And yes, I really don’t give a damn that you want to call a nonviable on its own clump of cells something imbued with “personhood”.  I earnestly believe you are wrong.

 

A blend of good things happened day yesterday.  We went into a store to look at some furniture; the store is liquidating.  Over the past few months, we had looked at several pieces in the store, bought some, and dreamed about some. There was a lamp we loved but it was just too damn expensive. But suddenly there it was at just about ½ off.  It was still just at the upper end of my comfort range price wise.  I agonized.  I rationalized.  I went and bought some artsy bowls to try and stifle the itch.  But in the end, I gave in and bought it.  When I got it home and put it near the small couch, I loved it.  So lovely bowls and a great lamp, these again combine to be a good thing.

 

Despite the rain Portugal still remains in drought conditions.  The news implies that most of the reservoirs in the country remain at less than 50% of normal capacity.  While many of the grassy areas near where I live have greened up, trees are stressed and the long-range forecasts don’t seem the drought will be over soon. With climate change deniers seemingly ready to retake the US Congress I am worried about what kind of life we are leaving for those coming along behind us.  The UN report from dropped in the last two weeks was very, very scary. Bad thing.

 

While I was dithering about the lamp Francie met a woman from Wisconsin who lives nears us.  Together the two of them arranged to have dinner with us on Sabado (Saturday). When I finally got involved in the conversation, I realized that I had shared dinner with the woman’s husband about a year ago.  Our meeting happened when we went to a social gathering of expats at an Indian restaurant near the Roma metro stop.  When the woman described where they lived, who lived with them and then what they did for a living, things clicked in my brain.  When I heard they had one daughter lived near a popular department store and ran a software company I just knew I had sat next to the husband at dinner.  (Obscure connections with people, that is my secret and mostly not useful hidden super (?) power). Scoring a dinner date with some other friendly expats, that is a good thing. 

 

Okay there is one final good thing, my lungs are clear.  For ten days or so I had RSV or something similar.  I had a cough that was so severe that it shook my body for a minute or more from the long hacking spells, again and again. No phlegm just coughing viciously for four or five days.  After that it shifted to a bit of a head cold with a lessened cough, but the cough would just not go away.  For the start I ached and could not sleep well.  At the end I just sounded like Darth Vader when I took air in through my nose. Today, no cough.  Today, no rattling in my lungs.  My nasal passages seem about as clear as they ever get. This is a good thing.

 

Francie made the bagels including the everything bagel in the picture. She boiled them and everything,  That is a very good thing because a decent bagel is hard to find in Lisboa. The bowl is what I bought to stop myself from buying the lamp above,

Dreams Delayed

Between the moment of my awakening on Sunday morning at 6 am in East Lansing and the instant my head hitting the pillow on Monday evening in Lisbon at about 10 pm, I had only a short catnap on an Airbus 330 (maybe an hour) and another short nap on a ubiquitous blue Ikea couch in our living room (maybe 2 hours). So, if I figure this right, factoring the time difference, I had about 3 hours sleep over 38 hours.  Of course, my mind’s wiring had been altered just a tweak by the ¼ tablet of Valium it takes to get my sorry carcass into the air.

 

As my mind moved from waking into the borderland of dreams, he old grey matter went absolutely nuts.  My guess is that I stayed in REM sleep for six or seven hours.  Dream after dream after dream paraded by in my mind.  Each dream was vivid and every dream seemed to have meanings writ large on the surface and also buried in the context.  People from every era of my life mixed together in these dreams with people from grade school intermingling with people from my later life’s workplaces in somewhat surreal settings.

 

At one point I woke up and found Francie awake.  I rattled off four or five dreams’ details to her.  So vivid, so intense and so nonstop, it was a wonder I felt refreshed the next morning.  Since the night of endless dreams, I have had one good night’s sleep.  Last night when my head hit the pillow I sank into the inky black abyss and when awoke there were no memories of anything, none, zip. Even though I had watched I crime drama before I fell asleep, usually fodder for tossing and turning, there wasn’t even a thread of dream memory.

