I Heard "Our" Woodpecker

This morning, reading in the family room, I heard it: our woodpecker.

I say "our" woodpecker because he (she? I'll go with "it") is a regular annual visitor to our neighborhood, and I hear its rapid rat-a-tat-tat with mixed feelings: I'm glad the woodpecker is back--but is it on our property? Our house.

Some years, it has been.

I loved woodpeckers when I was a kid. Woody Woodpecker was a favorite cartoon character. (See pic at the top of the post.) (Link to some older cartoon footage.) I read the Woody comic books, too. He was frolicsome, funny, disrespectful (loved that as a kid--not so much later on)--and always, somehow, seemed to regain his sense of humor even after a dire (!) experience. And we heard his trademark laugh.

I don't know when I've seen a Woody cartoon, but I just checked on YouTube, and I saw that there are newer shows running--ones featuring living actors, too. I'll not link to them--they somehow annoy me. Something's very wrong about it.

Wikipedia tells me Woody was born in 1940 from the mind and pen of Walter Lanz and one of his artists, Ben "Bugs" Hardaway. Woody's voice, originally, came from the gifted Mel Blanc. The cartoons played at movie theaters (as part of the pre-show entertainment) until 1972, and then the cartoons moved to TV for The Woody Woodpecker Show (1957-58--then in syndication till 1966, the year I graduated from college).

So, basically, Woody was with me from birth to the beginning of my teaching career in the fall of 1966.

And I loved him--far better than Donald Duck and that crowd. Right up there, in my book, with Bugs and his buddies was Woody.

But ... my woodpecker-fondness diminished considerably the first time I heard one pounding on our house. It was loud; it was destructive; it made me think of (but not act upon) avicide.

Instead, we did some online research, learned that owls frighten them, so we went to Ace Hardware and bought a large fake owl--which produced owlish sounds when something was nearby--placed it on the roof near our woodpecker's favorite spot, and ... he did not return!

Another year he attacked our cedar fence. Plastic owl redux. Good-bye, woodpecker.

The last few years (his memory must be impressive) he has not been on our property at all but on the neighbors'. So I find the sound much more pleasant, you know? A sign of spring.

****

BTW: I see an ad all the time on Hulu--an ad for TIAA (Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association, a retirement plan once aimed at teachers but now generally available). It was first established by Andrew Carnegie--yes, the steel and library guy.

Anyway, the ad: It shows a researcher suspended high in a tree with camera equipment; he whispers to us that he is there to establish proof of the existence of the ivory-billed woodpecker. But as he readies his camera, he discovers the battery is too low, and as he scrambles for a replacement, the woodpecker emerges from its hole and flies away. We hear the guy drop his camera, and as the voice-over tells us about how batteries run out but TIAA lifetime income doesn't, we hear the guy fall from the tree!

All the woodpecker's fault!

Found the ad on Google--didn't have to write that longish paragraph about it! Not gonna delete it, though. That would make my post seem too short!

Link to ad.

Let's Talk about ...

Let's talk about my waistline.

Let's not.

Well, maybe just a little?

I was thinking the other night about something my father had done, years ago, that surprised me. I was in high school, and we were out at the Sears store at Southgate Plaza. (My parents loved Sears--got the catalogs, etc. Had the charge plates--no cards in those days.)

We were getting me some new pants. And at the men's section, the clerk, hearing my dad's request, asked what size. And my dad--without batting an eyelid--said: "30-30." Thirty-inch waist, thirty-inch inseam.

How did he know that? I had absolutely no idea about my, uh, measurements.

I didn't even try them on. Took them home. Fit perfectly. Oh, the things dads know!

I haven't seen that first thirty (the waistline) in quite a bit. Once I got into my twenties I started adding weight pretty steadily. At one point, my waistline reached a thirty-six.

And at that point one day, I ran into one of my grad school profs at Kent State. "How you doing, Fatter-Than-Me?" he asked.

I couldn't punch him. So I went on a diet. And was, after some months, back into pants very nearly a thirty. My weight had gone from 195 to 150.

Since then--that was in the 1970s--I've been up and down--never back to a thirty-six; a thirty-four is about all I'll tolerate.

I'm wearing thirty-threes right now, and it's difficult to maintain for a few reasons: (1) I'm older; (2) I'm on a med that has a weight-gain side-effect; (3) I have trouble exercising now--my balance is terrible, so I have stopped going out to the gym (which for years had been a fairly daily routine) until my doctors, who are somewhat otherwise occupied these days, can figure out what's going on; (4) I'm home-bound by the virus (Joyce and I try to walk a mile a day).

But I'm being careful about what I eat--no seconds, no desserts, no snacks--but I can tell from my cruel belt that I'm not exactly holding steady. I mean, I'm  not ballooning, but things are getting ... tighter.

Our daily diet is healthful, too: low-fat, low-cholesterol. NOT low-carb: I love my sourdough bread too much, though I eat only a couple of slices a day.

I've been on all kinds of diets over the decades. And all of them worked--until they didn't (i.e., I stopped). But the one that's always worked the best for me? Eat less, exercise more.

Well, I'm doing the first part, but the second part is very hard right now.

And, of course, I have a genetic history that makes weight gain even more easy. My dad put on weight easily--as did his brothers. It's probably why we survived, you know? We could store it up for the lean seasons.

But in modern American life for a middle-class guy like me there is no longer a "lean season."

And so my daily battle with the belt-line continues--a battle, as I'm fully aware, so many people around the world--here and everywhere--can never imagine during their daily struggles for food, for the sustenance that is their hope, their salvation.

I now feel ashamed, writing about this "problem" of mine.

So I'll stop ...

Sunday Sundries, 270

1. HBOTW [Human Beings of the Week]: Michelle Cozens and her son, Sam, who, apparently having read my blog post yesterday about gloom in the sky, drew a large chalk sun on our front walk--without our noticing until we got a message from her husband, Chris. There were tears on Church Street when we saw it.

2. I finished three books this week (nearly four), but I figured I'd better save one for next week!); don't be impressed: I'm house-bound!

     - The first, via Kindle, is the latest Jack Reacher novel, Blue Moon, by Lee Child. This one begins as Reacher exits a bus in an unnamed medium-sized city to help a fellow passenger, also debussed, an elderly man about to be mugged. And off we go ...

We learn that the city is split in half, controlled on one side by a Unkranian mob, on the other by an Albanian one. Reacher, of course, gets caught up with both of them, and before all is over, he has rounded up some allies (a young woman, who provides several services), some former military guys (there's some inter-branch banter among them), has engaged in major firefights with both sides. As many dead as in a John Wick film.

Oh, and atop all is a creepo the Ukranians are protecting fiercely--a guy who creates and shares fake news (and porn, too) all over the Internet. (Divide us; conquer us.) Let's guess what happens to him!

