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Journal of a Sabbatical |
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November 25, 2000 |
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brrrr plus |
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Today's Bird Sightings:
Today's Reading: The Story of the Stone (a.k.a. Dream of the Red Chamber): Volume 3 by Cao Xueqin, Autumn from the Journal of Henry David Thoreau edited by H.G.O. Blake
Plum Island Bird List Watchemoket Cove Bird List
Copyright © 2000, Janet I. Egan |
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The heat in Nancy's apartment ceased to function some time during the night. I woke up cold. Very cold. I wrapped myself in the sheets like a mummy. Aches and pains formed in several parts of my body, convincing me I had developed fibromyalgia overnight. According to that article I read, sudden trauma can cause it. Nancy points out that sleeping tensed up in the freezing cold can easily account for the muscle aches. She goes to take a shower. Oops. No hot water. Clearly a serious problem. Nancy tries a few phone calls to see about getting some heat. The landlady is out of town for the holiday weekend. Ditto for the guy across the hall and the people downstairs. We decide to regroup and deal with it after breakfast. Since it's Saturday breakfast at Downcity is finally possible without an hour wait. I got the fabulous toast I longed for in China so my toast needs have finally been met. I do not know why Portuguese cornbread makes such fabulous toast, nor even exactly what Portuguese cornbread is, but I have to have it. After breakfast we stop at the Brown Bookstore for Rhode Island Tree Council's annual tree calendar. It sells out quickly so I didn't want to put off getting my copy. I bought one for István to hang in the herbarium at Budakeszi and took advantage of the free gift wrapping service. The free gift wrapping woman is reading a book of literary criticism from the remainder table. I tell her about buying that huge Japanese novel for 88 cents from the remainder table and taking all summer to read it. She's not impressed. She says she reads 5 books a week and I begin to feel inadequate. We check on the heat at the apartment again and find it has come on. The radiator pipes are hot to the touch. Hot water comes out of the tap. Either it healed itself or one of the other tenants managed to get the heating company to come while we were eating breakfast and buying calendars. It's been weeks since we birded at the cove or walked on the East Bay Bike Path, so we decide to go for a walk. On arrival at the cove, we quickly determine that although the absolute temperature is supposedly warmer than yesterday it's too damn cold to go for a walk and besides that I still ache from sleeping curled up tight in tense ball in the freezing cold. The wind is blowing off the bay or the Providence River or whatever making the cold more penetrating. It's a damp cold. It goes right through me. I stand at the cove letting the cold penetrate my aching joints, muscles, bones ... and watch a flock of hoodies (hooded mergansers) try to avoid having whatever they're catching under the water snatched away by gulls when they surface. Usually the wigeons bother the hoodies and scavenge food from them. Today most of the wigeons are off by themselves dabbling. Some of them are mixed in with a flock of mallards. A flock of Canada geese comes in for a landing there's a snow goose with them. I've never seen a snow goose at the cove before. I get a good long look but then the whole flock takes off again and heads south. I watch them until they disappear into the cold gray clouds. Thoroughly chilled we head to Tealuxe for green tea and crumpets to warm up. Then it's to the Brown Bookstore again. This time I cannot resist buying books but at least they're not for me. I pick out a fantasy by Kim Stanley Robinson that I think Andrea will like and be able to understand. It's set in Nepal and features a yeti and some Buddhists. As far as I can tell the Buddhists in the story do not eat wet croutons, so maybe she'll get over the idea that I am the only Buddhist in the world and that all Buddhists eat wet croutons for Thanksgiving dinner. For the record, the vegetarian stuffing did not taste like wet croutons or even look like it. Also got her A Wrinkle in Time and Wind in the Door, two of my childhood favorites. Somebody at dinner yesterday suggested The Catcher in the Rye and 1984. Umm, her reading level may be sufficient to understand them but what about maturity and emotional wherewithal? I read 1984 when I was in 6th or 7th grade and had nightmares about totalitarian societies for months. Of course, Andrea's smarter than I am but it ain't sheer intelligence that's needed. On the other hand nobody in there eats tofu or wet croutons and threatens to dye their hair green (No, AJ! Can't you do a natural color?!?) Nancy finds the Red Pine translation of the poems of Cold Mountain and asks if I have it. She's forever combining Stone House and Cold Mountain thinking they are the same person. Now I'm confused too and I claim I already have Cold Mountain (I'm talking about the Chinese poet Han Shan (which means Cold Mountain) not the Civil War novel of that title). On the way home I make another attempt at retrieving my camera at La Madre's. This time I have success. La Madre is home. She has the camera and Nancy's scarf too. Woohoo! Back at home I discover I have the Red Pine Translation of Stone House, not Cold Mountain. Not Stone Cold Steve Austin either. |
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