Drink your milk

• 

My ma, she tells me to drink milk,
My pa, he says so, too.
My teacher says a quart a day
Is not too much for you. 

Such were the memorable lyrics of a song we sang in third grade, part of a "Good Health" class extravaganza that we presented for the benefit of lowly first and second graders.  The verse was sung to the tune of Auld Lang Syne.  

A quart a day of milk.  The recognized amount needed for good health.  No one would ever have questioned it.  And a quart a day would amount to 91¼ gallons of milk per capita per annum.  Although our budding third grade math skills weren't yet quite up to that calculation.

A quart a day was the amount required by kids.  I suppose most adults drank less, although my mother, at least, drank the same amount as her children -- in addition to her coffee.  But times have changed.   In 2018, Americans consumed just 17 gallons per capita.  That had fallen from 24 gallons in 1996, and from about 28 gallons in 1975.

Why?  A spokesman for the milk industry says that -- for children at least -- the responsibility falls on the lack of concern by "gatekeeper moms."

Now there's so much choice in the marketplace. You have all kinds of different waters and sports beverages and energy drinks, so there's just a lot of choice out there. It's a culture of choice."

I still do my part.  Milk on my breakfast cereal.  Milk at lunch.  Milk at dinner.  Often, milk with snacks.  I'm part of a rapidly dying breed, however.

Some dairymen are going with the flow.  The Seattle Times carried an A.P. story this morning about two brothers who operate a dairy farm in Vermont, a farm that has been in the family for 150 years.  They're switching from cows to goats -- as are a growing number of other dairy farms.  So what does this mean?  Have kids and their parents, after turning up their noses at cows' milk -- in favor of Cokes, juice, and Red Bull -- not to mention coffee --  suddenly developed a taste for goat's milk?

Not really.  The milk is used primarily for making goat's cheese, which is acquiring a growing following among America's consumers.  Cheese is also a good source of calcium and other nutrients, of course, but I'm not sure that the kids who skip their daily milk are now nibbling on goat cheese.  It's more likely to be consumed by their parents, accompanying their evening glass of wine -- another milk competitor.

Goat dairymen seem pleased enough with the change, judging by the reaction of one such farmer:

The goats have a lot more personality than cows do, that's for sure.  Very curious," Brian Jones said, adding that they always wanted to nibble on something.

I have no problems with the production of goat cheese, but I lament the decline of Elsie the Cow and her friends.  Drinking milk just seems more, well, American, than eating goat cheese.  Even more American than owning an assault rifle.

I think I'll mull over the situation with a glass of milk and a couple of Oreos.  

Buon giorno, signore! Come va?

As mentioned last week, in just over seven weeks, I'll be heading for Italy.  This will be my ninth visit to that country, beginning with a six-month period of living and studying in Italy as a college student.

I must speak Italian pretty well by now, right?

Ha!

I am the worst person I know at learning spoken languages.  I took two years of Spanish in high school, and another five terms in college.  I became reasonably adept -- temporarily -- at reading simple Spanish.  But my speaking and listening ability, despite college language labs in college, designed to give us an "ear" for the language, remained rudimentary.  "Buenos dias.  ¿Como está usted?"  That pretty much sums up my conversational Spanish.

As part of my student days in Italy, I also took three terms of "Intensive Italian," focusing on the spoken, rather than written, language,  One of my female classmates was kind enough to tell me that my spoken Italian was "laughable."   Laughable or not, I am a bit more fluent in Italian than in Spanish, because I've visited the country so frequently.

Spanish and Italian are similar languages -- more similar when spoken than in writing.  This similarity helped me at first to master an elementary Italian vocabulary, but it also meant that I now forget whether the word that comes to mind when I'm trying to make myself understood is the Italian or the Spanish word.  "¡Que lastima!  Or, should I say, "Che peccato!"  