     - The second was a 1997 novel by Ian McEwan, Enduring Love. (As I've mentioned here before, I'm reading all the McEwan novels that I've not read before.)

This one begins with a horrible accident. A man and his lover are having a rural picnic and they see a hot-air balloon in trouble. He and some others rush for it, but the wind is too fierce and although they manage to save the father and son in the basket (the son at first soars off--but all is well), one of the men helping out, who, like the others, is holding onto the mooring rope, is swept up into the air and, letting go too late, falls to his death.

And off we go. Our narrator (the guy on the picnic--he's a noted science writer) is ravaged by grief (he had let go of the rope), and this creates cracks in his relationship with his lover (who's a professor doing research on Keats and Fanny Brawne). Another young man who was trying to help is clearly deranged and believes our narrator is in love with him. And commences stalking him.

Things grow ever more serious and tense until practically the final pages.

Once again, McEwan shows that few writers equal him in his understanding of the human heart and mind.

     - Finally, I finished a short novel by Claude McKay (1889-1948), a writer closely tied to the Harlem Renaissance (1920s). This novel, Romance in Marseille (he Americanized the spelling of Marseilles), which McKay worked on in the 1930s, was never published, though versions of it have lain in two major library collections. It was not a "discovery," this manuscript; scholars have long known about it. But now ... it's published for the first time. (A fine Introduction explains all of this.)

The novel focuses on Lafala, a young black man hanging out on the wharves at Marseille. He's from western Africa, has very little money, but is popular there, loves to dance, and is on the prowl for love.

Dumped and betrayed by a young woman named Aslima, he stows away in a ship, is caught, is confined in a bitterly cold space, and, as a result, ends up losing both legs.

But a lawyer helps him extract a significant settlement from the shipping company (the lawyer turns out to be not so generous), and he returns to Marseille, bucks up, and his popularity returns.

Aslima checks him out again.

And off we go on a romance (is it?), a scam (is it?), a decision to return to Africa (does he?).

McKay fills the book with a wide variety of characters--gay ones (men and women), pimps, lawyers, true friends, false ones, drunks, bartenders, people with a social conscience (!).

But throughout we see a strength in Lafala, a strength that, in the end, serves him well.

I enjoyed this novel--though it could have benefited from some editing in McKay's life (only mild editorial alterations in this edition). Example: Halfway through we meet a character we easily could have met earlier--and I'm sure McKay could/would have fixed that, had he pursued publication.

3. Okay, Confession Time: I streamed Dodgeball this week. Confession Time 2: I've seen it multiple times. (Link to some video.)

Need I say that Joyce did not join me?

4. Confession #3: I'm now streaming The Other Guys for the second time since our incarceration. (Need I say that Joyce ...?) (Link to some video.)

5. I'm a complicated guy.

6. Joyce and I, together, are streaming some shows for about an hour just before Lights Out, including Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Detectorists, The Black Adder, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Blood, Waking the Dead. We like to end the night with some stand-up--and doing so has shown me how tired I am of jokes about sex and body parts. C'mon, folks--do something original!

7. Last Word--a word I liked this week from one of my online word-of-the-day providers ...

     - from wordsmith.org

Hippocrene (HIP-uh-kreen, -kree-nee)

noun: Poetic or literary inspiration.

ETYMOLOGY: In Greek mythology, Hippocrene was a spring on Mt. Helicon and was created by a stroke of Pegasus’s hoof. From Greek hippos (horse) + krene (fountain, spring). Ultimately from the Indo-European root ekwo- (horse), which also gave us equestrian, equitant, hippodrome, and hippology. Earliest documented use: 1598.

USAGE: “But, instead of merely serving as bistros for coffee and cake connoisseurs, these cafés also serve as a Hippocrene of sorts for writers to brew up inspiration.”

Nida Sayed; Riverside Rendezvous; The Times of India (New Delhi); Jun 14, 2015.

Gloomy, Drippy Days

Gloomy, drippy days--I hated them when I was a kid, when I was an adolescent. In childhood, it meant no biking around, no playing outside with my friends. On school days it meant putting on galoshes and a raincoat (and hat!) and sloshing my way to school, which, of course, was about ten miles away.

Or so it seemed on rainy days.

Later on, it had other dark meanings. No baseball practices or games. On spring afternoons I remember sitting in the Hiram School study hall, which had west-facing windows, and grieving when I saw, after lunch, the dark clouds forming on the horizon, moving my way. Why! I would think. Why does the weather hate me so much?!

My mother tried to assure me it was nothing personal. I was not so sure about that.

In college, the gloom remained for me. Rain meant no tennis practice or matches. I should have been grateful for the latter: Although I "earned" four varsity letters in tennis at Hiram College, our team was not exactly dominant, and I? Well, let's just say that I was empathetic--and wanted to see my opponents happy. It's not that they were really better than I ...

During my jogging years (I started in 1978, when I was in my early 30s, finished, oh, a half-dozen years ago or so when my balance and dizziness became issues), the rain didn't dissuade me. I would not go out to jog when lightning was dancing around, but otherwise I did. Being soaked when I arrived home was evident evidence that I was virtuous.

I spent the last decade of my teaching career at Western Reserve Academy here in Hudson, and, since we live only a couple of blocks away, I biked or walked to school on most days. (Lightning meant the car; blizzard meant the car.)  My umbrella above me.

I have to say that umbrella-users are sometimes ... disparaged around here--as if using one were a sign of virility's wane. I see people scurrying through the rain, sans umbrella, all the time. But I'd rather be wimpy and dry than virile and soaked. (Which, of course, is a clue to my age.)

And nowadays, virtually housebound, I feel another ill effect of such weather as we are having today (clouds, intermittent rain, occasional lightning and thunder). My mood darkens with the sky. (I feel, in ways, like my Boy Self: Why does the weather hate me so much?)

As I've written here recently, Joyce and I do not go out much at all now. We've been taking an afternoon walk of about a mile; we drive to pick up the groceries we've ordered at Acme once a week. That's about it. I know some people are going for drives, and we did a bit of that a couple of weeks ago, but my desire to do so has waned as the self-imprisonment has continued.

I just feel better when I look outside my study window and see people walking by with their dogs and/or their kids and/or their significant others.

I swear to you: Just this moment a woman walked briskly by with two (wet) dogs. (No umbrella.)

I don't want to complain--I've not lost a job, an income; I'm not yet sick; I am not alone. Upstairs at this moment is the love of my life. Complaining seems so ... petty. So ungrateful.

So I won't complain. I'll just wish that the sun were out. And that the weather didn't hate me so much.

Foul-Up!

Foul-up is not the expression I wanted to use here. I was thinking of a ... stronger one. But ... this is a family-friendly site, and I also believe that my mother, though she has been dead for a couple of years, would somehow know what I had written and would make ... arrangements ... to deal with me.

Let's back up a little.

