January 31, 2021 – Keith Robertson

“Roses are Red”

Having a dental crown seated is not the ideal way to start out a week, but the operation was smooth and painless. Dirty Penelope was treated to a bath on the way back from the dentist and it’s been much quieter in the garage since.

Monday was Burns day and so we cooked up one of the tins of haggis, the lamb version, and piped it in with “Scotland the Brave” from Spotify. I gave a poor rendition of “Address to a Haggis”, with a translated printout for Diana, and then we enjoyed the once a year or so treat – really yummy. After that Diana was “wanting something sweet” and so, in my typically cheesy way, I guided her through to the piano and attempted a rendition of “My Love is Like a Red Red Rose”. It was a very poor attempt, having only printed the music a couple of hours earlier. Here’s a better attempt – see Mum, I did get some roses this year. Diana quipped “Now I recognize it.”

Oh, almost forgot, I also read a couple of verses of “Ode to a Mouse” at our Executive Committee meeting on Monday afternoon, telling them that since diversity and inclusion was such a big topic these days, I wanted to be recognized for my diversity as well. Here are links to read both poems:

http://www.robertburns.org.uk/Assets/Poems_Songs/toahaggis.htm

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43816/to-a-mouse-56d222ab36e33

Going up to the elliptical on Tuesday, I came across this display of Mardi Gras beads. Apparently McD had decided to organize our collection of beads ahead of parade season (cancelled this year) and thought the pool table provided the ideal surface. We collected the majority of those on a freezing cold parade night on our first New Orleans Mardi Gras visit.

I went for a swim on Wednesday and enjoyed listening to a podcast where Alec Baldwin interviewed Kristin Bell. On removing my earphones after the swim, I couldn’t hear anything from my left ear. I assumed water was stuck in there, as happens sometimes. On arrival home, and letting Diana know that I had enjoyed a nice swim with Kristin Bell, very cheesy again, I tried the drops we use to get water out of our ears when scuba diving. No luck. Now I’m getting a tiny appreciation for what Elspeth deals with every day – can’t hear anything Diana is saying if she’s coming at me from the left. Still no joy on Thursday morning, so emailed the doctor. Come on in for an ear lavage on Friday morning. Ok, not sure what that is but it sounds soothing. Turned out to be a quick and mostly painless procedure that within a few seconds had removed a wax plug that had adhered to my ear drum. Going to have to be a bit more diligent with those earphones and the “Fit Goo” that I use to get a good seal.

The Designer Twins and Jose visited us on Friday afternoon to discuss the rumoured kitchen remodel. We’ll see what great ideas they come back with. One of the bigger discussion points was whether or not to keep the elevated, round section of the island. We enjoy gathering around a meat and cheese plate there when we have another couple over. Jose says they’re out of style and we need to consider a single long island that accommodates seating at the end. Any input from those of you that have occupied the barstools at the raised end? I’m scared to see the bid – so much tile and granite to be replaced.

Late breaking news on an incoming text. Jose can start in 3 weeks. Oh joy!

We watched the new Justin Timberlake movie “Palmer” on Friday and Saturday nights. Second weekend in a row that we fell asleep before finishing our movie on Friday night. We must be working way too hard during the week. Timberlake did his usual excellent acting job in what was a pretty harrowing movie. Spoiler alert…there is a happy ending.

I did complete week 3 of Couch to 5K on Saturday. Diana asked me if I felt like I had a “balanced gait”. Well, clearly by nature of the question she doesn’t believe that I do. Apparently I lean over when landing on my left foot, or am just flat footed on that side. Thanks, super helpful input, I’ll see what I can do about that as we enter into week 4, and I’m sure by focusing on that will develop some other anomaly.

We, one of us in particular, have developed a binging obsession with “Bridgerton.” It’s actually pretty funny and certainly better than “The Bachelor.” I believe Diana finished up the series last night after I fell asleep.

It’s a mistake to pull out the “Year in Review 2020” blog book and read about what we were doing exactly a year ago. Very depressing – we attended an Eric Lindell concert, had a work happy hour at Baker St. Pub, brunch at Comedor, and dinner at Winebelly, amongst several other fun activities. Hopefully those places hang on until we can safely visit Austin again.

I finished up “The Strangler” by William Landay this week and did enjoy the conclusion of the tale.

Michael, the Harvard lawyer brother, suffers from routine migraines and I thought Landay’s description of their onset and impact were exceptionally detailed and effective. I assumed that he must suffer from migraines until I read the credit at the end of the book to “Migraine” by Oliver Sacks, the wonderfully talented medical writer.