 

With a day having passed I can only remember one dream in detail.  On the surface it was a travel dream.  Digging a little deeper it may have been a life metaphor.  The short version is this, I was standing outside in late October cold rain waiting for a bus in East Lansing.  I was accompanied by a high school friend and the receptionist from where I used to work when I was with the state.  We were trying to figure when the bus would arrive because it was way off schedule.  I made the decision to walk to the next stop up the line to see if I could find out any further information, like if the bus had been rerouted. 

 

Anyway, when I was halfway between the stops a bus blew past me and my friends were onboard.  I could see a second bus coming up behind. I ran to the next stop, paid my fare, and took my seat.  Almost immediately the bus turned off the route I had wanted and began to take me far afield out into the boonies.  I pulled all the schedules and tried to figure if I could get a transfer onto a line that would take me where I wanted to go. Nope.  And then I decided to get off at a place I knew but which was nowhere near where I had planned to be.

 

Now given all the travelling I had done, with plane delays and gate reassignments and the like, this very well could be nothing more than a transference of the day’s events into a more recognizable form for me, the bus.  But then again it could be a meditation on my general sense of impatience and impulsivity.  While I have always viewed whatever has happened as serendipity, it might be my brain thinks my tendency toward rashness has led me far off the path.  Perhaps my mind really thinks I have ended up at a stop I never intended to be at. Don’t know, dreams are weird that way. Awake and cognizant I got no complaints as to the place where I am.

 

“Tis raining today in Lisbon.  When the rain is coming down the speed of life here seems to slow by at least half.  The jackhammers, the high-speed saws, the clanging of scaffolding are all muted.  The loudest noise right now is the water pouring from drains off the building’s balconies, front and back, onto the pavement at street level. Even the omnipresent jet traffic seems muted by the cloud cover. Give me warm coffee and a keyboard today.  I have things to catch up on.

 

And Then the Storm Came

21 September 2022

 

This place we’ve rented doesn’t have air conditioning. Yesterday the temperature hit 88 and the humidity was about as high as it gets. Fans help but…they don’t take away the energy draining nature of the swamp weather. Felt like swampy South Jersey in the late 1960s.

 

Went to sleep reading and I had to read a good long time in the clammy air to actually let lethargy take me into the wilderness of weird that is my dreamland. Somewhere between four and five in the morning the storm rolled in.  Perhaps, kicked up would be a better term.  According to Francie the lightning and thunder set upon us closer to four. When it arrived the light and sound spectacular began.  I know I saw a bright flash through my twitching eyelids and I opened my eyes.  The thunder lasted for a good fifteen seconds after that one and after the next one. 

 

I stayed awake for a little bit listening to the storm roll through.  Apparently my oldest got up and closed all the windows that weren’t protected by balconies. Must have been a good rain before and after my little waking moment (for I fell back asleep quickly), because here it is just turned ten and everything is still wet.

 

Ah but the best thing, the storm has wrung virtually all of the moisture out of the air.  All our windows are open now and a gentle cool breeze is filling every room in the apartment. Today looks and feels like the best possible of days.  Today I plan to explore a new neighborhood.  Looking for a used coffee table.  We will see if the search pans out.

 

Wishing you all a fantabulous day. 

Blue Sky Awaits

 Hello and I hope this finds you living your best possible life.  Right now, it is just 8:30 and the air is still cool, a mere 72 F.  By midafternoon it will be 87. According to the weather forecast between now and 1 am tomorrow there is a chance of a thunderstorm and possibly hail.  Looking at the map I think any weather will pass north.

 

Me, I have been up for about 45 minutes.  Before I even started in on my morning feed, I started a load of laundry.  Will get that out on the drying rack well before noon. By the point I am sitting before my computer I have had my cereal and rinsed out my bowl.  My reheated decaf with thick cream sits at my left side.  I have opened up the shades and windows. Need to get a breeze going. Still, when the sun moves to high noon and leans west, I will shut up a number of these windows and shades to keep the heat out.  