I've always been very fastidious about backing up computer files--clear back to the 1980s when I was using a Kaypro II. (See pic.)

I use Word (and have ever since it defeated Word Perfect, a program I much preferred) and have always backed up files on my hard drive--and on two different external places (jump drive, external hard drive). And I've never lost much of anything as a result.

Enter One Drive, the "cloud" for Word.

For Some Dumb Reason on one particular project I have not been so anal about backing up--and that project, oddly enough, is one that's very dear to me.

Explanation: Joyce and I have two grandsons. One, Logan, just turned 15; the other, Carson, will turn 11 on April 3. Since their second birthdays Joyce and I have been writing little stories for them. We sort of "publish" them, too--color printing, graphics, nice binders, etc.

Now that the boys are older, the stories have evolved from simple doggerel narratives to full-fledged short stories (well, sort of).

I usually start working on them about six weeks before the Big Day--often writing for a half-hour or so on my iPad over at Open Door Coffee Co. in the afternoon.

I love the iPad, love One Drive. What I type over at the coffee shop becomes immediately accessible on my iPhone and laptop.

Convenient.

And dangerous. Well, "dangerous" if you're careless.

As I was yesterday.

Joyce and I had finished the story, so it was time to format it, put in the picture we were going to use. So into my study I went, opened  the file from One Drive, also opened last year’s story so I could paste the new one into the old one (and thus gain its formatting).

But I wasn’t paying close attention, and before I knew it, I had two copies of last year’s story—and none of this year’s.

When I realized what I’d done—and when I’d tried the quick remedies—and when nothing worked, I felt myself about as near to a massive stroke and heart attack as I have ever been. (Later, when I went up to tell Joyce, she said she’d never seen me so pale—and those who know me know that I am really pale, even under the most favorable of circumstances!)

Now what? I knew I could not rewrite it from memory—and the thought of starting over with only about a week before his birthday launched another fresh assault on my heart.

I started fussing around on Word, looking at options, clicking on things I’d never clicked on before, and, quite by accident, I found a way to access—and reopen—and save—earlier versions of a document.

I clicked on the one that seemed—based on the day and time—to be the most recent of the 2020 story.

And ...

And ...

And ...

IT WAS!

My sigh of relief blew out an entire wall of my study and sent the nearby birds back to their winter retreats.

I saved-saved-saved (three locations) and headed upstairs to tell my story.

And learned how pale I looked.

So, in a few, I’m going to head back to my study and prepare the story—do it the Right Way.

And I will NEVER AGAIN save something only on One Drive.

What I See Around the Neighborhood

The neighbor right across the street has cleaned out her basement. That created in me a couple of fairly simultaneous reactions: (1) I should do that; (2) I'm not gonna do that.

But it's been interesting to me, so far, to see what's been going on around us. I should say that we haven't been out much the past couple of weeks: a trip to the grocery store for a pickup, some afternoon walks around the neighborhood. But I have noticed a few things that are a bit out of the ordinary ...

I had no idea that so many people had dogs. And, oh, are those dogs getting some exercise these days! Since I haven't had a dog in many years, I've lost the ability to read their facial expressions (if, indeed, I ever had such a skill), but some of them seem to me to be thinking We're not doing this again, are we?

A lot of birds are back. I hear mourning doves early in the ... morning. And Joyce and I are hoping they will not nest where they've done so the past few years--on a precarious spot on our garage. I mean, we love mourning doves, but their favored location is not the safest one. (Little ones have been on the ground more than once.) But, hey, location, location, location, right?

I've seen a lot of people on bicycles--of all ages (well, not all). They zoom up and down our street as if it's just a normal spring day. Insouciant and patently hopeful.

It's odd to see kids out on the streets in the middle of a March week. They should be in school, of course, and although I know most school systems are quickly converting to online classes, it just ain't the same--not for them, not for the teachers. (A career teacher myself, I cannot imagine having to do this, and I know I would grieve for the loss of all those interactions in class--well, maybe not all of them).

Lots of people are also out walking--Joyce and I among them. Since the two health clubs in town are closed, and since most people are at home all day (with the temptations of cupboard and fridge and freezer), some out in the streets are desperately trying to keep from having to make ... adjustments ... with their belts, with their clothing--I among them.

I'm really trying hard not to eat too much. I have two problems: the Dyer genes (we have one labeled FAT), and one of the meds I'm on, a med that makes weight gain ridiculously simple. So I'm not eating at all between meals, and when I do have a meal, I take no seconds, award myself no giant portions, or take from Joyce's plate what she doesn't want, etc.

I see people working in their yards, too--raking up the detritus of winter, weeding, standing to admire the emerging daffodils, the upward green pokes of future day lilies and irises and others. We haven't done much in that regard--though we do have a lawn service (I gave up mowing years ago), and they came by last week and spent a delightful hour with their leaf-blowers; it was, of course, the very hour I was trying to nap.

Some are sitting on their porches, barking greetings to pedestrians. I know: Barking seems like a fairly harsh, even judgmental, verb/participle. Maybe I picked it because of all the dogs around? Of course, the pedestrians have to return the bark--social distancing, right? You can't go up on the porch and schmooze and booze and whatever. (I'm kind of grateful for that--I'm a bit of an isolate. A good way to be these days.)

I just saw a baby carriage with two young parents go by my window. I can't imagine the parents' terror.

It's a beautiful day here in Hudson, Ohio. And Joyce and I will slip out later for our walk, moving far aside when we encounter other walkers coming the other direction.

And now I'm off for a late-morning nap. I'm trusting the lawn crew has no further noisy business here today.

Afternoon-Evening Routine

On Saturday, I posted here about how I'm spending my mornings in these Viral Days. And I got a note from a former student who asked about the afternoons. So ... you can blame her for this one!

Here's a shocker: Joyce and I eat lunch about noon. Our menus are not too much alike. She loves salads (I eat but do not crave them), makes soup (this week it's potato), sometimes has a bagel (with some restrained gobs of JIF crunchy), some yogurt;

I have basically the same thing I've eaten for lunch for, oh, about forty years. Lowfat vanilla yogurt with sliced fruit, a slice of homemade sourdough bread with some fruit preserves (this week it's blackberry from Szalay's Farm Market), 8 oz of pomegranate juice, a little flavored bubbly water.

We sit at a little table in our family room and (as Petruchio says at Bianca's wedding near the end of The Taming of the Shrew), "Nothing but sit and sit and eat and eat" (5.2).  But we also talk and talk. A lot.

After lunch, we separate: She goes upstairs to read and write (she's currently reading James McBride's new one, Deacon King Kong).