Even at my best, back when I was a student and had command of a very basic vocabulary, my grammar was even less than basic.  Italian has at least eight verb tenses, for example -- present, future, imperfect, perfect, past historic, imperative, conditional, and subjunctive.  In speaking, I confine myself to the present tense; where absolutely necessary, I'll use the perfect tense to indicate a past action, for the simple reason that it's an easy tense to remember. 

"Tomorrow I go to Milan if my sister arrives in time; yesterday I am in Rome," is how I sound."     

Fortunately, the Italians are a very genial people, and very forgiving of mistakes made by struggling foreigners.  The people I'm apt to deal with as a tourist very often speak excellent English -- better than some native English speakers I know back home.  And everyone seems delighted if you know any Italian at all, and that you make any effort at all to speak it.  

And those facts -- together with use of explanatory hand signs -- get me through the day as a tourist.  But "getting through the day" doesn't equate with an ability to engage in good conversation with those Italians who speak no English.  It's hard to discuss anything of complexity when one of the speakers is, as David Sedaris put it somewhere, "speaking baby talk." 

For months, I've been planning to brush up on my Italian before the trip, and now it seems a bit too late.  I'm not proud of myself, but it will all work out.  The human brain has surprising resources, and I've been surprised at the Italian words that have popped into my mouth from the depths of my memory when I desperately needed to convey or obtain information.  

Like, "Per favore!  Dov'è la toilette?"    

Language fails us

The "Eucharist" is the Christian ceremony celebrating the Last Supper, and also refers to the bread and wine consecrated during the ceremony and received by the priest and the congregation.  During the past few months, the press has reported calls by various Catholic bishops to deny the Eucharist to President Biden, as a punishment for his failure to support a national ban on abortion, or, more accurately, because his political beliefs and actions render him "unworthy" of receiving communion.  

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has decided to draft and issue a "teaching document" reminding the faithful of the meaning of the Eucharist.  The press had been rife with rumors that the document would specifically authorize a bishop to refuse the Eucharist to politicians under certain conditions.  Representatives of the USCCB have denied that this will be the intent or the effect of the document.

The controversy aroused by this issue reminds me of a weekly email sent to parishioners by our then-pastor back in February 2020.  The email did not address directly the subject of the Eucharist, but rather eloquently examined the nature of the Church itself, and noted the impossibility that any formal statement of doctrine could adequately sum up the nature of reality or set forth the fullness of the Christian message.

I'm copying a lengthy excerpt from that email, whose eloquence of expression I admire, and which I find myself reading over again from time to time.

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We can forget, sometimes, that our Catholic identity is rooted not in some clear and distinct theological and dogmatic ideas, but in the story of Jesus Christ and the unfolding story of the Church, i.e., the People of God. Ideas, dogmas, theological schemas: all may arise from our reading of the story of Jesus, but they are always just approximations—attempts to synthesize and reduce to a “yes” or “no” framework something which is, by its very nature, as complex, as open to various and varied interpretations as is the human experience itself. Jesus doesn’t come into the world with a white-board to explain everything to us, once and for all; but comes with a story, and leaves his story behind, to be told until the end of days. And while the teachings and the precepts may be important, what connects us to Christ is his story, as it is told by those who loved him and received by us; a story into which we are called to enter and make our own. In the end, the message of Christianity—including Catholicism—is that the complex revelation present in a human being and in a human community cannot be reduced to any idea or summarizing principle. The narrative character of Catholicism means that truth emerges only in the dynamic interplay of everything human—thought and feeling, intuition and rationality, science and poetry, action and reflection, gender and transcendence, individuality and community—which only our story can bear. Or, as St. Irenaeus says more succinctly: “The glory of God is the human person fully alive.”