 

The weekend was low key. Saw my niece on Friday.  Fun times.  Hard to believe it had been forty years. On Saturday we did little shopping.  Also, there was a little poking around neighborhoods we did not know.  Ate a couple of meals out.  Hit a “Mexican” place on Friday.  While I enjoy various takes on veal and pork, I do get a hankering for a taco or a burrito now and then.  That being said most of the “Mexican” places just don’t get it right. However, this place had pork belly tacos.  They were amazing. Obviously with the high fat content these will not be on my menu often, but damn were they tasty.

 

Bought a carpet and a towel warmer on Sunday.  The carpet was the first stab at furnishing the living area. There is a little store down the block that sells furniture.  When we poked our heads in, they had a loveseat on deep discount. If it is still there, we may well pick it up today. Getting it up to our first-floor apartment may take some doing but these merchants are clever at such things.

 

I made my reservations yesterday for a quick trip back to the US to finish up my visa. Don’t really want to come back but in that the visa issuing folks demand our passports be mailed to them from a US address and then returned to that US address and that the passport shows an entry into Portugal after the visa issuance date, I really don’t have any other choice.

 

One good thing about writing at this hour is that the world is still moving slow.  Business cranks up about 10 am and continues until midafternoon. Then there is a short lunch break at which time the traditional shops close for an hour.  Then they reopen until 8 pm.  The subway will be alive about 9:30 teeming with salesclerks dressed in their particular business’s uniform.

 

When I talk about the early hours of the morning moving slow, I am not really talking about subways and businesses.  I am talking about dogs and children. The Portuguese love their dogs.  There are dogs of every size but small dogs abound.  The other day Francie opined it was amazing that we didn’t hear a cacophony of dogs at night being in a walled city of residences.  The next night the howling began. Apparently, a family returned home late from their August vacation and their solitary hound came back with them. It must be a midsized to large dog because its howl is deep and resonates echoing around these pastel buildings.  It doesn’t howl all night but it howls midevening.  Thus, while I am washing the dishes I can hear, “OOOOwwooooll.”

 

The child is for the most part happy and inquisitive.  I hear lots of question sounding phrases and lots of laughter.  But yesterday the child must have set a record for stamina, volume and duration of crying.  Probably 45 minutes straight the bellowing, the caterwauling, went on. In reality it didn’t bother me much but I felt sorry for all involved, the child and the parents.  But as they say, “Been there and done that.” Like I said the mornings are quiet, well until the jets get going.

 

Below you will find a picture of me in my favorite park. The aqueduct rises overhead and a 200 plus year old church is wedged in beneath. The shot was taken at dusk.  People were drinking beers by the kiosk and watching futbol.  Me I was just relaxing on a park bench. Enjoy the day.

Un-Coffee in my Rooftop Land of Dead Plants

 

3 September 2022

 

Sipping decaf this morning, the un-coffee.  I am seated at the little rickety table that we bought at Bricomarche.  The temperature is wonderful and has been for the past two hours. Had some muesli with apple slices and milk earlier. Trying to decide what to do with this long weekend.  

 

Thinking about what to do has reminded me I am a list maker.  Since I have gotten to Lisbon, I have not been making lists. Not jotting down what to do and when to do it has thrown me off my game.  Back in East Lansing I had a whole week scheduled out to review when I opened the computer in the morning each and every morning.  Here I end up making coffee, eating cereal and looking at the three plants out of 17 the previous tenant abandoned that have survived.  Then I have just been floating to where the day takes me.

 

I will have to create a list today, order not chaos but way more flexible than in the past.  I have to buy some airline tickets.  I have a furniture delivery scheduled that I have to remember.  I have some odds n’ ends to buy at the local grocery, just ran out of Listerine. My lists are usually pretty concrete but they always include the aspirational, eat less, exercise more. Oh yeah, there is the rest of that Ikea furniture to finish. 

