Lucy Van Pelt had a sign for it.
You all remember Lucy -- from Peanuts? Rather than a lemonade stand, she ran a psychiatric booth with a sign on the front declaring "The Doctor is" in or
out.
Well, I am not Lucy Van Pelt -- and I certainly am not Charles Schulz. But the house with no name has an in/out sign, as well. Or something similar.
After I bought the house, I started collecting some of Edward Gilliam's abstract expressionist paintings. If you would like to see most of the collection, you can see it in the good life.
All of the paintings are sheltered -- with the exception of one. It dramatically hangs in the stairwell to the second story.
Rather, it hangs in the stairwell when the weather is dry. When it rains, the painting comes down to announce that the rain is in. I guess you could say I try to avoid the rain in abstraction expression staying mainly in the plane.
Early this morning, our weather season changed. We have had only two rain showers that I can recall since the hurricane blew through here in October. That is about normal. Winter is our dry season. And dry the place was looking.
For the past few weeks, my neighbors have been setting fire to small patches of grass, fields, and whole hillsides -- keeping alive the dubious tradition of slash and burn. That is always a good sign that people believe rain is on the way.
And rain it did this morning. Not in torrents, but it was enough that the raindrops slamming on the laminate over my shower chimney awoke me.
A small roll of thunder woke Barco up. It was his first. He barked and then went back to sleep ignoring the remainder of a quite spectacular thunder and lightning show.
But, for now, it is over. The puddles in the courtyard and the upstairs gallery are already evaporating.
Every year when the rain starts, it amazes me how quickly the hills can go from a burned-out brown to a verdant jungle. Usually, within a week.
It did not take that long for the soccer field, where Barco romps, to green up. Barra de Navidad sponsored a regional soccer tournament a few weeks ago. The field then looked as if the teams were playing in the sands of Morocco.
This is what greeted Barco and me this morning. Within hours, the grass had started to perk up.
The arrival of the rain is always welcome here. It usually starts just as the weather shifts into its hottest and most humid months. Rainstorms, ironically, drive down both the temperature and the humidity. Temporarily.
For now, though, the painting is going back up in the stairwell. The rains will become more common, but today is a day to enjoy the sun and Edward Gilliam's work.
Remember the Dick Van Dyke Show opening credits where Dick tumbles over an ottoman while the announcer lists the cast?
"Starring Dick Van Dyke, Rose Marie, Morey Amsterdam, Larry Mathews -- and Mary Tyler Moore. My college chum Bob Wilson always got a kick out of that pause. "I wonder what Mary Tyler Moore thinks of being billed after Larry Mathews?"
That was before we knew about the vagaries of star egos -- where the final billing was often saved for a co-star. And before Tom Stoppard introduced us to this gem of a joke in Shakespeare in Love. A line that itself would ensconce the film amongst anyone's top ten.
Alleyn:
It's true, Will -- it was a tavern brawl ... Marlowe attacked, and got his own knife in the eye. A quarrel about the bill.
Henslowe:
The bill! Oh, vanity, vanity!
Alleyn:
Not the billing -- the bill!
I thought of Mary Tyler Moore this week when I received my new telephone -- delivered directly from Seattle by a friend. It will be a new cast member. And following the Dick Van Dyke Show, it will temporarily be billed as "-- and Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge."
Regular readers may recall that just two years ago, I bought a fancy new smartphone -- an HTC One M8, a name that evoked a pistol tucked in the belt rather than a telephone hidden in the pocket. (another one drops)
The HTC was a great telephone. It could do everything my laptop could do -- other than act as an essay-writing platform. It looked sleek. And it was cutting edge technology -- to use one of the more meaningless clichés of our era.
But all good things come to an end. The HTC had steadily been slowing down over the past few months. Applications have a tendency to do that. Pieces start interfering with one another.
Rather than face a slow death, the telephone decided to take the suicide route. Concrete and telephones are not a good mix. For the HTC, it meant a crack the full length of its screen.
I could have replaced the screen by jumping through several hoops here. And, if the telephone had not begun operating slowly, I would have considered it.
But it was a two-year old telephone, and technology had passed it by. When I bought the HTC my niece informed me it was the best available. She was correct. The reviews unanimously agreed with her.
This time I chose without her assistance. And the choice was easy. All of the reviews acclaim the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge. For good reason. It looks good. And it operates with speeds that put my laptop to shame. Plus it has an amazing camera.
So, there it is, at the top of this essay. Just like Mary Tyler Moore -- waiting for its chance to have a starring role in Mexpatriate.
"Ms. Samsung, are you ready for your close-up?"
Happy Mother's Day.