In these days of competing ideologies and systems, there is a temptation to equate certainty of facts with the fullness of truth, and so to reduce the value of story to something less important and less true. We want definite answers—a “yes” or a “no”—which ideology too easily supplies. But what if the deepest truth of this world, and our deepest truth, cannot be reduced to bumper sticker aphorisms or 280 character tweets? What if truth requires engagement and encounter, like a book that needs to be opened and read, like a story that needs to be heard and told, over and over again—and whose meaning changes us, and changes in us, in ways we may not ever fully fathom? Then, if we want truth, we should read great stories—by Dostoyevski and Camus, L’Engle and Austen, Baldwin and Borges, and anyone else who opens our heart. And if we want true religion, we should read the gospels—not to sift out the rules or look for the loopholes, but to encounter the humanity of our God, whose Word longs to become part of our story.

Biking in southern China

Another "blast from the past."  In 1998, my nephew and I joined an REI Adventures biking tour (eleven of us, altogether) of southern China.  The trip began with a couple of nights in Hong Kong, exploring the city, partly with the group and partly on our own.    

We then took a catamaran ferry from Hong Kong, up the Pearl River, and passed through Chinese customs at Zhaoqing.  We spent the night in Zhaoqing, where we were introduced to our very good road bikes, which were adjusted to fit each of our bodies.  I will begin quoting from my journal after the first day of biking:

October 13 [1998] -- Tuesday -- 9:05 p.m.
Qing Yuan

First full day of biking, and Den and I went the entire 50 miles, together with five others from our group.  We rode in the bus for a number of miles out of town, then unloaded the bikes and set out into the Chinese landscape.  Fantastic day of sights, topped off with some exhaustion and a splitting headache the last two or three miles.  The headaches evaporated as soon as we stopped biking and sat down nursing a beer!

The route was flat, much of it on the top of a river levee.  We stopped a number of times for breaks, and were approached each time by curious locals.

October 14 -- Wednesday -- 6:25 a.m.
Qing Yuan

I conked out after writing one paragraph last night.  Fifty miles caught up with me, along with ending the day playing several games of gin rummy -- which Denny is finally learning to like!

We began riding down tree-lined lanes, with only occasional trucks and motor scooters contesting us for the road.  Everyone grins and shouts "Hello!" or "Hi!"  Then up onto the top of the levee where we followed a path for some distance.  We came down from the levee into a shady area where we stopped for lunch.  Passers-by carrying loads on their shoulders or in push carts were popular subjects for photographs, and were rewarded by one of our group (Dick Zeiner) with Polaroid shots of themselves -- they were delighted.  Denny and I took turns trying out Tom Richardson's recumbent bicycle -- too good an opportunity to miss.  Denny took to it like a duck to water; I was a bit more wobbly.

By now it was 95 degrees and humid, and stayed that way the rest of the day.  We passed through a number of towns.  Most directional signs are in Chinese only, so it's a good thing we had a guide.  (some of the signs on freeways are in English as well.)

We crossed the river on a small ferry, joining a mob of Chinese on bikes and motorbikes.  The ferry crossing was a high point of the day.  On the other side, we stopped at a small store and shelter - sort of an informal community center -- for cokes, and watched locals playing mah jong at a couple of tables.  Money was changing hands, and our guide says that the Chinese are "very bad gamblers."  About half of our group had got onto the bus by the time we reached the ferry, but most rejoined the active bikers for the final leg of the day's ride as we sailed onto a superhighway, went through a number of exchanges (cloverleafs), crossed a major bridge, and ended up here at this very nice, brand new hotel.  Sitting here in bed, looking around me, I feel we could easily be in a Marriott Hotel in the U.S. -- spacious room and many amenities.  On arrival, we traipsed into the lobby all hot and sweaty, and collapsed into the lobby lounge where we had beers before getting our rooms.  Peking duck for dinner -- it's the skin that you eat, we discovered, wrapped in a kind of crêpe with onions and jam.

October 16 -- Friday --6:35 a.m.
Yangshan

After going 50 miles on Tuesday, Wednesday was an easy day.  We rode some 30 or 40 miles in the van, and then biked almost six miles on back roads to our hotel in Jiu Long.  Lucky, because after yesterday, I had a very sore butt!