 

As I sit here, I can smell the wood fired oven of the nearby pizza place starting up.  It smells of garlic, rosemary and olive oil.  There are some many hints of good times gone by in those smells, from camping to urban bistros in places like Toronto and Chicago.  Food memories of good friends. Guess I will have to try a pizza from the restaurant this weekend.  Gotta find out if it tastes as good and is as memory inducing as it smells.

A Blue Couch, Silver Keys and a Gold Piece of Whatever

1 September 2022

 

Ikea demands of its customers/victims both love and hate.  Take for example the blue couch. The most recent thing we got from Ikea was “the” blue couch.  It has some storge under it and it pulls out into a bed for visitors.  Like most things Ikea in comes in parts, a fair but not unwieldly number of parts.  The key factor at Ikea however is price.  You know that.  I know that. We love the price.  We hate what follows.

 

When you buy something from Ikea the model has been expertly set up.  All the parts are sure to have been milled to the right tolerances. If one doesn’t quite fit you can be assured that Joao can call Sven in the backroom and get a replacement part asap. The staff doing set up in-store use electric tools and have flunkies who lift and twist the item exactly the way it is shown in the pictographic instructions.  When you ask the sales rep, “How long does it take to assemble?”, he or she says (they appear quite committed to parity in sales staff), “Oh twenty or thirty minutes.”  What they leave off is that part that says, “If you are a highly toned underemployed mechanical engineer”.

 

I loved Legos as a kid.  On the Iowa Skills Test I always got the folding the boxes section 100% right, always.  I live with an engineer.  How hard could this be? Insert echoing cosmic laughter here.

 

Well, assembling the blue couch had its moments.  For fabric, batting and light colored wood, it was heavy. On top of that the couch had to be tilted on its side several times to accomplish the tasks assigned.  Again, I live with two big men so it was doable. But what drove me crazy was installing one long thick bolt that held the back of the couch to the seat of the couch.  There were four of these, two on the left, one on the center and one on the right.  The left and right ones went it without a hitch. The center one not so much. Seemingly the bolt would go in and start to thread into the approved slot and then just spin.

 

Apparently, and definitely not in the pictograms, this bolt was the prime bolt and had to go in first.  It took loosening the other three bolts and using a cardboard shim to elevate one side of the project to allow the bolt to catch and go in.  Every single freakin’ project from Ikea is like this.  There is always a hidden thing you have to do to get the bits and bobs to align. Twenty minutes of estimated set-up time was for an overweight, old, humanities orient retired ALJ nigh onto three hours to finish.  Sigh.

 

Did I mention this place is not air conditioned?  After I let the sweat dry, I made it my goal to get my Portuguese phone number up and running.  This would require me to go to MEO one of the providers of internet/cable/phone in the country. MEO has various sales offices everywhere. No worries my trusty app said there was a shop five minutes’ walk from here.  Don’t get me started on the five minute’s walk thing.  If Lisbon were perfectly flat it would be five minutes’ walk.  Lisbon I can say with certainty is not perfectly flat. Off I went for the five-minute walk.

 

Why did I have to go to MEO?  Two things.  First, I didn’t have a tool that would open the sim slot on my iPhone 12Max or whatever it is called.  Second, I wanted to know the fee structure for using my phone for international texting.  I didn’t really get an answer for the second one except that the sales rep kept saying, very expensive.  However, all the MEO reps have that little piece of wire to pop open the iPhone and the SIM was quickly placed in my phone.  

 

The serendipity bit was that the store we went to was next to a very neat/cool looking building with lots of frill and gimgacks and gogaws to ah and oh at.  And this building was right next to the Piscoas metro stop which for all the world looks like one of Paris’s art deco metro stops.  More aahing and oohing.

