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Summer’s End.

Schools are starting to go back into session but for me, even when I was a student, summer isn’t really over until the end of August. The days are already getting shorter. Just a few weeks ago if I woke up in the dark I could roll over and eventually go back to sleep. Now when I wake in the dark it’s because the alarm has gone off and it’s time to get up. But it still feels like summer, or it did until earlier this week when I went outside and was shocked by how cold it was. Overnight the temperature dropped almost thirty degrees. It climbed back up with the sun but the change was still a reminder that summer is ending.

The trees haven’t started to change yet. They’re still full of bright green leaves. The hickory tree in the front yard is still forming its nuts; it’ll be a while before their deluge drives us nuts. The insects, though, have gotten the message. Even in the morning cold I could hear crickets calling to each other, katydids in the trees, and a few late season cicadas ratcheting away, desperate for one last chance. The end of summer always brings an urgency. Those who sing away most of the season in the dark continue to do so even after dawn; their lives are so compressed an hour must pass like a year.

Once I was lucky enough to start school after Labor Day. It was the start of seventh grade, the start of a new school for me, which was intimidating. I’d gone to the same school from kindergarten through sixth grade and most of my classes were in the same room, or adjacent to each other, and even by second grade I’d gotten to know the layout of the whole school, which was all one level. Seventh grade was a complete change; classes were held in different rooms, on different floors. We were given cards with our teachers’ names and their room numbers and expected to find our way. The first day everybody was allowed some leeway; there was a lot of ducking in and out of wrong rooms and teachers were patient. The second day everything changed. We were all expected to have the schedules and locations of everything down.

In the night between the second and third day a miracle happened: the air conditioning for the entire building broke. An emergency notice went out to parents that summer break would be extended just a little longer. In the end that meant over a week. It was September before we were able to go back in cool comfort, which, I think, meant more to the teachers than it did to any of us. Even though I wasn’t able to go back to the building during that time it did allow me to accept how much things had changed.

The only downside was having to wake up in the dark, but that too would have come no matter what.

Wipeout.

Windshield wiper fluid is one of those things I never really appreciate until it’s gone. And then I refill the reservoir under the hood and go back to not appreciating it again. However some critter has chewed through the tubing that goes from the reservoir to the driver’s side sprayer. When I activate the sprayer the wipers wipe but the sprayer only buzzes in vain. This isn’t the first time rodents—maybe squirrels, maybe chipmunks—have done damage to the car because they like the soy-based plastics. A few summers ago I was running an errand when the Check Engine light came on. The wiring for a sensor underneath the car had been completely chewed through. The guy at the repair shop told me it would probably be fine to drive the car without it but eventually it would have to be replaced. With anything automotive I interpret “eventually” to mean “right now”, an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure.

At least the wiper fluid issue is a minor inconvenience, not something that could cause long-lasting damage, at least as long as I keep the windshield clean, and to do that I’ve made occasional stops at gas stations to use the free squeegees they have next to the gas pumps. Sometimes I also buy gas but I feel guilty when I don’t since I’m taking advantage of a service that’s technically meant for paying customers.

While looking at buying my own squeegee I did a little research into the history of the tool. I assumed it was a recent invention and that like Xerox or Kleenex it was a proprietary eponym. It turns out squeegees date back to at least the mid-19th century, before the first automobiles, since they’re made for wiping any windows and must have become popular with increased use of glass. Imagine squeegeeing The Crystal Palace. And it’s no wonder the name stuck. It’s fun to say “squeegee” and, while not technically onomatopoeia it does evoke the sound a squeegee makes when that rubber blade slides across glass.

The good news is because they’ve been around so long squeegees are cheap. I don’t know how much it will cost to replace the tubing from the reservoir to the sprayer. I checked online and everything I’ve read suggests starting with removing the tire and disassembling the front bumper because the tubing weaves through the engine. With anything automotive I interpret “disassembling” to mean “leave it to professionals”.

Definitely An Error.

It’s not easy to see but the tag TYPO has been applied to the back of an interstate sign. It was also not easy to get a picture of it and I was only able to do so because my wife was driving; if I’d been in the driver’s seat I probably wouldn’t have even noticed it, let alone been able to take a picture of it. I’ve seen the TYPO tag a few other places—always next to the interstate, in one case under a bridge, and in another on a retaining wall. It’s been difficult to get pictures of those too because we were moving at high speed.

