June 23, 1991

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Saturday afternoon’s weather was perfect for those of us who like our good weather a little less placid. It was a warm and windy day, but not the sort of heat that is oppressive nor the sort of wind that threatens to blow anything down, just puffs that put leaves and branches in constant motion and mostly keeps mosquitoes away.

Heavy rain had fallen in the wee hours of Saturday, but few puddles survived in the daylight hours. Before midnight, more rain fell, but again on Sunday there was little to show for it. Temps moderated somewhat on Sunday, making for a warm day without much wind. Chamber of commerce weather.

I checked the reverse of this image — where I had make notes — and found to my surprise that it was taken 33 years ago today, at Jay’s house in Dallas.

Left to right, top row, described from my point of view, since I’m the one doing the describing: my uncle Ken, aunt Sue, Kim, my cousin Ralph (Kim was his first wife), my brother Jim, my nephew Robert, my brother Jay, sister-in-law Deb, her mother Eleanore. Left to right, bottom row, not counting the dogs: me, my mother Jo Ann, and nephews Dees and Sam. The dogs are Aloysius, Jay and Deb’s, and Katie, my mother’s, in her lap.

I had just turned 30 and was visiting the U.S. from Japan for the first time since my move, and we all gathered in Dallas. Pretty much the only good reason to visit Dallas in the summer is to see family or friends. Other stops on that trip included Chicago and from there a round-trip drive to Massachusetts for the Fourth of July, to visit friends, by way of Toronto and Niagara Falls.

Five family members in the image have passed away in the interim, seven counting the dogs. I’m not sure about Kim; she and Ralph divorced later. Four people in the photo went on to have (so far) a total of eight children, nine counting a stepchild. That would be me, Ralph, Sam and Dees. Also, the house we were standing in has been torn down and the site redeveloped.

What to say but tempus fugit? One question, though. Who took the picture? I don’t remember anyone else being there.

Hot Summer Thursday Celosia

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Hot morning followed by light rain this afternoon, with a push of cool air by the evening. That’s a Northern summer for you – not willing to follow through all those hot days with near-hot nights, not at least for more than a few days at a time. Windows will be cracked open this evening.

I opened a fortune cookie the other day, as one does, and it had no fortune in it. That was a first, maybe. Obviously it means no future for me. Ah, well.

Some years ago, I opened a fortune cookie and it said this: “You are about to become $8.95 poorer ($6.95 if you had the buffet).” That was so funny I kept it, and to this day it’s tucked in with my collection of restaurant cards, though not with any particular restaurant, since I don’t remember where I got it.

I’d like to say that I captured these images of such colorful flowers in the wild, or at least in an elegant garden somewhere, but no.celosia

These celosia and other plants were for sale at the garden section of a major multinational retailer.

I didn’t know anything about celosia (cockscomb), so I looked into it when I got home. Lost Crops of Africa notes that it is edible.

“Despite its African origin (a claim that is not without dispute), celosia is known as a foodstuff in Indonesia and India. Moreover, in the future it might become more widely eaten, especially in the hot and malnourished regions of the equatorial zone. It has already been hailed as the often-wished-for vegetable that ‘grows like a weed without demanding all the tender loving care that other vegetables seem to need.’ ”

Gardenia says of celosia: “Leaves, tender stems, and young flower spikes can be eaten boiled or cooked in sauce or stew with other ingredients. The leaves are a nutritious addition to the vegetable garden. They contain high levels of beta-carotene and folic acid.”

It looks like it is making its way onto overpriced menus as food hipsters discover it.

The Pearl Incident

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The run of 90° F. (or so) days will run a little bit longer, see below, but as usual for summer in this part of the world, that kind of streak won’t have the staying power you see in certain other summertime places I’m familiar with, where 100° F. days line up in a seemingly endless array.

A site that sends me email sent a link to a Juneteenth article today with the slightly annoying headline: “5 Black History Landmarks in the U.S. You’ve Probably Never Heard Of.”

At least the publication included “probably.” But I checked, and I’d heard of four of them. Mostly they were not great unknowns. The Ebenezer Baptist Church was on the list, for instance. C’mon.