The keys thing was a truly typical Portuguese urban moment.  We had one key for four people.  I had inquired of our landlady about how to get extra keys.  She directed me to a shop several blocks away.  Thirty-six dollars later I had four new keys.  However, at 10 pm (22:00) a knock on our interior door came and a young woman was standing outside.  She did not identify herself but she handed up about fifty loose keys and said, “These are yours”.  There were multiple keys to the apartment, to a second entrance to the apartment, to our mailbox and to a couple of other things I have not figured out yet.  Yep, it was that kind of moment.  I am kind of thinking she was some kind of phantom because upon handing us this mound of shaped metal she was gone.

Oh yeah to insure I don’t blow my heart out I bought an American style coffee maker and some decaf coffee.  I have tried ordering decaf espressos and I think about 50% of the time that just say to hell with it and make me a regular.  I can tell it is regular when my fingers start tapping the table after my second sip.  If I drink it all my whole body become a techno rhythm section.

 

And that is all I have time for this morning.

Been Traveling

 

31 August 2022 (Near Saldahna Metro Lisboa)

 

Finally, a moment which might be called near normal has arrived.  Been in Lisboa for 9 days now. Our time has been nonstop running, spending, waiting, etc.  Each night we have gone to bed exhausted.  When we awoke, we were still tired. Jet lag encompassed the first few days. Things are improving. 

 

We are familiars with Ikea and Buy/Sell/Trade Lisbon.  Last Saturday the hotel rooms paid for with points ran out.  Luckily the beds had arrived at the apartmento.  Yesterday the washing machine and the refrigerator got here.  Watching the delivery person carry the washing machine up two flights of stairs on his back was impressive.  Now that the refrigerator is here days will pass without dining out.  Yeah, the wallet rejoices.  Today our first chair arrives, a sofa sleeper.  It will be nice to sit in a chair.

 

Takes a bit of time to get used to the cycle of life here.  I have been awake for an hour and a half and the city is just beginning to move. This computer on which I am pounding away is on my back deck which is totally in shade. The shade won’t last. 67 F with the merest hint of a breeze.  By midday the deck will no longer be shaded and these bricks the landlord has laid down will heat up like bricks in a wood stove. As God is my witness you will be able to fry and egg out here.  

 

The deck right now is great for writing.  By midday it will be more than great for drying clothing on the line. When 7 pm comes it will be comfortable to be back out here.  Going to have to pick up an umbrella and a base. Need to expand the time we can be out here.

 

The pulse of business seems to start between 9”30. The subways and buses are crowded then and most commercial establishments open at ten.  Except for the malls (and there are only a couple of them really) most businesses close down at eight.  Dinner hour is roughly 7 pm to 10 pm and it is assumed you will be spending an hour or more at the table.  

 

I do not think that I would say I love the neighborhood.  Alternatively, I would say I really like the neighborhood.  So many restaurants, shops, easy access to transport make it a wonderful place to be. Being under the airport flight path where the plans fly so low you can count the bolts on the belly of the fuselage is not as enticing.  But hey, I doubt there is any place in Lisbon where that is not the case. Plenty of parks, plenty of culture and lots to explore.

 

Oh well, I have to go get some keys made.  Life goes on.

 

 

The Weather Has Broken Today (Perhaps the Darkness Will Too)

 

Amazingly the humidity has disappeared from the air this early morning. Temperatures as I set out have dropped a good 15° from what they were yesterday. Walking in short sleeves and nylon shorts the first 100 yards of striding are crisp. 

 

August is traditionally Michigan’s transitional weather. Often fall creeps in shortly after the 20th. Cool mornings, mild days and the hints of leaves ready to change color were common in years past.  Not so much recently; real summer warmth has lately been lingering until after Labor Day. I won’t be here to see which is true of August this year.