I’ve been a defender of graffiti for most of my life, though I have mixed feelings about it. It goes back to a documentary I saw in the 1980’s about graffiti artists in New York, showing how many of them were very talented. Some were even being given gallery spaces and materials as a way of getting them off the streets, though there was a bit of a catch-22: to be recognized they had to first create graffiti, breaking the law and risking arrest. I thought, and still think, there should be another way to recognize and foster talented artists.

The tag TYPO is also interesting. It prompted me to think about how it’s a shortening of “typographical error”, compressing two words and seven syllables into just one two-syllable term whose meaning is still understood.

With that preface what I’d really like to say is this is some of the stupidest, most unnecessary graffiti I’ve ever seen. I could make a lengthy statement about how important art is, how it doesn’t just enrich our lives but makes living worthwhile, but I can’t defend this. TYPO, whoever you may be, you risked your safety, maybe even your life, and you endangered others too. You’ve created a distraction that’s still potentially endangering others. I know it’s not easy but I see real skill in your work, and the effort you put into painting on an interstate sign could have been redirected elsewhere. You can do better.

The Root Canal Of The Problem.

Source: makeagif

I don’t mind going to the dentist. Oh no. I hate going to the dentist. This is in spite of all the hygienists, and, for that matter, all the dentists I’ve ever dealt with being really nice people who make me feel guilty for laughing so hard at Little Shop Of Horrors—both versions—but then I start thinking about what led them into dentistry as a profession and I stop feeling guilty and start getting worried. I’m always uncomfortable with visits to the doctor, and the gray walls and sterile exam rooms and bland art don’t help, but most of the time the doctor gives me a quick exam, asks me how I feel, and that’s it. A dental appointment is always going to be long and drawn out and uncomfortable because there’s always got to be the scraping, the gouging, the hammering—that’s just the parking lot. Then I get into the dentist’s office and in the waiting room they’ve got a nice coffee maker with a dozen different flavored creamers and a big jar of chocolate chip cookies. I try not to be cynical—when the hygienist suggests the four-hundred dollar gum cleans I believe it’s because she believes it’s really needed, not because there’s a significant markup on it. At least at one time my dentist had pictures of hockey players on the walls of her office, because she was the official dentists of the Nashville hockey team, and I could distract myself by thinking about how their checkups must either be really long, because they’d had so many teeth knocked out, or really short, because they’d had so many teeth knocked out. But the coffee and chocolate chip cookies there in the waiting room just sit there taunting me. For weeks before a dental appointment I become even more conscious of my brushing, flossing, and general tooth care. I stop eating Oreos and drinking apple cider vinegar straight from the bottle. And I understand the importance of dental hygiene. It’s been pressed on me since I was a kid; my first grade teacher poured a Coke into a jar and then put a nail in it. A week later the nail had dissolved. I said, “That’s it, I’m never storing my nails in Coke ever again.”

At my last dental appointment the hygienist told me I was past due to have my teeth X-rayed. I said okay and she took about fifty-seven pictures. Then she said, “I’m a little concerned about your teeth.” I was too—my mouth had just been hit with more radiation than Chernobyl. But then she said I might need a root canal. Separately the words “root” and “canal” generally conjure up pleasant images in my mind, but put them together and I feel like I’ve just had an icicle driven through my heart.

“I know it’s probably unavoidable,” I said, “but it would be nice if during the procedure I could just be knocked unconscious with my mouth propped open.”

“Oh, we can definitely do that,” she said.

That is a relief. I won’t even ask how they plan to knock me out.

Here Comes The Neighborhood.

I don’t know what it says about me that I’ve worked in the same building for most of my professional life. I’ve been through several jobs, moving more or less upward, but every time there’s been a plan to move me to another building it’s fallen through. So I’ve had a front row, or rather side window, seat to all the changes in the neighborhood. The building next door specifically has been through almost as many changes as I have. When I started working here it was a Pizza Hut and that’s what it was for more than ten years. This was surprisingly long because not only has the chain’s stock fallen but that specific Pizza Hut developed a reputation among everyone who worked in the surrounding area. It was known for charging higher prices than what was listed on the menu and if anyone complained the manager would come out and yell “It’s an old menu!” A couple of my coworkers complained enough on one occasion that he refused to give them their pizza or their money back. Also at one time I counted seven other pizza places—five of them entirely local—within a two mile radius so people who wanted pizza for lunch had other, better options, which just added to the mystery of why that Pizza Hut survived as long as it did.

