Dark Out On That

 

I thought of taking a late bike ride.  Never had a chance during the day, with all the calls and the driving around.  Now then, at the end of the day?  “How long till the dinner?”  I ain’t eating but I do want to sit with them all.  “Twenty minutes,” answered my wife.  “Is that more like thirty?” “Maybe.”  “I’ll go try to get a ride in then.”  But in my heart, I knew that would be a fifty-minute ride and that by the time I was returning home it would be very dark out on that trial. 

 

During dinner I taught two pages worth of the “History: From the Dawn of Civilization to the Present Day” put out by the Smithsonian Institute.  I’d hoped when I bought it that it would be a chapter format, but as is, there are two to three-page snippets per topic that can be fashioned as a mini-lesson.  Tonight, I reviewed the earliest civilizations of Mesopotamia, Akadia and Ur.  Stared for a long while at the enigmatic Mask of Sargon and his confident, hirsute mien and tried to bring to life the idea of what the earliest cities must have been like with the obvious improvements and drawbacks from life as hunter gatherers.  I keep the discussions to ten, fifteen minutes or so thereby minimizing sighs and eye-rolls. 

Drove to Fishkill today.  I was never enamored with that town.  I think my grandmother planted some discontented seeds prejudicing me against the place in my formative years.  The main road doesn’t do much to improve upon my compromised view of the place.  I dropped our older one off at a doctor, in a little doctor-mall they have in Fishkill, and then the Mrs. and I drove off to get lost and kill some time.  I saw those lovely hills that rise up off to the left and thought to drive up into them but somehow wound up in the town of Beacon instead.  I’d left my wallet at home though and so we decided against stopping and simply drove through the town, which is all most people do now, these days anyway.

Back in the medical center parking lot I managed to finish off the final fifty pages of (the first volume collection of) “Lone Wolf and Cub,” which I’d become addicted to with surprising rapidity.  “If you meet the Buddha, kill him.”  The pacing is very fast, each tale distinct, save the preordained victory of the Assassin each time and the unique Japanese interpretation of honor is explored from different stress points.  Pages fly by with illustrative illustrations and only the word “ffft” and “sssslt” to get much bogged down with textually and seven-hundred pages passes by quite quickly.  I’ve struck a bargain with the little one.  She will read my Tokugawa manga if I read her Attack on Titan manga.  Anything to establish a rapport about books. 

 

 

 

Wednesday, 09/09/20