Still, I will give them their due by informing me of an event I hadn’t heard of: The Pearl Incident, which involved the unsuccessful escape attempt in 1848 by 77 slaves sailing from Washington City on a schooner called The Pearl. There is a plaque noting that fact “in the bricks of Wharf Street,” according to Wharf Life DC.  If I’m ever in the Wharf district in DC, I will look for it.

Still Life With Lincoln Logs and Bottle Caps

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I call it “Still Life With Lincoln Logs and Bottle Caps.”Still Life With Lincoln Logs and Bottle Caps

Garage deaccession continues, if I can borrow such a tony word for the process of sorting and disposing and squirrel damage cleanup in the unheated structure toward the back of our lot. The other day I found a bag of Lincoln Logs. A bag of sad, battered logs. Many are cracked and chipped or even partly missing. Also, there are no roof slates. That’s an important thing to go missing.

I’m pretty sure they aren’t my childhood Lincoln Logs, since they were in better shape – I think — and anyway, this feels like a yard-sale acquisition that our daughters never took to, and was quickly forgotten.

Someone glued together two two-notch logs.Still Life With Lincoln Logs and Bottle Caps

If they were trying to get a four-notch log equivalent, they didn’t get it.

I built a simple structure (see above), for old time’s sake. The rest of the logs are now in the trash. Maybe I’ll add the structure to the broken mug and plate midden in one corner of the yard, and let the elements do their work.

RIP, Janan Hanna

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Yesterday afternoon was hot and windy, something like a baby sirocco, kicking dust from the baseball field in the park behind our house. Eventually a smattering of rain came, and the wind died down. Not enough rain to soak anything, but toward the end of the day, enough to produce a large, vivid rainbow to the southeast.

Images naturally do its vividness no justice, but I made a few images anyway.rainbow rainbow

Also yesterday I thought about someone I don’t think much about, someone I hadn’t spoken to in over 15 years, when we were both at the funeral of a former coworker we had in common. When the person you think about is a journalist (among other things), it’s easy enough to check to see what she’s written lately, as I occasionally have done over the years. But not in the last two years at least. I know that because, to my shock, I found out she had died in August 2022 at only 59.

Her name was Janan Hanna, and we were close, once upon a time. Throughout 1989, to be specific, just before I left for Japan. RIP, Janan.

Wat Phra That Doi Suthep &c.

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Hot weekend, at least for northern Illinois, which means temps touching 90° F. A little early for that, but not too far from the norm. It is summer, after all, never mind the exact date of the solstice.

Not as hot (or steamy) as Thailand 30 years ago. Thirty years? How did that happen? I know, one day at a time. In June 1994 we visited Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand, which we reached by rail from Bangkok. One day during the visit, we took a day trip to Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, as a lot of people do.

Written about a week later:

We were in Chiang Mai until June 21. They say it’s more manageable than Bangkok, but the traffic was every bit as fierce as Bangkok’s, just on a smaller scale, and with a good deal less traffic control, which is saying something. At first getting across any street was a chore, but by the second day it had gotten easier, though never easy.

That day (the 18th) we blew a bunch of money (all of $9) having a songthaew (siitor, sic) take us to Doi Suthep. We could have traveled there for a fraction of that, but the excellent breakfast at Montori – very very good pastries – must have put us in a less tight-fisted mood, and off we went.

Doi Suthep didn’t disappoint: a splendid wat, great and gilded and on a hilltop, up a winding park road.

Only partly up a winding park road. It was then a climb of 300-plus steps to reach the wat. If I were there now, I would think I should have visited 30 years earlier. Good thing I did.Wat Phra That Doi Suthep

The art of gilding at Thai wats is highly advanced. I assume this is one of the wat’s chedi, which tend to be done in gold leaf and contain a chamber for relics.The art of gilding at Thai wats is highly advanced. I assume this is a chedi, which tend to be done in gold leaf and contain a chamber for relics. When you have access to a gong, use it. That's what I always say.

When you have access to a gong, use it. That’s what I always say.

After our visit, the siitor (sic) man talked us into going shopping. We thought about refusing, but were a bit curious. He took us to a silver working shop, an umbrella factory, a lacquerware factory (I almost bought a lacquer egg) and of course a jewelry display room.

