Not Quite A Milestone

   dw and I quietly celebrated my birthday a few days ago. A quiet day because I have one more year before I will admit to being old, in body at least. We went out to dinner and and three days later, due to unforeseen circumstances, I bought myself an expensive present.

  --- I just told dw that I recently read a list of texting shortcuts (such as lolz) one of which was "dw" which stands for "darling wife" and which I've been using for some time (dw is also dw's initials). We both agree that that's just precious ---

   In any case, dw asked me where I wanted to go to eat and I said I didn't know but I didn't want Tex-Mex or Italian and was indifferent to Thai or any other Asian cuisine --- so dw asked: "What about fish & chips?" and that was exactly what I wanted so off we went to Halibut's, a restaurant / blues bar on tres chic Alberta Street where once a month the young now-wow-and-today artistes and wannabes walk around looking at street art & crafts, eat street food and drink too much and pee on neighborhood lawns and complain about the man bringing me down dude.

   But Halibut's serves really good fish&chips along with live jazz and blues on weekends -- the rest of the time the music is canned and bands are represented with life size plastic statues of Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis and Dean Martin -- it's kind of creepy.

 

(N.B. -- For some reason, I'm not able to transfer photos into this page. Until I figure it out this blog will be photo less. At the moment, whatever is going on is beyond my skill level to solve. --) *

 

  For part of the dinner time, dw patiently listened to me bitching about my bicycle, which had suddenly become unrideable: it wouldn't stay in gear, wouldn't shift and the chain kept jumping from one sprocket to another. I had taken it in to the Bike Gallery and got a free adjustment which had made it worse -- I had a lot of bicycle bitching material.

   The next day I  tried to fix it myself and found that everything worked when it was on a stand but it acted up when I tried to ride it.

   So I stopped cursing the Bike Gallery mechanic, took the bike back for a more thorough tune-up, and the second time being a charm, the mechanic found the down tube (the front part of the frame's triangle) was broken in half. I'm really glad the break happened when I was standing on the pedals to accelerate and not when I was going down-hill at 25 or 30 mph (the bike is 20+ years old -- but the frame still shouldn't have snapped)

   But now I have a shiny new Trek -- my present to myself. This time I got a touring bike rather than a road/racing bike. It's heavier but is a better fit for the way I ride: I'm not going to enter a race anytime soon and the new bike will handle rough roads or packed gravel better than my old bike. Plus it's nearly as fast and agile as a road bike.

   Thursday, Bob D., Leslie B. and I went to Smith Rocks for a climbing outing. It was successful in a modest way -- four climbs and I led two 7's and a 9 -- As I said, modest. We got an early start -- 6A.M.-- but it became too hot for me and Bob (Leslie seemed less troubled) sooner than we thought it would so we quit early in the afternoon
   (Leslie, an attractive young woman, told one of her friends about the planned climbing trip -- including who she was going with and when we would be starting. On hearing the leaving time the friend said:  "Why so early? Do they drive that slow?" --  Leslie told the story with a quiet glee.  You gotta love a snarky youth.)
   The bit of a hike bothered me more than I thought it would. Once again I was reminded that my knee surgeon said complete recovery will take a year or more. 
 
   WORDS: -- dree one's weird -- which means to pursue or submit to one's destiny or fate. (Scottish or northern England) -- I first came across this in Enderby by Anthony Burgess -- a very funny book -- which wasn't a real surprise since Burgess tosses around ten dollar words as if they are five for a dollar. I had to look it up, of course. Since then I found that James Joyce has used the phrase.  Again, not a surprise although with Joyce I would suspect he just made it up. And Kenneth Graham (Wind In The Willows) has used it. Perhaps in some circles it's a common saying. Perhaps it's common currency among those who swim around looking for the Loch Ness Monster or trek around, nose to the ground, looking for the foul smelling Sasquatch.

   BOOKS: Death In The Afternoon (Hemingway) -- A great title, but disgusting on nearly every level. Good old Ernie starts by detailing the use of horses to stick the bulls with the vara (the things they stab into the bull's neck -- which weakens the bull, makes it harder for it to lift it's head and makes it  less dangerous --  The horses are purposely allowed to be gored and they then run around the ring, stiff legged, trailing their entrails -- A comic interlude for Ernie. The rest of the book discussed the details of bull fighting and various fighters. I admit the book is interesting, in a fashion, but even more than before -- even if he was a good writer -- I despise Hemingway and his smug, juvenile "I can buy a big gun and kill things", macho persona.
   The Peloponnesian War (Donald Kagan) Sparta and Athens go at it. Interesting and well written, but to be honest, at 500 pages, it told me more about the war than I really needed to know. And so it goes DJA

*since I can't seem to get photos into this page, I'll put some on my Facebook page.
  