Then it became a Qdoba and did well for a long time, standing out in an area that mostly had chicken and burger places, but competition and the decline of the chain nationally caught up to it. Next was a local casual dining place which seemed like a good idea—a lot of the fast food places in the area have been replaced by hotels, and even several restaurants have gone. Maybe the hotels want captive customers, although one hotel that’s where a beloved music store used to be left its restaurant space empty and unused for years.

The casual place didn’t last long either in spite of its prime location. Now it looks like the whole building, which has been the one constant, is about to be torn down.

Maybe they’re going to put in a pizza place.

I documented the decline and fall of the music store that is now a hotel, which still seems like a downgrade for the neighborhood.

 

 

Stamped Out.

Most libraries don’t date-stamp books at checkout anymore. A lot of libraries have self-checkout systems at the desk so you don’t even have to hand your books over to someone—just enter your card and scan the barcodes on the back of the books. Funny enough an administrator I once worked for used the checkout stamps to prove keeping actual books on shelves was a waste of time, money, and space. He said he’d found a book that hadn’t been checked out in a hundred years. I believed him but I also had a lot of questions. How long had it taken him to find this century-old book? Did he know that people can, and do, consult books in the library without checking them out? Most libraries have a reference section of books that don’t circulate but that’s because they’re so heavily used they have to be available. And did he know that librarians regularly go through the stacks and sometimes remove books they decide are no longer needed?

He wasn’t taking questions.

Libraries can now collect circulation information digitally which is a lot more efficient and easier than going through individual books but I still feel like we’ve lost something by not stamping books anymore. When I check out a book and see all the dates it was checked out previously I feel connected to the other people who read it (or maybe didn’t but still wanted to). This library also used to stamp books with a returned date so I could even see how long someone kept it.

My goal when I first started working in libraries was to work in circulation. I know the stereotype of librarians is that they don’t want to deal with people, and I’ve known plenty who are like that. But libraries exist to serve people and I still believe in the importance of people helping each other rather than just relying on machines.

The book I checked out, by the way, is Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls. It’s a small, fun novel I found out about from a blurb in a magazine—an actual paper and ink magazine—that said “If you like The Shape Of Water you’ll like this book.” I do, and I did. First published in 1983 it’s got a sort of cult status so in a way it’s fitting it hasn’t been checked out more, although that last stamp with the 2017 due date is right before the library stopped stamping checkout slips. 

Maybe a lot of people have read it, though, without ever taking it out of the library.

Morning Star.

Source: Wikipedia

Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, is just starting to appear just over the horizon right before dawn, a few degrees from East. Below Orion it slips back below the rim of the Earth before the sun swallows it up, but in the coming days it will start to rise earlier and earlier, and rising higher and higher. The rise of Sirius marks the time when the Nile rises so it was extremely important to the ancient Egyptians. It was a way to keep track of when planting season began. And it’s thanks to the Romans that we refer to this time of year got its name. Originally they called this period “the days of the dog star”, but that was eventually shortened to “the dog days”. This is when summer is supposed to be the hottest, and the last chance to have fun before school started. According to folklore the dog days are supposed one of the times when ghosts are most active, maybe because, like snakes, they’re cold-blooded. Some folklore also warns this is when the morning dew can poison open wounds, and it was believed to be a time when snakes go blind. That last one at least may have a little bit of truth to it; snakes get milky-eyed just before they shed and it’s probably not a coincidence many start sloughing off their old skins at the end of a long and active summer. Being cold-blooded the warmer days are a good time for them as well as when their predators are less likely to be active.     

Sirius is one of our closest stellar neighbors, at just 8.6 light years away. If we could travel at the speed of light we could get there and back in under eighteen years, with plenty of time to stop and look around and maybe see if there any dogs around there. Some stars are so large and so bright their light reaches us from hundreds, even thousands of light years away. They could have burned out long ago but we still see them, afterimages of a fiery life. Sirius is so close what we see may not be that different from the way it is now. It’s also actually two stars. Sirius A is about twice the size of our sun while Sirius B is a white dwarf roughly the size of Earth. Canis Major, the constellation Sirius is in, has its own companion, Canis Minor, and they’re both companions to the hunter Orion.

