A birthday party for my sister last night. We went out for pizza. My nephew was talking about a trip to Disney World. I suggested that I would rather go to the dentist. He mentioned that Disneyworld was better than Disneyland and that either, was certainly better than the Hong Kong Disneyland that I’d taken my kids to. I insisted that all of the things he was mentioning that were supposed to be cool, like the riding in the Millennium Falcon and staying in a Disney hotel and riding to Space Mountain were, on the balance, less preferable than oral surgery. I was being ironic and I certainly don’t begrudge him or anyone the pilgrimage to Orlando but somehow it really annoyed my daughter who didn’t see the humor in it.
The pizza was OK. The ice cream they have there at Pomodoro in Highland is even better. We got a lot of stuff, including some wine for the ladies and sped back home. Somehow, I wound up with “Get Your Ya’s Ya’s Out” on the audio. I skipped “Stray Cat Blues.” Hate the lyrics. Particularly enjoyed the slide in “Love in Vain.” But back at the house I surrendered any claim to DJ and we played tunes my sister adored like ABBA and later Michael Jackson. She’d brought a Karaoke machine which we were keen to use but she forgot the mic so we simply listened.
It rained when they arrived. Then, there was no rain, so we could eat outside. I stood against the railing as we didn’t have enough chairs and my mom fretted. Clouds gathered and it rained again just as we were coming in. Not long after it stopped. Listening to the “Mamma Mia” soundtrack, I got the urge to go outside again and convinced my stepdad to go and have a look at the trees I’d planted. We had a good stroll until the drops began to fall again and got inside just as a deluge returned.
I took to reading after they left and finished Mark Edward Lewis’ “Sanctioned Violence in Early China.” Earlier he’d referenced an early Chinese work I hadn’t been familiar with: The Shanhaijing a translation of which was available on Amazon and, just like that it arrived today. Monsters, magic cures, mountains with colorful names, it is not unlike the earlier Odyssey or, later the Age of Bede where animals without heads and owls that eat people and fish that, when you eat them help to ensure your armpits don’t smell, are all lurking there, just over the next mountain. Forever appreciative, I wasn’t sure what to expect when I shared it with my wife, but she’d heard of it and knew of the reference, even though it wasn’t anything she’d dug into of late.
Sunday 07/18/21
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