 

  

  

 

Oconomowoc Anew

   dw and I just returned from another trip to Wisconsin. We went back to celebrate dw's Aunt Barbara's 80th birthday. It was very low-key as Barbara wasn't interested in a party or anything else even semi-elaborate -- Steve (dw's brother), Kay (Steve's SO), dw and I treated Barbara to a lunch and a cake -- quiet but pleasant. Otherwise, in the evening we sat outside and talked; we did a modest amount of yard-work; we went with Barbara to her favorite bar/restaurant -- Pauline's -- and went to the Oconomowoc Fire Station to see the hose cart:

The hose cart is an early 20th century piece of fire equipment. It carried 800 feet of 3 inch fire hose, and the hose plus cart weighed over 1000 pounds. The firemen towed it to the fire by hand (A manly bunch, it seems). dw's grandfather and great-grandfather were volunteer firemen and the older one built the cart (at his own expense) for the department to use. At some point he got PO'd and took his cart and went home. It stayed in the attic of his garage (the family home -- still occupied by his descendant) for the next 90 years until this year when Barbara donated it to the fire department which restored it to it's present splendor. A deputy chief (Glenn Leidel) gave us a talk on how the cart was used and then gave a tour of the station -- It was great. Thoroughly interesting and entertaining. And he let dw try on his fire-fighting outfit:

   I can see a new fashion trend starting.

   We also revisited the Kohler Art Museum in Sheboygan. Again I must say it's one of my favorite museums anywhere. The Kohler collects vernacular or outsider art works and installations -- they'll buy whole buildings or rooms (most of their collection is stored someplace -- they only display a few items at a time) A good article:  www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/arts/design/12 

 And the Kohler is famous for it's bathrooms:

This is one of six -- three men's and three women's.

Some notes from the road: Except for two delays (one meant we returned home a day later than planned), the flights, going and coming, were uneventful and we even scored some good seats.

   At the Minneapolis airport we saw an iPhone cover -- a piece of plastic, a 5cent item -- for $35 dollars. We didn't believe it and dw asked the clerk about it. The clerk scanned it, confirmed the price, and said: "No wonder we haven't sold any."  I guess even Apple fanboyz have their limits.

We walked around the grounds of a small monastery across the street from Steve's house. At a small shrine to the Virgin Mary dw asked me why Mary was stepping on a snake. I explained that Mary is sort of a reincarnation of Eve, only this time she doesn't succumb to the snakely wiles of Satan -- But that particular story has never rung true to me. Would any woman take an apple from a snake? It was a snake for god's sake. In my opinion any woman, past or present, would say: "You're a snake. At least make it a piece of pie and we might talk."

Books: The Worst Hard Time (Timothy Egan) About the monumental dust storms that occurred during the Great Depression. -- The same area and time that Steinbeck wrote of in The Grapes of Wrath (one of America's great novels) -- Egan interviewed survivors who stayed in the area -- It's an amazing, fascinating book. Of interest to me: The whole area was unquestionably saved from complete depopulation and destruction by the efforts of Franklin Roosevelt's administration -- and I don't believe the region has ever voted for a Democrat  -- Oh well.

   Word for the week: Isn't actually a word, it's a name or a phrase. Osedas Mucofloris or in English: Bone Eating Snot Worm. Since I read about the bone eating snot worm, I sometimes lie awake at night -- worried about what might be under the bed. If such a thing must exist it should be named a Bone-Eating Gertrude and just forget about mentioning the mucus coating. But so it goes DJA

P.S.  For some reason the Times link isn't working. If you're interested Google: NYT Kohler Art Museum. -- The article is one of the first links that will come up.  DJA

More On The Bicycle

   Since the last post, the biggest news here is that dw has officially retired. I won't comment on her new status since she has promised several times to write an entry. We shall all wait with bated breath.

   Regarding the bicycle: On my regular route to the rock-climbing gym I've been passing this street person:

  He had the largest collection on his shopping cart I've ever seen (If you look closely you can see a wheel). He was organized, with a green tarp to cover his cart and a blue tarp to sleep under. And the location was odd because the corner is essentially a residential neighborhood with little pedestrian traffic to pass on a dollar or two. After he had been there for two months, he was missing one morning and I figured the police had moved him on. On returning home I saw a small wreath of flowers at the base of the no-parking sign. I looked in the paper but didn't find any notice of his death -- brief or otherwise --- But I'm assuming he died. Another person little noticed  nor long remembered, but someone noticed and cared enough to lay a small temporary memorial.  Donne had it right: the death of a stranger, even if seen indirectly, is affecting.

On a better note, I've had two bicycle adventures with birds. First, I was going down a hill -- moving about 20mph -- when I caught up to a crow who was just drifting along. He (? -- I'm not good at sex identifying crows -- ) was flying low and I came up behind him getting close enough to actually grab his tail (I didn't) before he sped up and turned away. I followed him for about half a block.

And second, I was approaching a bridge when a peregrine falcon swooped over my head from behind, missing me by six inches, and nailing a pigeon which was perched on the bridge. -- An explosion of feathers and a couple of seconds later the falcon flew away with the pigeon in it's talons. I don't really know, but I think the falcon used me as a moving blind. It was great and it happened so fast I didn't have time to be startled and run into a bridge pier or even fall off the curb.

Finally, I have a plane to catch -- and that's hard, they're big and fast -- so I need to bring this to a close.  DJA