That is, if you are a northern mother. Mexican mothers are celebrated on a different day -- 10 May. Mexico's culture is conservative. It likes certainty in its dates.
Well, except when it doesn't. Schools were let out here on Friday 6 May to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. It appeared to be a day late. But getting Friday off was far more beneficial than the 5th. After all, in Mexico, the celebration of the first Battle of Puebla is a local affair. Not here.
I was going to try to weave an excuse out of the difference between the American and Mexican days of celebration. But it would be far too transparent. I am quite capable of forgetting "10 May" as I am of forgetting "the second Sunday in May."
And I did. Usually, I arrange for flowers to be delivered to my mother in Bend on the Saturday before Mother's Day. I simply forgot this year. For some reason, my head is still stuck in November.
And I had a great reminder yesterday that mother's day was upon us.
Once upon a time three goats lived across the street from my house. Two were shipped off to be served up in birria. The sole survivor had a special mission -- to produce more goats.
She has been noticeably pregnant for several months. When I took Barco over to the lot to do what dogs have to do, she always nuzzled up to my pocket for a dog biscuit.
Then she went missing for several days. I thought she may have been sent off to a farm. But I was wrong.
Yesterday, in the shade of the afternoon, the owner brought her out -- along with her newly-born kid. It is now four days old.
All of the neighborhood dogs were there to welcome its coming out. Given an opportunity, though, they would have reverted to their natural instincts and enjoyed goat without the bother of stewing.
So, for all of you mothers out there, Happy Mother's Day.
And for the best mother in the world, I apologize for the lack of flowers. But you know that my appreciation for you is without limits.
Did that work? I didn't think so.
Maybe I should send you something on 10 May. And I am not kidding.
Around here, it is not a cliché; it's a lifestyle.
The weather at the beach has begun to warm up. That usually means we have gone from hot to hotter. But not for the past month.
Even though our days have wandered into the 80s, and even the occasional 90s, our nights have been Mary Poppinish -- practically perfect in every way. Mainly in the 60s. It is almost as good as an Oregon summer night.
But that has been changing this week. Both the temperatures and humidity have been heading toward New Orleans levels.
As a new dog owner, I have learned that more heat means more ticks. Yesterday I discovered my cute little golden retriever was surreptitiously running his own science project. Instead of an ant farm, he had opened a tick ranch.
I never had problems with ticks bothering Professor Jiggs. Probably because our area of Salem was far too urbane for hayseed ticks.
But I now live in hayseed city. Between the goat lot across the street from our house and the soccer field in the sports park, Barco lives in a target rich environment for ticks.
For the past three months, I have religiously doused Barco with Frontline -- a flea and tick chemical concoction that is touted for its great parasite defense. Well, this month, the good folks at Merial failed in their primary mission. It turns out that Frontline was the Maginot line of tick defense.
I added an additional dose today. At $370 (Mx) (about $21 (US)), it is a bargain. If it works.
I had to pick another crop of ticks out of his thick fur tonight. By tomorrow, we should start finding the carcasses of ticks that have ticked off by devouring too much poison. Or so goes the prevention spiel.
It may not be as good as the laguna's offerings of crocodiles, crabs, and coatimundis, but the new house has its own menagerie of fauna.
Frankly, I prefer the crocodiles.
I hate routines.
I have told you that before. But it is still true. I think. Even though I seem to have fallen into a Babbitish hole of self-conformity.
A couple of weeks ago, I was feeling a bit bored. My usual antidote for ennui is a trip. A week in Paris sounded as if it would be perfect.
So, I sat down at my laptop and started booking flights. The Mexico City to Paris route is one of my favorites. With my flight in hand, I started looking for a room at any of my favorite hotels in the City of Lights.
Just booking the trip started to perk me up.
Then Barco walked in -- and my trip took flight without me. As long as he is in his terrible late puppy months (and he is living them in spades), I cannot leave him with anyone. Even for one night.
Since he arrived, my days have taken on a structure that I have tried to avoid since I retired.
When the sun comes up, he is up. I feed him and we are off for our morning walk -- accompanied by the ever faithful Güera.
The walk has two purposes. One -- to give Barco an opportunity to discharge his musket after eating breakfast. And two -- to give him an opportunity to burn off some puppy energy running in the park with Güera.
Well, running and wrestling. Both dogs love to play fight. Complete with curled lips, bared teeth, and plenty of stylized snarls.
That goes on for an hour or so. While they play, I take the opportunity to run through more Duolingo units. Even though, I have completed the program, it allows me to go back to prior units to work on weak words and grammar.