I go to Venue 2 (Venue 1 is our family room), our living room in the front of the house--complete with (gas) fireplace, which I occasionally use (not recently). I settle onto the couch and, yesterday, I did the following (my general pattern every day):

• read the Cleveland Plain Dealer and Akron Beacon-Journal on my iPad
• wrote a silly poem about the sin of pride for my Daily Doggerel blog
• read 25 pp of a recently published novel by Claude McKay (1889-1948), an important figure in the Harlem Renaissance (the novel, Romance in Marseille [sic], had lain, unpublished till now, in the New York Public Library).
• posted on Facebook a silly poem I'd written the other day, "The Dingo That Loved Bingo"
• started an advanced reading copy of the new title I'm reviewing for Kirkus Reviews this week--not allowed to tell you what it is
• wrote a draft of another silly one, "An Emu Goes Cuckoo," which I'll post in a few days
• worked on final revisions for the birthday story Joyce and I have written for grandson Carson, who turns 11 on April 3 (we have written stories for both grandsons, starting at their 2nd birthday, I think); the older one, Logan, just turned fifteen
• I caught up on email and Facebook
• about 2:30 I quit working, and Joyce and I went for a walk of about a mile around our neighborhood (widely avoiding other walkers)
• home: I sprinted for bed and slept about an hour (my daily custom)
• awake, I fussed with my computer and shut it down for the night
• dinner prep (last night we shared a small piece of salmon + mixed rice + carrots and green beans + some sourdough bread); I also had--as I do every night--a medium banana and an apple.
• while eating, we watched some of an older Late Night with Seth Meyers; one guest was James Taylor, who sang "Teach Me Tonight"--it had both of us wiping our eyes
• we'd met Taylor once, years ago, at Tanglewood in Lenox, Mass.; my older brother was then covering the Boston Symphony for the Boston Globe; Tanglewood is the Blossom of Mass.!
• after cleaning up we headed upstairs to read; my read-in-bed books total eight now (3 are on Kindle): a Wilkie Collins (Heart and Science), Little Women, Hilary Mantel's The Mirror and the Light (her conclusion to her Thomas Cromwell trilogy), The Black Wave (a book of history about turmoil in the Middle East), The Stories of Alice Adams (almost done with it!); on Kindle, it's the new one by Lee Child , Blue Moon; another one by Val McDermid (whose works about Tony Hill/Carol Jordan I'm reading in order), The Torment of Others; an earlier one by Ken Bruen (A White Arrest)
• I try to read about 10 pp in each during this bedtime reading-time
• Joyce joins me in bed about 7, and we stream about an hour--pieces of the shows we like
• Lights Out between 8-8:30 (I know: I'm an Old Guy)

And the next morning, we begin again ...

Whew .. I'm tired just typing all of this--and a bit bored. Imagine how you must feel if you managed to read all of this!

1903

Tomorrow will be 1903. No, not the year--though that year has some significance for me: It was the year that MacMillan published Jack London's The Call of the Wild, the novella that would propel him into enduring (so far) celebrity. (As many of you know, I've researched and written a bit about London and Wild.)

No, tomorrow will be 1903 because that's the number of posts I will have uploaded to Daily Doggerel, my other blog here on blogger.com. (Link to that Daily Doggerel blog.)

I started posting there on September 13, 2014, and I confess that I have not ever consulted the totals, the number, the hits. I don't care. Nor have I looked again at that initial post--until right now. And at the bottom of this post I have pasted that original one from five and a half years ago (well, most of it).

One of the things that shocks me is that I apparently have in me a boundless supply of silly, insubstantial verse. (Have I been hoarding it, all my life, like toilet paper?)

I guess I really discovered I had a facility for it when I was writing shows with my middle school students back in Aurora. Lyrics set to well-known songs flew out of me like startled birds.

"All we need is to be freed from Phillip Marlowe!" sang the cast of The Periwinkle Perplex (April 1976). a show we'd written to be a kind of take-off on a Marlowe mystery (those wonderful novels by Raymond Chandler).

That line I just quoted: It fits into "In the Mood" by Glenn Miller. (Link to the song performed by the Andrews Sisters.)

I committed such plagiaristic degradation in show after show in Aurora--then did it again at Western Reserve Academy in 1980 when the drama class (taught by another) put on WRA and Peace, a show in the old Aurora-style, a show that "featured" ridiculous lyrics by you-know-who.

Then I returned to Aurora in the fall of 1982, committed more lyrical atrocities, all the way to my final show there in the spring of 1996.

And then ... some years of silence. And the pressure built.

Until all exploded out of me again, as if a sewer pipe inside me had broken, all because of Facebook and blogger.com.

So you should blame technology and the Internet, not me.

Anyway, I did not write about #1902 (today's) because I wanted to use #1903 (because of Wild). So ... pressure's on! Will I find something to post tomorrow?

Yeah. I already wrote it.

Saturday, September 13, 2014

And So We Begin ...

For the past several years I've been posting to Facebook each day some little ditties that, collectively, I've been calling "Daily Doggerel." Initially, I called them "Daily Quatrains," but I soon found I needed, at times, to be more ... expansive. Four lines just were insufficient to communicate the range of my--what?--insubstantiality? My superficiality?

Anyway, I soon was adding other little daily ditties, too. From my word-of-the-day calendar I would compose a little couplet (or more) about the word from the day before; I also began summarizing the plays of Shakespeare in rhymed couplets of iambic pentameter (hmmm ... wonder where I got that idea?).

It was not long before the whole thing was out of control. I had accumulated so many of the ditties that I decided to collect, then publish them on Kindle Direct. On June 6, 2013, I uploaded the first of what has now grown to be six volumes (each about 100 pp long); the seventh will appear at the end of November/beginning of December.  Here's a link to my Amazon Author Page where you can see these volumes--and others of more legitimate stature (an annotated edition of The Call of the Wild, a YA bio of Jack London, and numerous others).

So what are these "poems" about? In the e-published volumes, I arrange the pieces by categories--such as the following: Family; Films, Movies, Books; Quotidian Quandaries & Quibbles; Rants; Nature and Animals; Seasons and Celebrations; etc.

In order to repel a wider audience, I'm no longer going to post the doggerel on Facebook; instead, I'll put them on this site (with a link on FB) so that legions (!) of other readers can take a look and wonder in the basements of their souls what on earth is wrong with this man?

Seeking Wee Normalities

As these days crawl along, I'm seeking solace in the wee things that are still somewhat normal (the old normal, not the new one).

This morning, for example, I balanced my checking account--and I was right, to the penny! Of course, it's a lot easier nowadays. I use Quicken--and have done so since it was a DOS program (and that alone will date me). Mid-90s. (Here's what Wikipedia has to say about DOS.) Basically, it was Microsoft's pre-Windows Disc Operating System: MS-DOS.

Anyway, balancing on Quicken, as I said, is a lot easier than what I used to have to do, back in checkbook days (I use a checkbook now only about a half-dozen times a year--if that).

Among my end-of-the-week Friday night routines when I was teaching was to write checks for the week and--once a month--to compare my checkbook balance with the bank's. And that was not always fun--especially in my early years when a few cents made all the difference between a sigh of relief and an overdraft notice.