 

Spent time yesterday online rearranging some details of my airline tickets to Europe. With the kafuffle that is air travel this year, each segment of my flight has changed several times. With each change in departure time or routing the airline has unilaterally imposed new seat assignments. Grabbing decent seats with less than two weeks remaining before I travel is not a pleasant experience. Everything I read says nothing about flying this year is pleasant. I note my family’s ultimate destinations airport will be suffering the effects from a two-day general strike when we get there. Sigh. Repeat after me, “I am one with the universe”.

 

It doesn’t take long to feel comfortable walking in this cooler weather. ‘Tis a moment of joy after days and days of oppressive heat and humidity. I don’t believe I’ve ever experienced such a long a stretch of both high temperatures and high humidity in Michigan. Floods, fires and heat waves are engulfing the world. Gaia seems to be working through some not so pleasant changes. Climate scientist say these various extreme weather phenomena are the signs of a rapidly warming planet. The changes are not over, they are accelerating. We need to take action to mitigate what is happening. At least I believe so.

 

After more than two and 1/3 years COVID-19 made its way into our house. The youngest brought the disease home from his workplace. Luckily, he had been vaccinated and boosted. His symptoms were similar to those of a bad cold or a mild flu. A very strict isolation was enforced. After five days of isolation no one else tested positive in the household. After eight days he is testing negative now and will return to work today. It will be just in time to give his two weeks’ notice.

 

My son’s Covid case will not show up in any federal database. I am assuming that he like millions upon millions of other Americans have self-tested at home and then not reported positive numbers to a health department or the CDC. I would guess very large portion of our population has now had the disease; a number far greater than has even been estimated. The pandemic is not over. At least we have antivirals and other medications to ameliorate much of the devastating consequences of the disease. But there is always the next variant… I plan to keep wearing my mask in larger group settings.

 

An additional note, the land around me is green again. What broke the hot and humid weather was a series of thunder and rain storms. Never felt so happy to feel drops of rain on my face. Michigan looks good in green.

 

A final note.  48 years ago this day, I travelled to the old Atlantic City Raceway to see a triple bill.  I believe the opening act was Jesse Colin Young.  Santana came on next and finally Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young took the stage.  The day was momentous because President Richard M. Nixon’s resignation became official. The crowd was ebullient because a dark cloud over our democracy was lifting. I was there with Larry Dougherty, Kathy Logiovino, and Dot Huber. We endured rain and lightning to get to that moment at the end of the concert when CSN&Y broke out an incredible version of Ohio.  50,000 people were singing at the top of their lungs, “Four Dead in Ohio,” again and again. It was a hymn; it was an exclamation mark marking the end of years of darkness.  Now if only the Florida raid is the dot drawn first at the bottom of a soon to be finished exclamation mark marking the end of another era of darkness.

As I go out walking.

Haven't posted in a bit.  Guess it is time.

 

I don’t know about the rest of the world, but here in my little enclave of humanity, traffic has never returned to pre-pandemic levels. The flow of cars and trucks is up to about 2/3 of what it used to be on a business day. I’m OK with that. Seeing the lessened number of cars whiz by on Saginaw Avenue, a five-lane wide affair (two each way with a turn lane), I wonder if this diminishment is a true shift in the paradigm of work? Have those 1/3 of the cars stopped traveling to and fro because their drivers are now working from home? Cutting the gas expended and the wear and tear on the infrastructure would be a good thing, good for the drivers, good for the environment.

 

I mention the lessened traffic because I have noticed the decrease as I head out for my morning walk. Sort of like the reduced number of cars I have returned to a reduced morning walk.  I am taking in about 2/3 of my pre-pandemic walk. My walking pace is constant, about 3 mph. Before the pandemic I would walk for 45 to 50 minutes. These days I’m walking 30 to 35 minutes. It just feels more comfortable.  Yes, I put on some pandemic weight.  Yes, I had some of the pandemic blues.  But on the plus side, this morning I am walking a little faster than usual. Checking the radar on my weather app before I stepped out of the house, I noticed a huge orange blob just slightly north and west of where I live. Kind of implies a strong storm is coming. God knows we can use the rain. Still, I’d like to be back in the house before it gets here.