I can’t visualize that egg, but if I’d bought it, I’m sure it would be parked in my office even now with other debris from across the decades and continents. I might not even have to turn my head to see it.

Backyard Bunnies

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In hopes of keeping the backyard rabbits from eating our budding tomatoes and other summertime plants, Yuriko has been leaving lettuce and carrots out for them. I’m not sure that will work. For one thing, they don’t seem interested. Bugs Bunny might eat carrots, but actual rabbits not so much.

Was Bugs ever seen eating anything else? I’m hardly the only person to ask that important question, and the answer is yes. I remember some of those listed cartoons, especially “Baseball Bugs” and “Hare We Go,” from which I might have learned the term mess, as in a place to eat. As for why carrots were the nosh of choice for Bugs, that was reportedly inspired by Clark Gable eating a raw carrot in It Happened One Night, a detail I’d forgotten.

A family of rabbits now occupy the backyard, including a large adult and two or maybe three juveniles, who are often spotted eating grass. They might live under the deck.

It’s hard to get close enough to them to capture an image. Even at a young age, rabbits are wary critters and fleet of foot. I figure they’ve taken to the yard this year, much more than previously, because there is no dog on patrol any more, and somehow they know it.

Summer Time

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I was up around 5 am today, for the usual reasons, waking up from a dream about – a wedding reception in space? – and noticed the light of a new day out of the bathroom window. Light that has that certain twilight look, reflecting the fact that the sun is about to come up, like a big bald head. (I checked, sunrise was at 5:17 this morning, so I woke during civil twilight.)

At that blurry moment, it occurred to me, who’s bellyaching now about Daylight Saving Time? If we were still on Standard Time, sunrise would have been at 4:17 and civil twilight would have started at 3:43. Who would want that? Sure, early March might be too early to start DST – late April, as it used to be, would do.

At the other end of the day, June twilight lasts until just past 9 pm. Not everyone has a back yard or a deck, but I do, and I appreciate the daylight at that end as I sit outside. It’s called Summer Time in other countries for a reason.

Squirrels vs. Garage Bottles

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The squirrels have been evicted from our garage. Or so it seems. As part of obtaining a new roof for that structure this spring, holes that had allowed squirrels access were plugged. But that wasn’t quite enough, since I spotted one clambering around the shelves before we left town last month. So I bought one of those electronic boxes that emits ultrasonic annoyances for rodent ears, and it has been running ever since. The creatures have made themselves scarce as a result.

They made their own special messes in the garage, of course, including tearing up paper and cardboard — a lot of it — as part of their nesting efforts. Even more annoying to me is that they acted as agents of chaos out in the garage after I spent time last summer cleaning the place up and arraying my bottle collection.

Maybe not “collection,” but the bottles that have accumulated over the years, partly from successive gabfests.

The squirrels broke a few of my bottles by knocking them down to the hard floor, but I’m glad that Monty Python’s Holy Ale and Leninade survived. And my Woop Woop ’04 verdelho, an Australian wine I bought when it was fairly new.

Félicette

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Another gabfest has come and gone: the 10th anniversary event, since the first one was held on June 14, 2014. This should have been the actual 11th event, but it was only the 10th, since we skipped 2020. Or maybe I should consider it the 11th event anyway, like how the Olympics still regard the canceled Games (1916, 1940, 1944) as numbered Olympiads (VI, XII and XIII, respectively).

This year, rain came on Saturday afternoon, so for the first time, we stayed indoors, and I cooked the hamburgers and sausages inside, though I cooked inside in ’17 because of high winds. We had the same good old time, with old friends eating and drinking and talking, without reference to any hand-held electronic communications gizmos.

The main beer drinker didn’t come this year, as he was ill, so what little alcohol we drank consisted of white wine. With cat astronauts on the label. Today the weather was better, so I posed the bottle outside on the deck table.

The wine, which is French, is called Félicette. After a cat that the French shot into space in 1963.

We all know about Laika and Ham and Enos, and even Pigs in Space, but not Félicette. Could be she’s more famed in the French-speaking world. Good to know. Might even be a Trivial Pursuit answer. When was the last time I played that? Not since sometime in the 20th century, I think.