I've written here before that my first take-home salary from the Aurora Middle School (1966-67) was $168.42, paid on the 1st and 15th of each month. Such a number--such a pathetic number--did not leave a lot of room for Error. And I am not kidding--not at all--when I say that by the end of each pay period my balance was virtually always less than one dollar. (The bank must have loved me.)

But those days (for now?) are over, and Quicken accomplishes in seconds what it used to take a half-hour (or more) to do.

Let's see ... what else?

Our daily newspapers are still arriving. We subscribe to three (we are really Old School in this regard). We take the Cleveland Plain Dealer (for whom, in balmier days--for them ... and me--I used to write op-eds and book reviews), the Akron Beacon-Journal (which has been in Joyce's life since her very beginning--and our son was a reporter there for a decade), and the New York Times, whose Arts section I devour like Snickers bars).

Now here's the weird thing: I actually read all three of those papers online--and only when I see something "clippable" (something about a writer I like--or a play I used to teach--or ...), do I even open the "physical" paper and snip away, then put the clipping in one of our bulging file cabinets.

Makes no sense. Yet it does:

If I stop doing it, I'll die. Simple as that.

Okay, one more thing ... I'm still baking sourdough bread almost every Sunday (some weeks I have such a backlog of loaves that I use the sourdough for something else--waffles, muffins, pizza, etc.). My starter will turn 34 this summer. Bought it in Skagway, Alaska, in 1986.

My Facebook friends are sadly aware of this baking habit of mine because I invariably post a bread pic. Here's yesterday's ...

There are other routine things that I do to try to keep myself sane during these sanity-bashing days of ours. But you get the idea. It all descends to this: Persevere--do the things you love--the things you need--to the extent that such things are possible during a lock-down.

Depression lurks in the shadows, waiting, but Routine and Passion are two of his most potent enemies. Embrace them.

Sunday Sundries, 269

1. HBsOTW [Human Beings of the Week]: Two this week. (1) Friend Chris Cozens who has, every day, brought me coffee from Open Door (I'm being cautious--staying at home); I try not to to cry every time he shows up; (2) Former Hiram High classmate Ralph Green, who, I discovered quite by accident, had added some information on Find-a-Grave about my parents. Oh, was I touched when I saw that!

2. I finished two books this week--one was on my "night pile" (my 10-pp-per-night pile), the other I read during the week.

    - The former was Don't Believe a Word: The Surprising Truth about Language, 2019. I'd read a stellar review of it somewhere (?) and ordered it right away.

Author David Shariatmadari works at The Guardian  and studied linguistics at Cambridge. Basically, it's a "catch-up" book: What has gone on in recent decades in linguistics? (A lot!) But the most interesting part for me came near the end when he went into recent thinking about how we acquire language in the first place--a stunning achievement, of course. Toddlers listen, make noises, then, eventually, compound-complex sentences.

He talks about how recent work has greatly modified the theories of Noam Chomsky, who for decades has been on the Mount Rushmore of Linguists. (Chomsky has argued for an innate, Universal Grammar. Doesn't seem to hold the same amount of water it used to.)

I still remember our toddler son, making silly sounds. Then, one day, here came this: "When you are sad, Mom, then I get sad, too."

WHAT!?

And all of us in our lives, at some point, said something remarkable that dazzled our parents. (Well, maybe I didn't. There are better, more accurate words than dazzled!)

The book's a little dense in places, but I did it!

     - The second was the first novel of Arthur Phillips, Prague (2002). Some years ago I read his wonderful The Tragedy of Arthur, 2011, a novel that impressed me about as much as a novel can. Then, recently, I read his latest one, The King at the Edge of the World, 2020, which also--to coin a phrase--blew me away.

So ... I decided to read his earlier books (there are only four--he's young yet), beginning with his first, which, as I said, is Prague.

The novel takes place in ... three guesses! In the early 1990s. And we follow a collection of characters, principally a young man named John, who shows up one day to stay with his brother, Scott, who, to put it bluntly, is something of a dick.

Phillips shifts us around, character by character, until we get to know them all very well. John catches on as a local journalist--does well--until ... ain't tellin' you.

Yes, there's love; yes, there's sex; yes, there are surprises galore.

Eventually, John leaves, and as he's aboard the train, he thinks: "Life will start there, at the end of this ride" (366). True for all of us, in various ways.

Lots of detail about the city--lots of insights into some of the darkest--and brightest--recesses of the human heart.

3. We had good luck--very good luck--shopping online this week at Acme here in Hudson. All their products are listed online (they've provided curbside pickup for quite some time), so we sent in our order, told them the day and time we'd like to have pick-up; they gave us a two-hour window; we drove over there in the time frame, called, and out came a young man with our order and put it in the trunk which I'd already opened. And off we drove ...

They had almost everything we'd ordered (some things--sanitary wipes--not yet available). Quality very good. We're going to keep doing this till this crisis is over.

4.  We're streaming only about an hour a night--just before beddie-bye. Don't want to gobble up everything we want to watch and be stuck with things we don't want to watch. The rest of the time we're reading and writing and talking and cooking and (in my case) napping!

5. Lots of walkers around Hudson these days--many people with their dogs and children. Everyone's being prudent, I hope.

6. Baking bread today, as is my Sunday custom, and hoping to Face Time later today with our son and his family.

7. Be safe!

8. Last Word: A word I liked this week from one of my various online word-of-the-day providers ...

     - from dictionary.com

hypermnesia [hahy-perm-nee-zhuh ]

noun: the condition of having an unusually vivid or precise memory.

WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF HYPERMNESIA? Hypermnesia, a medical or psychological term meaning “the condition of having an unusually vivid or precise memory,” is composed of the familiar prefix hyper-, which usually implies excess or exaggeration, the Greek noun mnêsis “memory,” and the Greek abstract noun suffix –ia. Hypermnesia entered English in the late 19th century.

Psychologists have investigated some persons with exceptional memories – said to exhibit “hypermnesia”. The most famous of these was a Russian, code-named “S”, who could recall long random series of numbers or words without error, many years later. ALUN REES, "IF ONLY I COULD REMEMBER HER NAME," NEW SCIENTIST, DECEMBER 24, 1994 

This sharpened memory is called hypermnesia. A frequent experience in dreaming is a hypermnesia with regard to childhood scenes. FREDERICK PETERSON, "THE NEW DIVINATION OF DREAMS," HARPER'S MAGAZINE, VOL. 115, JUNE 1907

How I'm Spending My Day--So Far

It's only about 9:30 a.m. right now, but I thought it would be fun (for me--but not for you probably!) to form a little list of what I've been doing.

