And All But Uneatable

I didn’t get in till 2:30AM.  Flight delay, of course.  Air China offers everyone shuttle busses instead of parking at a gate, of course.  The keys were not in the box where they ought to be when I got home.  I reluctantly rang the bell.  Then I thought to check wechat. There was a message.  And my wife had just typed: “the keys are in the door.”  Sheepishly I checked again and indeed, there they were.

I was up early, as usual.  Picked a random Chinese news article to translate and learned about an unfortunate young tourist in Bali who was assaulted.  The article has less to do with her and more about how fast they apprehended the subject, how insistent the local Chinese consulate was about getting results and how the local authorities were quick to satisfy each and every concern of the Chinese officials. 

I got sleepy by noon and went up for a nap.  My wife was talking loudly on a call with someone in Shanghai.  My kids were conversing as well.  I got back up to close the door and got under the covers with this new Brazilian history book of mine.  The book chooses to begin things in Europe, although makes a certain sense, I wondered about this for a while?  Presumably there is little-to-no extant history of the local indigenous tribes, unlike Mesoamerica or the Andes.  I got drowsy after a few pages, as planned, but not before I could consider their particularly interesting description of why it was medieval people so craved spices.  I suppose I assumed they made food somewhat more palatable.  This text suggested that the cured meat of medieval European winters was rather, rancid, and all but uneatable.   Spices then, as critical as gold, not a nice-to-have.

Afternoon dream of taking a wrong turn on a bus in some odd, San Francisco like city.  I’ve got to get back up to that other street where I’ll meet everyone.  But the dream needs its tension to propel it and I am forever delayed until I arise, arguably well-rested.  Spotify doesn’t seem to load on my computer.  I’ll need to make time to trouble shoot this.  I’ve been relying on Youtube, which works until it doesn’t.  Today, I’ve got Trouble from WFMU back up after a long winter hiatus.  So glad to be back with her whimsical progressions into Iraqi psychedelia and French punk from 1978.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJ84i6HDGhA

Saturday, 5/04/19