 

Personally, I have not really done a deep dive on yesterday’s primaries. However, it seems clear that some election deniers did win their primary races. About the best news was the Kansas vote on abortion, roughly 60% to 40% in favor of leaving abortion a constitutional right in Kansas. I find that a pretty amazing number. Given Kansas’s conservative nature, the result probably should give the Republicans nationwide pause on their efforts to outlaw abortion and to put women back in the 1950s. I frequently shake my head wondering what has brought us to this point.

 

Some of the bright blossoms of summer are fading into the dusty dusky colors of fall. Still much of the vibrancy of the season is on display. One of the best things about walking in the morning is to see these plants and their flowers awash with bright yellows, reds and pinks. The explosion of color gives me an emotional up for the beginning of my day. I so love the flowers rebound everywhere in my neighborhood.

 

One way or another I’ll be leaving this neighborhood in about two weeks. I’ll either be going to Portugal with a visa or without. My hope is that the mail brings the documents I need for a longer stay overseas. No guarantees in life. No easy fixes for anything. Take a moment.  Enjoy the flowers.

 

We Need Them

This was written a few years ago.  But for some reason the great social media platform has deemed my old blog offensive.  In order to share this with a friend I am reposting here.  Stuff in the piece remains true.

 

We Need Them as Much as They Need Us

 

The sun hangs longer in our western sky at this time of year. Longer daylight hours are a good thing. With the school year coming to an end our family is rushing from one child’s teenage event to another. Sometimes I wonder when it will ever end. But I know that day will come too soon. 

 

As I dash from one meeting to another, I sometimes learn something. During the prior evening sandwiched somewhere between a Vito sub at Jimmy John’s and picking up the Moose from Elevation Hockey, Taking Your Game to the Next Level training I learned some facts about the Autism Spectrum that surprised me.

 

In a space between events last night, I went to a meeting with a local autism awareness group. The speaker talked about a program designed to deal with and develop social skill strategies needed by people with Aspergers in maintaining normal ritualized social contact. The nuances of the handshake, the use of greetings, the negotiations of where to go to lunch that invariably come in the workplace are things this group tries to provide guidance and training on. 

 

According to the speaker only about 12 % of the people on the spectrum maintain full time employment. He gave a citation but I didn’t write it down. Other statistics about abuse physical and financial were even more disheartening. In the conversation about employment the speaker indicated the issue for a person like my son who has Aspergers was not the ability to perform the work. ASD people apparently work very well at job tasks. The problems come up for people on the spectrum in transportation to/from work (and movement around the facility) and with dealing with the required social contacts in the workplace. 

 

Neurotypical people don’t deal very well with the manifestations of ASD such as the lack of initiation of eye and other social contact. Conversations can die on the vine with persons on the spectrum. Having an interaction just peter out frustrates “normal” people and they become dissuaded from attempting further contact even on important and meaningful issues. This inability of the general population to be adaptive may become a major problem as time goes on because the spectrum population is growing. 

 

According to the speaker 1 in every 54 boys in America is now falling somewhere on the spectrum. I have seen a statistic that in South Korea the rate is approaching 2.6 % of the juvenile population. To quote from the New York Times, “Among the children with autism spectrum disorder in regular schools, only 16 percent were intellectually disabled, more than two-thirds had a milder form of autism, and the ratio of boys to girls was unusually low: 2.5 to 1. In addition, 12 percent of these children had a superior I.Q. — a higher proportion than found in the general population.” Wallis, Study in Korea Puts Autism’s Prevalence at 2.6%, Surprising Experts May 9, 2011.

 

What we need are not just programs for persons on the spectrum teaching them how to pass themselves off as “ok” in a neurotypical world. We also need programs for employers and managers in all size level of companies on how to adapt to and accommodate ASD workers. We need training for staff in the workplace about respecting the differences that ASD persons have in how they approach social contact and work performance.