BTW: As I was typing "a little list" I suddenly thought about the Hiram High School production of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado, my freshman year (1958-59), directed by Mrs. Dreisbach. I got one of the minor roles (Pish-Tush) only because the guy who'd originally won the role mysteriously quit after a rehearsal or two. It changed my life. I became interested in play productions--would go on to direct more than 30 of them in the Aurora City Schools (all but two at the middle school)--would obsessively read and go to plays, etc.

Anyway, the "little list" ... it appears in the song "I've Got a Little List," sung by Koko, the Lord High Executioner, played wonderfully by the late David Underwood in our production. In it, he sings about the sorts of people he'd love to execute. There are many versions of the song on YouTube, but most of them have "updated" lyrics that deal with people we'd like to execute now.

I should add--if we're being frank here--that my voice in 1958 had only recently been changing from its brilliant, Vienna-Boys-Choir soprano (!) to its current ordinary baritone. (I praise myself with "ordinary.") So, back then about every sound that came out of me was a surprise.

Okay, back to my little list for today ...

I got up about 6 a.m., checked on Joyce (who, in recent years has had some trouble sleeping and so moves to the back bedroom later in the night after I've leapt into the arms of Morpheus), went downstairs (as is my wont) to unload the dishwasher and put the dishes away.

Upstairs I came to discover (as always) that Joyce had made our bed--and then returned to the back. I took my shower, dressed. And in the mirror, of course, I noticed that my hair and beard are having a good time. When (If?) all this is all over, I'm going to look like Rip Van Winkle--after he wakes up.

Downstairs again where I went to my study and did some catching up on my journal and Quicken; I wrote for our family a wee doggerel using today's word-of-the-day on our tear-off calendar. (I do this every day--or have done so since January 2019). Here's today's ...

VERNAL = OF, RELATING TO, OR OCCURRING IN THE SPIRNG; FRESH OR NEW LIKE SPRING

In these early VERNAL days

The weather changes—all the time.

One day it’s cold—with cloudy haze—

And next the weather’s really prime!

I also posted on my 2nd blog, Daily Doggerel, today's lines about one of the Seven Deadly Sins (pride).

Then I headed to the kitchen, microwave-zapped one of my homemade scones, made some coffee in the Keurig, and settled into an easy chair to do my morning's work.

• I read the New York Times on my Kindle.
• I read my email and Facebook updates.
• I reviewed and texted the vocab doggerel to our family.
• I wrote another pride-related doggerel (for tomorrow's posting).
• I read/took notes on fifty pages of the Ian McEwan novel I'm reading right now (Enduring Love, 1997). I'm about halfway through--and, oh, is he good! And, oh, is the story troubling!
• About 9 I finished all of this, and I fed my sourdough starter for tomorrow's baking. The starter will bubble away in its covered bowl until about suppertime, at which time I will put a couple of cups back into its storage container in the fridge, put the bowl in the fridge and remove it tomorrow morning to warm up before I commence the prep and baking process.
• I returned to my study, where I balanced our checking account (via Quicken), checked email and Facebook again, then launched into this blog post.

It's now about 10 a.m., and in a few minutes I will head up to have Joyce read through this, and she will find several typos, and I will rage, rage against the dying of the light--my mental and visual light!

After blog-time with Joyce, I'll probably go again in search of Morpheus, who, I believe, is in our bedroom. Waiting.

Venturing Out—A Little, A Very, VERY Little

10 a.m.

Right now I am sitting in our car outside a doctor’s office in West Akron. Joyce is inside for a routine visit with a physician. Joyce had called the office earlier about a possible cancellation, but the doctor wants to see her. So here we are.

We were told that when we arrived, we should sit in the car and call the office. Then someone would get us when all was ready inside. So we did.

And, as I said, Joyce is inside now. I’m waiting. Nervously so.

We’re both a bit hyper about all of this. (“Paranoia strikes deep”—remember that old Buffalo Springfield song, "For What It's Worth"? Link to song.) We’re both in vulnerable demographics, and we’d like to emerge from all of this somewhat ... alive.

We haven’t really been out at all in a week—until yesterday. Early in the afternoon we took a walk around our neighborhood (about a mile, I guess), moving far, far away when we encountered other walkers. We all smiled and waved.

Then, after supper, we drove to McD’s to get some Diet Cokes—and were alarmed that both the young woman who took our money and the young man who delivered our drinks wore no sanitary gloves.

Back home, we scrub-a-dub-dubbed and sanitized our hands. Joyce wiped the cups with those sanitary wipes.

We’ve ordered our groceries this week via Acme online. We’ll pick them up late Saturday afternoon.

We’ll see how that goes.

And I’ve ordered from other sources some of my bread-making staples—things I usually went to Marc’s to find—or to Mustard Seed Market. (Marc’s, by the way, has a very good variety of flour and other related products.)

Our son offered to come up the other day, but we declined. I would never forgive myself if he acquired the virus that way. NEVER.

And so I sit and wait in the parking lot—thinking about this “new normal”—thinking about how much I miss my old routines—and freedom.

I smile when I remember that sometimes--in my pre-COVID-19 life--I used to think my routines were boring. Oh, what I would give to have such boredom back again!

*BTW: You probably noticed that the pic atop this post is a little ... delusional?

That Rock-up-the-Hill Guy

I woke up last night thinking about Sisyphus--that guy perpetually doomed to shoving a huge rock up a hill, only to have it roll back down again just before he reaches the top.

Nice fate.

What did he do to deserve that? And who condemned him?

He was the King of Corinth--and indeed had been its founder. And a gnarly knave. A liar, deceiver. (He even tricked Hades once--the guy, not the place.)

But it all caught up with him, and Zeus condemned him to this eternal struggle. (Here's a link to a pretty good summary of the story.)

Anyway, I lay in bed last night thinking about that story. I'd been feeling sorry for myself, having to stay somewhat cooped up for ... weeks? months?

But it didn't take much thought for me to realize that, compared with other folks, I've got it pretty damn easy. A house. A loving companion. A zillion books I've never gotten around to reading. Friends who check up on me. And on and on.

And so I fell back asleep, resolving to write today about Sisyphus and his Sisyphean labors.

But then I snapped awake about 5:30, remembered my blog topic--but could not for the life of me remember Sisyphus' name!

I, of course, could have fired up my phone and checked. But I was stubborn! I would find that damn name in my head!

About a half-hour later, I did.

I'd also been thinking about how ubiquitous that image of Sisyphus is--especially in cartoons and comic strips. Whenever I see one, which is pretty often, I post it. Below is a recent one that appeared the week of Presidents Day (I think), and if you Google "Sisyphus," you'll find a gazillion more.

Sisyphus remains one of the cultural figures that cartoonists can safely employ. (You want to entertain your audience, not puzzle them!) You know the others: Frankenstein's creature, Dracula, Noah and the ark, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Medusa (she with snakes for hair), King Arthur, Hamlet-with-the-skull-of-Yorick, Romeo and Juliet (in a Bugs Bunny cartoon is a version of the story), Rapunzel, Hansel & Gretel, Sherlock Holmes, Little Red Riding Hood, and on and on.