When I am ready to go, the dogs never are. With Barco on his leash, we get about two paces before Barco tackles Güera -- or she makes a preemptive strike on him. It is always a long walk home.
When I get back to the house, I prepare my breakfast and read the morning newspaper or finish up my Duolingo units -- and then study my Spanish lessons.
Whenever I find a break, I read the current editions of The Economist and National Review. Or I pull out whichever presidential biography I am currently reading. This month's subject is Chester Arthur. I may share some of the biography with you in the future.
At 11, I feed Barco his lunch and take him for another half-hour to hour walk -- just in time to get me to my noon Spanish class, where I will stay until about 3.
When I get home, I take Barco out for a brief walk, and then get back to my Spanish lessons and recreational reading.
Around 5 or 6, I feed him again, and we head out for another hour walk. This is the walk (and my later walk in the evening) where I see most of my neighbors.
Then, it is back to the house for my dinner and a bit of recreational reading before I take him out for his pre-sleep walk. As for me, I read some more and get to bed around midnight or so.
Then, it all starts again.
The dog has changed my life. There is no doubt about that. He has brought some responsibility and structure back to my life -- even though I am not certain most of it is very welcome. After all, I moved to Mexico to escape both.
But the trade-off is that I have a boon companion. It is not a perfect relationship. What relationship is?
I often tell people who say they are not happy with life that they are chasing a chimera. The best we can hope for is to be content.
And that I am.
Or so says the wise little owl that acts as the avatar for Duolingo.
I'm not. But Duolingo is one of those smartphone "apps" designed for the children of our age who have never been told anything harsh in their lives for fear of making them feel as if their "safe space" has been fouled.
Hobbes was correct. Life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." But you are not going to hear anything like that from Duolingo. Instead, the very polite program repeatedly tells me "That is almost correct" when it should truthfully say "Not even Desi Arnaz could understand what you just said. Have you thought of trying Greek?"
Well, I have tried Greek. And Russian. And German. And Italian. And Latin. I liked them all. And I did quite well at learning them -- without the smarmy reassurance of Duolingo. My Spanish lessons are not going that well.
Last August I decided to cut back on writing my essays -- along with most of my other official charitable and social activities -- to focus on learning Spanish. Daily, starting in October, I sat down at the computer and worked my way through The Learnables program. It helped me attune my ear to listening.
In November I drove up to Oregon with my brother. Because we were on the road, I could not use my laptop efficiently. So, I signed up for Duolingo on my smartphone. Several readers had highly recommended it.
I was skeptical. I had looked at the program a couple years ago. The exercises were seductively simple. My score was perfect each day. The problem is that I could not recall a single thing I had supposedly learned. So, I set it aside.
This time, I stuck with it -- on the road north, in Bend, on the road south, and back at the house. Duolingo is based on the concept of units. Food. Animals. Plurals. Past imperfect verbs. That sort of thing. Maybe it was Duolingo that was the genesis of one of my favorite Lincoln quotations: "People who like this sort of thing are going to find it is the sort of thing they like."
The idea is to complete a unit successfully enough to be allowed to proceed to the next level. It is a little like being an initiate of the Scottish Rites Mason. (Just to reassure you Illuminati conspiracy theorists out there, I am not.)
Due to some glitch, I lost all of my progress twice and had to start over. (For the record, I actually finished the entire series last night. Thus the 48% fluency award.)
But, at some point, I needed outside classes. Duolingo is based on inductive reasoning. By completing the exercises, you are to infer the grammatical rules.
I am fine with inductive reasoning. After all, we use it every day of our lives merely to survive. But, when it comes to learning languages, I often require a bit of deduction. I want to know the rules that describe why Spanish sentences are peppered with two letter words that make no sense to my English-speaking mind with its Germanic sentence structures.
So, I started Spanish classes last January -- for one day. It was not a good start (back to school). I started again in February -- attending two one-hour classes from Monday to Thursday.
The classes were almost exactly what I needed. My primary reason for learning Spanish is to get me through the language requirement of the Mexican citizenship process. In our area, applicants are required to pass an examination that is the equivalent of a college-level Spanish course.
Most of my fellow students are not as concerned about the grammar. They are there to learn how to enjoy conversations with their Mexican neighbors.
My ideal course would be a formal instruction with a lesson plan and tests to measure my progress. But that would suit only me.
Amy, our teacher (a native Spanish speaker from southern California who now teaches high school Spanish in Maine, but is on sabbatical here until June), has a great technique of easing us into the complexities of the language. By teaching us the usual greeting phrases one would encounter on the street, we were already exposed to reflexive verbs and direct pronoun placement before we discussed them formally.