 

 Just looking at a business perspective I don’t think we can ignore 2% of our potential workforce if we want to stay competitive. Especially given that the level of higher IQ in this group is greater than in the general population. We will be throwing away/wasting a great deal of talent for innovation if we don’t come to terms with this growing group.

 

[I have used the term neurotypical a number of times here. I also know I have used it in prior posts. Just to be clear this is what the words current usage seems to mean and I am quoting Wikipedia, “Neurotypical (or NT) is a term that was coined in the autistic community as a label for people who are not on the autism spectrum: specifically, neurotypical people have neurological development and states that are consistent with what most people would perceive as normal, particularly with respect to their ability to process linguistic information and social cues.]

 

 

 

Afterward.

 

Since I wrote this article 10 years ago to the day, my son has graduated university.  He has a BS in engineering.  He is full time employed at a telecom company and he engages in meetings multiple times a day.  Working from home has proved a boon for him.  Zoom meetings and the use of Teams have allowed him both the connection he needs to work collaboratively and the isolation he needs to lessen angst and agitation. Some companies seem to get it.

 

A final note.  My son was not diagnosed until he was in middle school.  But several of his teachers seemed to have been aware of his focused abilities.  One math teacher in fifth grade told him, “You are good at math.  You know who uses math?  Engineers.”  From that day on he was pretty much determined to become an engineer. Remember it can be the small things that alter a life's direction.

On Painting Metal Chairs

The Day

Air conditioners are humming. Every house up and down the block has a mechanical whir completely idiosyncratic and wholly identifiable. Today humanity’s faux weather machines barely keep up with nature’s passion for the warm and sultry.

Cars and trucks roll by. Loud exhausts and grinding gears provide the bass rhythm. The birds on this green plot, and those in the next yard, and the yard after that, tweet and trill and whistle in descending circular melodies. Their songs along with the noise from a moderate breeze now shaking verdant leaves on ancient trees are the melody and harmony of today’s unique, one night only, symphony performed in an American suburban backyard.  

Yellow

Solitary yellow chair, quite bright and new this day. 95 Fahrenheit so I sit in the shade and not in the still drying yellow chair. When dry from a full can of Rustoleum, the yellow chair will be a beacon marking each day’s transition from midday to midnight.  We need a constant point like the yellow chair to fix our gaze on and keep us anchored to the here and now. It is a visual prayer for awareness, compassion, and understanding. No fears, no anger, just wakefulness to a world that surrounds us and holds us close.

Red

Who should sit in the red chair? Not a timid person. Not a person who doubts their every action. No, the red chair belongs to someone who feels a burning desire to claim it. To properly take a seat upon the red chair one must be filled with passion and vitality. The red chair looks forward with no regret for the past. The red chair demands you look beyond the horizon for what wonders will come next. Perhaps, the red chair belongs to you.

Green

The green chair asks not who should sit in it but when one should sit in it.  The color of summer leaves at peak green, this chair is a mechanism of mystical transport.  The green chair must be used when an escape from the same old same old is demanded. One sitting in this chair may visit the hills of Ireland, the fields of Brittany, the forests of British Columbia or just maybe the vineyards of the Douro River valley all without twitching muscle or scanning a boarding pass. When you sit in the green chair and close your eyes your spirit is free to fly to wherever and whenever it is that brings you to joy, to those places which elicit a gentle smile.

Blue

So blue, so dark, almost a capture of the essence of late evening, the blue chair is for those needing solitude.  Capturing the spirit of early night’s peace, this chair is for those who are tired, who ache, who need a refreshing drink of ice-cold water to revive their wearied souls. The blue chair does not demand, instead it accepts and comforts. Worries and fears, apprehensions and suspicions are banned from the minds of the blue chairs occupants. The blue chair is clear water in a river flowing to an infinite and endless calm sea.

Take a seat my friend.