These days I usually wake up just before dawn because the dog who sleeps between me and my wife thinks that’s when he should have breakfast, so we’re all up and about while Sirius is still poised just above the horizon. There are hills to the east of where I stand, and so many trees I won’t be able to see Sirius until late winter when it will be high in the evening sky. I only know it’s there thanks to star charts. It’s as much of a morning companion as the sun itself, and the dog who stands next to me out in the yard, marking a tree.

I’ve Looked At Clouds From Both Sides Now.

There’s a new travel trend called “rawdogging”, which has nothing to do with that term’s original slang meaning, “sex without a condom”, but rather taking a flight and not using anything to distract yourself. No phone, no music, not even a book or anything to read other than the flight-tracker and, I guess, if you’re in a window seat, the view of the clouds and sky and maybe even the ground below if it’s visible. Maybe there are travel rawdoggers who eschew even that, preferring to shut the window and sit in their own thoughts. Some won’t even have food or water—and they make a point of doing this on long, international flights of ten or eleven hours.

At first it sounded miserable to me but then I started thinking about the value of simply sitting with one’s thoughts for a while. A Conde Nast Traveler article sums it up pretty much the same way I would: “Is ‘rawdogging’ just a place-specific term for meditation? Yes.” Meditation is a healthy practice, though abstaining from even water for that many hours isn’t. I understand the appeal of rawdogging, at least on a short flight, or for just part of a long flight. I’ve been on long flights where I spent long stretches just looking out the window—I like the window seat—and let my thoughts drift through the endless azure. I was doing it, as far as I know, before it was cool, before there were whole internet communities devoted to documenting and sharing their experiences.

Which is the real problem. If you want to tune out, turn off, drop in—well, maybe that last one would violate the rules—for your own peace of mind that’s great. I think more of us should do it at least occasionally. I understand that it’s a reaction to the way we’re constantly inundated with information and a feeling that we have to stay busy, stay productive, all the time. But doesn’t documenting it, turning it into a performance that you’re planning to share for the attention, undermine the value of meditating?  It seems like the whole point should be to disengage. Do it for yourself, for your own mental well-being, to try relaxing with your own thoughts.

And if you’re really serious about only watching the flight tracker can I have the window seat?

Game On.

The son of a friend of mine is fascinated by the history of video games, from Pong up to the unbelievable array of apps available through our phones, tablets, computers, and other devices. His favorite is the original Super Mario Brothers from 1985, a game that, at the time, felt like a quantum leap—not to be confused with Quantum Leap, the TV show which wouldn’t premiere until four years later, but that’s another story.

The way video games have metaphorically mushroomed, expanding through every part of our culture, with graphic interfaces becoming even part of the way we work, seemed to be captured by these which mysteriously appeared near my office.

We Can Be Heroes.

Every time there’s a new round of Olympic games I remember something very specific from decades ago: I was watching the opening ceremonies, enjoying the parade of athletes from all around the world, when I heard a commentator say, “You know, a lot of the athletes from those small countries don’t have a chance.”

I can’t remember which Olympics it was—I believe I’ve blocked out everything else. No one else seemed to notice it so I was surprised I was the only one who had a mental record scratch. I remember that statement. Maybe it’s better forgotten but the fact that someone said it out loud has left me with the feeling that it deserves pushback.

Granted I’m not naïve enough to think that every athlete has an equal chance. Some come from countries that have better training facilities and better resources. Many countries send athletes who are professionals; not all have that advantage. Countries with larger populations have a larger pool of athletes to draw from, though that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. I’m also not naïve enough to think that just anyone can qualify for the Olympics. Every athlete there has worked hard and reached a high level.

I have had wild daydreams of moving to Nauru, the smallest country in terms of both size and population competing in the Olympics, and trying out, but it would still take a lot of hard work and training to even have a chance, which is why my daydreams quickly turn to me putting a javelin through my foot, tripping over some weights, falling off the high dive into the pool, getting run over by horses playing water polo, and finally being hit by a surfboard, which would get a lot of coverage but I completely understand is not the sort of look the organizers of the Olympics want, but that’s another story.

Something I always think about when watching Olympic events: every athlete in every event is that every athlete there, professional or not, has earned their place there. And even if the odds are in favor of certain athletes no outcome is predetermined. Any competitor could have a bad day—though I wouldn’t wish that on them—and any competitor could have a really good day, which is something I wish for all of them even if the nature of competitions is that not everyone can win.

Maybe I really am naïve but I believe every competitor has a chance and that’s the best part of the Olympics.

Also good luck, Winzar Kakiouea of Nauru.