In that story of Sisyphus we all can see our own daily efforts, can't we? We struggle all day--then start over the next day.

Which is what all of us are doing right now--whatever our situation. As I've indicated above, many, many people are having profound battles now--loss of business, of job, of health, of the enduring stability that so many of us had felt was our American birthright.

And all we can do in the morning is find our rock, place our hands on it, brace ourselves. And push!

Your Check's in the Mail

About those government relief checks that will soon, I've read, be winging our way ...

I've already seen some harsh memes on Facebook, ones that say (not exact words), something like this:

Dear Never-Trumpers, I assume you'll not be cashing the check that is coming your way.

Others could reply, of course:

Dear Trumpers: I assume you'll not be cashing the check that is coming your way--government handout, you know? Bad thing.

I guess all of this means that even in our current hours of darkness, we're going to try to score political points against one another.

Why?

I pretty much avoid political posts on Facebook--and here--for reasons that I've written about before:

• It does no good. No meme ever changed anyone's mind. Those who agree with it will Like and Share. Those who don't will ignore--or Unfriend. Or block. Or scroll faster. Or whatever.
• The vast majority of my Facebook friends are former students--and they lie all over the political map--reside on both ends of the Left-Right continuum. And I've realized that I don't have to agree with them; I just have so many fond memories of (most of) them--in class, onstage, elsewhere--that I just can't dismiss them. Erase them.
• I've unfriended only one person during my eight years or so on FB--and it had nothing to do with politics. It was a personal issue that went back decades, and I just decided I didn't want to deal with it. So ... now ... every day I see on FB any number of posts that I enthusiastically agree or disagree with. I don't respond to them--even if they refer to me. As I said, it's pointless. Okay, I will sometimes Like something political--but I never dive into the ensuing stream, a stream that often begins coolly enough--but can end up a flaming river that consumes all.

In these viral times, especially, I'm thinking we need to draw together more closely, not look for reasons to shove one another away, to assign one another categories (and thus ease the dismissal of those in the "wrong" category)--social distancing, yes, but only in a physical sense.

It's a sad reality that there are those who have always profited--politically, financially, whatever--from dividing us. Us-vs.-Them kind of stuff. This human trait is an ancient, prehistoric one, and it might have once had some kind of tribal survival benefit. But in our day? It's horribly destructive.

And if we don't rein it in, we will be witnesses to the implosion of a very remarkable way of life that my father was fighting in Europe to protect about the time I was born. 1944.

So my hope is this--that we will realize as these days and weeks of virtual (or actual) isolation go on--as we realize that we are all vulnerable, all suffering (some far more than others)--as we come to understand the fragility of life, of our way of life--that we will close our ears to the divisive demagogues and open them to the healers, the unifiers, the most wholly human among us.

I had a dream ...

... and it was a weird one last night. Not that many of my dreams are "normal," mind you. It's in dreams, you know, that we learn that chronology is a lie--at least in my dreams. People and places from all over my life congregate and do weird stuff. And I (usually just standing there, observing) see nothing amiss.

My "teacher" dreams are a little different. They generally feature a very inept me in a classroom packed with students from 1966 to 2011 (the span of my career)--mixed together with people I've never seen before. All misbehaving--sometimes egregiously. While I fail to control them.

Okay ... last night ...

I was in a classroom (I was not the teacher--whew!). I seemed to be the age I am now. I was observing. I recognized no one--though they all appeared to be high school--or even college--students.

The class was working on novels and stories about Sherlock Holmes--pieces written after Arthur Conan Doyle's death. (You Holmes fans know that there are countless tales about him in other people's work--novels, stories, screenplays, etc.)

Anyway, I was looking at a list of modern Holmes novels (one of the students showed it to me--not sure why), and I noticed that it did not include ...? did not include ...? did not include ...?

But I could remember neither the title of the novel nor the author I wanted to tell them about.

I knew that it was the woman who'd written Ahab's Wife; or, The Star-Gazer, a 1999 novel I'd read back when it came out (hey, Melville fans had to read it, right?), and I'd subsequently read her earlier books, and a few afterwards. Though I no longer read her.

In 2001 I’d taught a little class about her and her book at our local library.

In 2003 Joyce and I had driven up to a Cleveland bookstore (its name is escaping me) for a reading and signing. I took all of her books, which she graciously signed. (In my dream I could see those books on our shelf—but could not make out the titles—or the author’s name.)

Now here’s the weird part. My conscious brain intruded a moment into my unconsciousness. And it said this to the students in the classroom I was in: “I’m going to wake up soon, and when I do, I will get the name and tell you.”

They all looked at me as if they thought all this made perfect sense!

And I woke up. Remembered the writer’s name: Sena Jeter Naslund.

But could not remember the name of her Sherlock Holmes book.

All of this occurred about, oh, 2:30 a.m.

I was afraid I was going to forget it all, but I was too whacked out to turn on a light, find a pencil, write it down. So ... I trusted my memory.

Which is usually a grievous error.

But, miracle of miracles, I did remember, and checked it all out this morning.

The name of the novel was Sherlock in Love (1993), and in our stuffed filing cabinets I found a fat folder of Naslund material, including a bunch of 35mm slides I’d used that day at the old Hudson Library—and my notes for the session that occurred on April 21, 2001, 10:00 a.m.

A lot of the slides were of Nantucket Island (setting for much of the Ahab novel), which Joyce and I had visited in March 2001 so that I could see what she was writing about. (We had a beautiful couple of days there, by the way.)

I also found the notes I’d taken on her Sherlock novel. The first sentence is this: “Sherlock was dead, to begin with” (3). (Is Dickens smiling or preparing a lawsuit?) Watson tells us he’s working on a bio of his departed friend and colleague. We learn about his love interest, which turns out to be a sister he didn’t know about. (Yikes!)

It’s a lot more complicated, but I don’t feel like explaining it all. Read the book. It’s fun.

So ... what does all of this mean? Not a lot. But here’s a few ideas.

• I keep a lot of old stuff around the house.
• My memory is betraying me.
• Some of my dreams are fun—and frustrating at the same time.

And I’ll depart with this—and try to keep it out of your mind the rest of the day! You won’t succeed if you try.

At the end of Ahab’s Wife, Ishmael, the sole survivor of Moby-Dick’s attack, shows up in Nantucket, and he and Ahab’s wife/widow ... do it.

The New Normal

As of today--I've changed my beloved daily routines.

I most certainly don't want to do this--I love my routines. I'm so regular about many of them that I used to joke that a hit-man would have no trouble whatsoever locating me. Finishing me off.

Well, unfortunately, there is a hit-man on the loose, and you know perfectly well what it is.