The relationship between the three Daley brothers, their mother, and her boyfriend is at the core of the book, and just as central to the evolution of the plot as the history of the Boston Stranglers.

“Ricky always went a little crazy with Joe. All that firstborn’s confidence and facile conservatism, the dense, bullying, confrontational manner, the reflexive, arrogant, empty-headed, aggressive xenophobia…Joe was Ricky’s negative image. If they had not been brothers, Ricky was sure, they would never have been friends. As it was, they needed Michael as a middleman. Alone, there was a relentless fractious undercurrent to their conversations, as if their thirty-year relationship had been a single ongoing argument. But, in the way of brothers, Ricky could not completely escape admiring Joe, who had, after all, willingly accepted the weight of their patrimony.”

I’m making good progress on “Mad at the World – A Life of John Steinbeck” by William Souder. Souder is a good writer and has quite interesting material to draw from. The history of the part of California where Steinbeck grew up – Salinas and the Monterey coast – was just as interesting as the background on how Steinbeck became the famous author.

Here’s a piece from the first page that I know Diana will particularly enjoy (she detests the California coastal fog).

“Ninety miles long and shaped like a sword, it follows the course of the Salinas River, which runs north to Monterey Bay. The valley is flat between the Gabilans and the Santa Lucia mountains that separate it from the Pacific. Here, a different fog comes in summer, when inland heating draws in a marine layer of cooler, moist air from the ocean. The sea-born fog does not lie still on the land, but seeps over the folded hillsides, rising and falling along the river bottom. When the fog comes and the mountains are hidden, the world is an abstraction and you are alone with your thoughts.”

Some history of the region, which now produces much of the vegetable crops that feed America:

“In 1602, a Spanish explorer, Sebastian Viscaino, sailed up the California coast as far as the estuary of the Salinas River. Captivated by the harbor near the river’s mouth, and by the panorama of mountains and rocky headlands that curled into the Pacific around the northern and southern ends of a great by, he named the place Monterey. In 1769, a Spanish expedition coming overland from Baja reached the southern tip of the Salinas Valley and found it an unpromising place. “The hills,” their report read, “gradually became lower, and, spreading out at the same time, made the canyon wider; at this place, in sight of two low points formed by the hills, it extends for more than three leagues.” The soil, the report continued, was poor and offered “treacherous footing,” as it was “full of fissures that crossed in all directions, whitish in color, and scant of pasture.”

Who knew that the beautiful coastline around Pacific Grove was once owned by a Scot? Can you imagine what those 100,000 acres are worth today?

“Rising from the water’s edge in sloping terraces to a high, forested ridge, Pacific Grove was wedged between the towns of Monterey and Carmel. In the late 1800s, there was a quiet wilderness of woods and grazing lands mostly owned by a rancher named David Jacks. Jacks had come to the peninsula in 1849 from Scotland with an unquenchable thirst for land. Eventually he owned more than 100,000 acres.”

Some interesting history of Stanford University:

“Young, shy, uninterested in school, and reluctant to admit to anyone what he hoped to become, Steinbeck was unlikely Stanford material. Opened in 1891 – its first student was future U.S. president Herbert Hoover – the university had begun as a monument to Leland Stanford Jr. The only child of Leland and Jane Stanford, Leland Jr. had died of typhus at the age of fifteen.”

“Mors was the same age as Steinbeck. He’d grown up in Los Gatos, only twenty miles away, and entered Stanford at the age of sixteen.”

Steinbeck wandered from city to city, taking odd jobs as he worked on his writing in the evenings.

“He also got Steinbeck a job as a laborer on a project in midtown Manhattan: the construction of Madison Square Garden, which was being rushed to completion before the end of the year. Steinbeck’s job was moving cement up the inside scaffolding with a wheelbarrow, load after aching load.”

An interesting fact about Monterey Bay. I had no idea it was that deep:

“Monterey Bay was one of the world’s most active fisheries, owing in part to its unique subsurface contours. Only a short distance from shore, the Continental Shelf splits, and the bottom plunges to a depth of nearly 12,000 feet in a sheer abyss called the Monterey Bay Canyon.”

I’ve been listening to an album called “Day of the Dead” while writing this post. It’s a series of Grateful Dead cover songs and I really like most of them. Here’s a sampling. Highly recommended if you enjoy their music.