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Monday, July 02, 2007 This morning sitting in a café, I overheard a 30ish woman -- either in the early stages of pregnancy or working on the idea of getting pregnant -- tell someone how she was testing baby names. She said that girls' names were on the table, and explained that the process consisted of plugging them into the sentence "....get down from there!", saying it out loud. As in, she continued, "Taya, get down from there right now!" It sounded like she said an aunt or grandmother had passed on that method to her, and I pondered the expectations packed into that strange test phrase. Not "I love you, Taya" or "Taya, you are adorable" or "Taya, honey, look at how beautiful you are!", statements that headed off in a happier direction -- but "Taya, get down from there!" I pondered that until I remembered that none of this was really any of my business. The woman and the person she spoke with wandered off out of earshot, I returned to attempting to cut through morning bleariness with a small cup of high-test. Last week's brief spell of lovely warm weather morphed into far less user-friendly conditions -- cool, gray, sometimes damp. Cool enough that this morning the thermometer outside the dining room window read 39 when I glanced foggily out. Cool enough that all the storm windows went down two days ago, me pulling on a pair of thermal bottoms yesterday (the first day of July). Somewhere off beyond the Green Mountains, the world is enjoying summer. Here the wet blankets in the local weatherbiz are predicting possible snow showers at the higher elevations tonight. July snow showers. Before leaving the house this morning, I made the mistake of firing up the radio, heard a story about the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, thirty years after the summer of love. A snippet from a late-60's pop song played ("If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair...."), immediately finding its way into my teeny brain, where it began playing itself over and over and over. A sweet, well-intended bit of pop fluff but enough, after several repetitions, to get me thinking about beating my head against a nearby wall. Several hours later, it's still in there, cycling away -- that continues, I'm going to have to crank up the stereo, find a less maddening tune to drive the current one out. Drove back from town along lovely back roads, foliage lush and green, skies mostly gray, small patches of blue scattered here and there. Now and then especially thick clouds moved overhead, darkening stretches of tree-canopied dirt roads almost to the point of midday twilight. Experienced a slight bladder emergency, stopped along a length of little-traveled fourth-class road for a fast, urgent pit-stop (we don't buy coffee, we only rent it) -- a place usually so quiet that one can hear an approaching vehicle long before it rounds the corner into view. A few brief, blissful seconds after getting out into the fresh air and starting to dump the ballast, a Subaru station-wagon silently appeared, both me and the other driver getting an uncomfortable surprise, me diving back into my Forester, continuing slowly on my way, the other driver maintaining a cautious distance to the rear until I found a spot along the narrow track to pull over, let them move by. They immediately picked up speed, hurried past, me not recognizing the car, noticing the license plate featured a short, easily remembered three-digit number. If I ever come across that vehicle again, I'll say something apologetic to the driver, hope they don't think me a total pig. Not a huge deal in the big picture, but a classic example of unfortunate timing. Ah, well. On to the day. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From an email sent by a Jewish friend this morning (please forgive the lapse into blatant stereotypes): DIFFERENCES The Italian says, "I'm tired and thirsty. I must have wine." The Frenchman says, "I'm tired and thirsty. I must have cognac." The Russian says, "I'm tired and thirsty. I must have vodka." The German says, "I'm tired and thirsty. I must have beer." The Mexican says, "I'm tired and thirsty. I must have tequila." The Jew says, "I'm tired and thirsty. I must have diabetes." España, te echo de menos. rws 1:03 PM [+]
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