I am in a particularly vulnerable group: I'm seventy-five years old, and I've been dealing with cancer for fifteen years--an up-and-down battle. So ... I don't want to make it easy for Mr. COVID-19. There is, of course, a possibility that I'm already infected but just have not yet manifested any symptoms. We'll see. But I do not want to go out anymore--do not want to take the chance that I will pass it on to someone else (if I have it)--or receive it.

It's a tough time for everyone--a horrible time for many.

And so ... no coffee shop in the morning, no glorious sunrises to see through the window in front of me, no friendly encounters with the gracious, generous owner and with her wonderful baristas, no meet-and-greet with other regulars there, no sessions with former colleagues, former students, no brisk walks to and fro (about the only exercise I've been getting in my current state of dizziness), no reading-taking-notes-writing at "my" table, no return visits after lunch, no conversations then with my good friend Chris (we save chairs for each other--a debate rages about which of us is the more ...effective ... at this!), no more reading-note-taking-writing-laughing-grieving-about-politics-with-Chris).

And no leisurely trips to the grocery stores on Sunday morning--our custom of many years. (If we have to go, and we surely will, it will be at a speed that even the Flash would have to admire.)

No visits to see our son and his family in Green--no visits here from them. Awful.

No impulsive trips to the restaurants we love: Dontino's, Zeppe's, Aladdin's, Parasson's, Thai Gourmet, Cafe Tandoor.

No Friday/Saturday Night at the Movies.

No Great Lakes Theater Festival (we're season ticket holders).

No bi-weekly visits from the wonderful young women who do some housecleaning for us (Clean & Simple--they're great)--though we will continue to pay them even though they're not here.

No ...

... Well, you know. You're going through versions of the same things.

We may occasionally do a drive-thru somewhere--but cautiously, cautiously so. We may go for short walks outside on decent days--got to let my body do something besides sit and read and stream and sleep--got to let my mind do something other than worry and construct doomsday scenarios...

And here's another (minor, minor) annoyance: Trips to and from the coffee shop--and my time at the coffee shop--have long been occasions for me to (silently) rehearse the 200+ poems I've memorized. I do not want to lose them: It took Too Damn Long for my wobbly memory to accept them in the first place.

So ... this morning ... I did my Monday Morning Set right here at home. Not fun. Not at all.

Here at home, I also did my reading. Did my note-taking. (It's Arthur Phillips' 1st novel, Prague.) Later, I'll write some stupid doggerel and upload it to Facebook for the "enjoyment" of my FB friends.

And I'm going to keep pounding away at this blog (Dawn Reader) and my other one (Daily Doggerel).

But today? I missed the sunrise, missed the coffee shop, missed those who work there, missed my friends ...

But ... Joyce is in the house. We are somewhat safe here. And so ... deep gratitude is a phrase far too frail for what I feel.

Sunday Sundries, 268

1. HBsOTW [Human Beings of the Week]: Those who are helping others--financially or otherwise--those who are not hoarding, those who are keeping a safe distance, those who behave in a concerned way, not a panicky one.

2. I finished one book this week, Ian McEwan's fifth (fairly short) novel, Black Dogs (1992).

It's written in the form of a memoir by one of the characters, who begins with quite a stunning sentence:

Ever since I lost mine in a road accident when I was eight, I have had my eye on other people's parents (xi).

This is a classic example of what stylists call a "periodic sentence"--saving the explosion for the end. The loss, early in the sentence, could have been anything--and your uncertainty remains until the final word. Way to go, Ian!

The narrator--Jeremy--focuses on his story--and on his marriage to Jenny, whose parents (Bernard and June) become his principal concern as the story goes on.

He is purportedly writing, with June's cooperation, her memoir, a memoir that includes as a most significant experience her encounter with some large, wild dogs when she was hiking, early in her relationship, with Bernard in the aftermath of WW II.

Well, the story moves here and there, but we are moving relentlessly toward an account of her encounter with those two wild dogs. (Oddly, one scene takes place in Lerici, Italy, not far from where Percy Bysshe Shelley drowned in 1822.) And so we arrive in France, where Bernard lingers behind while she hikes down into a gorge, where the two dogs confront her. The scene gets violent (won't give you the details!), and lives go on, the dogs becoming ever more important in June's memory--and story.

A story which Bernard believes she has embellished and exaggerated.

Near the end, the narrator (the son-in-law, recall) says:

But it is the black dogs I return to most often. They trouble me when I consider what happiness I owe them, especially when I allow myself to think of them not as animals but as spirit hounds, incarnations (148).

3. No trips to the movies this week--being prudent. But we have been streaming merrily away for about an hour each night (after our eyes have wearied from reading and writing).

We're especially enjoying a BBC series that our friend Chris told us about--Detectorists--about a couple of odd, middle-aged men who are "into" using metal detectors, looking, of course, for the Big One. Among the glories of the show (along with its odd humor and overall wryness) is the performance of Toby Jones as one of the principals. You possibly remember him as the actor who plays a scummy guy in one season of the Sherlock Holmes series with Benedict Cumberbatch.

His buddy is Mackenzie Crook (recognizable from Pirates of the Caribbean and Finding Neverland), who writes and directs the nineteen episodes.

It's lighthearted in many ways, deeply affecting in others.

Streaming on Amazon Prime. Or Hulu.

4. We made two very quick store trips today for perishables, mostly (fruit, veggies). When we got there about the time Acme opened (7) and Heinen's (8), it was not all that crowded. I saw no one with a cart stuffed with toilet paper. Many had only a hand-basket. People kept their distance.

Lots of bread products were gone, but we had no trouble getting eggs, yogurt, noodles, fruit, nuts, and the few other things we dashed around buying.

The flour I use to mix my starter each week (King Arthur's unbleached bread flour) was not available at either place--nor, I discovered later, on the King A website.

So ... found some on Amazon and pulled the trigger.

Among the flours I've tried for the starter, it yields the best texture.

5. We've not see our son, daughter-in-law, and two grandsons since this started. Just seems too risky--especially since you can feel perfectly all right for a bit after you've been infected. I would not forgive myself if I gave it to them, and I'm sure they feel the same way about bringing it into our house.

Grandson Carson will be eleven on April 5, and I hope things will be calmer then so that we can see him. But if not? We understand.

6. Final Word--A word I liked this week from one of my online word-of-the-day providers:

     - from wordsmith.org (not that wordsmith provides the form of the opposite meaning: breviloquence)

pleniloquence  (ple-NIL-uh-kwens)

noun: Excessive talking.

ETYMOLOGY: From Latin pleni- (full) + -loquence (speaking). Earliest documented use: 1838. The opposite is breviloquence.

USAGE: “Their debate has become increasingly embroiled in pleniloquence over minutiae, as they dispute the actual number of lawyers in Germany, Korea, etc.”

Frank B. Cross; Lawyers, the Economy, and Society; American Business Law Journal (Oxford, Ohio); Summer 1998.