Here I am, three months into my 8-hours a week lessons, and I still feel uncertain about my progress. The subjunctive and conditional verbs still baffle me. And I often cannot find the word for "anathema" or "reprehensible."* The more likely candidates are "knife" and "left."
My concerns may be groundless. Even though I often have trouble performing in class, I received the best endorsement of my progress this week from Dora, the woman who cleans my house.
We were talking about Barco's latest destructive episodes. There I was recounting tales like Cervantes in prison using my limited language tools. The preterite. Past imperfect. Gerunds. Nouns that I did not know I even knew (probably implanted there by Duolingo and Amy while I was not looking). With Dora correcting me where necessary.
When I finished, she commended me on how well I am doing. It was high praise indeed. Even the neighbors seem to wear less baffled looks when I stop to chat with them.
I have two more years before I need to sit down and take the formal test that will help prove my assertion that I want to be a member of the country in which I now live permanently. There will be plenty of tie for me to keep slogging through the plains of Spain.
Right now, I feel as if I have been undergoing several months of root canals. I trust it will all prove to be worthwhile.
As for Duolingo, I have one word for you -- a word I learned in class: ¡Mentiroso!**
* -- Yes. I know. They are cognates. As J. Edgar Hoover once said: "To ask the question is to answer it."
** -- I suspect you can figure that one out without any resort to a Spanish translator.
30 April 2016
Indianapolis -- After a thrashing in four out of five northeastern primaries that should have been far more receptive to his socialist message, Senator Bernie Sanders announced today that it was time to "get real about economic policy for America."
Sanders has long been an advocate for a national $15 an hour minimum wage. During the past month, Hillary Clinton has attempted to close the gap by supporting an ambiguous increase in the minimum wage. Sanders met the challenge with a speech at DePauw University this afternoon that had his mainly young and white audience repeatedly on its feet.
"Let's get real. Secretary Clinton has been treating America's economic policy as if she ran one of Donald Trump's roulette wheels. One day she says she supports a minimum wage of $15. The next day it's $12. The next it's $12.50. And then it's a sliding scale of $12.50 to $15.
"Einstein may have been correct that God does not play dice with the universe. But my opponent has no trouble playing dice with your economic future -- and the economic future of all Americans.
"Let's get real. Who can live on $15 an hour? No one. You would need to live in your parents' basement for the rest of your lives. So, why don't we start talking about real wages.
"Let's get real. What we need is a real living wage in America. When I am elected president, on my first day in office, I am going to sit down and issue an executive order that every American business that receives the benefit of the labor of one or more employees will be required to pay each of those honest, hard-working representatives of the people -- $100,000 each year. Payable in full on the first day of employment.
"Let's get real. No one can obtain a doctorate in comparative languages on $15 an hour. With $100,00 each year in your pocket, you will be able to stay in school as long as you like. All you will need is a part-time job in one of our many essential industries -- industries we will not allow to go extinct. Like vinyl record shops and local independent Trotskyite book stores.
"Let's get real. That's what the forces of imperialism and reaction are going to say to us. That we are a bunch of fuzzy-math intellectuals who know nothing of economics. But, you know what? You know what I'm going to tell them?
"Let's get real. The big banks have been hiding a simple truth from all of us. Washington, DC has a mint. It prints money. It's part of the executive branch.
"As president, I am going to walk over to the mint and tell the director: 'Mr. Olijar, there are a lot of hard-working people out there who cannot make ends meet. Some of them are working at two, three, maybe twenty jobs. We need to do something to give them a hand up. Here is what I want you to do. Let's crank up these presses, print lots of money, and get it to our friends out there.'
"And, you know what? He's going to do it. Or I will find someone else who will.
"Let's get real. It isn't as if there are not a lot of precedents for this type of idea. Countries I love and admire have done similar things and are the better for it.
"Che Guevara did it in Cuba. Hugo Chávez did it in Venezuela. Robert Mugabe did it in Zimbabwe. All three are lighthouses of social justice and economic prosperity.
"Let's get real. The only thing that is getting in our way of making everyone in America a member of the upper middle class is our imagination. And I assure you, there is nothing wrong with my imagination. And, if you are supporting me, you must also have a big imagination."
Following the speech, the DePauw football team stormed the podium and carried Senator Sanders three times around the stadium to the roaring standing ovation of the crowd.
Classics professor Hugh Nates remarked: "I don't think anyone has seen anything like this since Trajan's return to Rome -- complete with the donativum. Or maybe that was Joaquin Phoenix."
Just as the football squad was making its fourth pass, Jane Sanders shook him saying "Bernie. You're talking in your sleep again."