Karst formations were now seen all over the place -- this area is called "Little Guilin."  Our hotel was a pretty bleak concrete block -- only three years old and it looked like it had been around since the 1930s.  Our room walls were chipped and stained.  Many bugs and mosquitoes.     

After settling in, we biked another couple of miles to the end of a little road where we had a picnic lunch, watched carefully by area children who materialized out of nowhere.  Then we climbed aboard a couple of boats and were poled through an opening into the interior of a karst.  Cool and silent, like a cathedral.  We crossed the interior, dim and mysterious, under an opening to the sky in the karst high above.  We then got out of the boats, and at this point Denny apparently moved his leg in an awkward manner and was immediately in pain.  He thinks something has come loose inside the joint.  Even so, he followed the rest of us up a path about half way to the top of the karst, where we had a view down through the interior of the karst to the water below.  The karst seems to have been used as a fort by a band of bandits until the Communists came along and cleared them out.

Returned to our room for siestas, Denny returning in the van.  Then about 4:30, we biked the opposite direction from town and took another short boat ride upstream a bit.  We hiked through rice fields and pasture areas.  Saw the friskiest calf I've ever seen -- he ran around like a dog.  Denny's knee was bothering him badly.

Our destination was a karst formation with a cave in it, but the cave was closed when we arrived (there was a gate where admission was charged).  A bunch of flags flying atop the karst marked a campsite set up by some boy scouts.  We also visited a rather primitive collection of dwellings -- a tiny, densely populated village set in the middle of farmland.  One of the men showed us his house, a dark room which we entered and inspected.  Life here is obviously very basic.  Zhi-Wei, our guide, says this "village" is centuries old.  We returned to town, it being dark by the time we pulled onto the main street.

Jiu Long itself is a small, more typical village -- dirt streets, kind of run down buildings with small displays of fruits, drinks, household items -- the first we visited of what is turning out to be many similar small towns.  They all have kind of a Mexican or other third world feel.  Virtually no autos, lots of bikes, and quite a few motorcycles and scooters -- often occupied by a couple of teenaged boys buzzing around looking important.  Kind of a post-war Italian feel.  Lots of people in the streets, especially children playing.  The children are extremely cute, usually smiling and laughing and often quite aggressively curious, joking around with us.

Yesterday, we left Jiu Long by bike -- another long day of cycling.  Scenery was fantastic, with lots of interesting stuff to see along the road -- road workers, farmers, fishermen, small craftsmen.  Before lunch, most roads were unpaved with some concrete strips which were being laid in places -- in a few years this will all be paved and much less fun to visit.  We buzzed into one small town around lunch hour, and were mobbed by kids, all wearing inexpensive blazers as a uniform, and book bag backpacks.  They were jumping on the backs of bikes to get rides and having quite a time.  We are obviously like the circus when we come to town.  Then up a hill and down a long incline at a pretty fast speed, all on unpaved rocky road, to our lunch stop down in the valley -- an exhilarating ride.  I am delighted with the way the bike behaves on rough terrain -- the shocks obviously help a lot.  

* * *

Today, we go into Yao country.

We biked for another four days, viewing varied types of countryside and cultures, ending up in Guilin.  From Guilin, we flew to Guangzhou (Canton), where we stayed at the five-star White Swan Hotel, and toured the city.  We returned by train the next day to Hong Kong.

I'm glad we took this trip when we did, as China -- especially rural southern China -- was just making the transition from a poor agricultural country to a modern industrial state.   I noted at several points in my journal my feeling that we were lucky to see this area when we did, because big changes were already under way.  Although I suspect that many backwoods corners of the area still haven't changed much in the intervening 23 years.

Sneaking across the Atlantic

Readers of this blog will recall the Great Levanto Fiasco of 2020-21.  

A large birthday celebration, with thirty or so attendees, scheduled for May 2020 in Levanto, Italy, on the Ligurian coast.  Cancellation at the last moment, when Covid-19, like an evil deus ex machina, descended upon the scene.  Rescheduling of the event for May 2021 -- because surely no pandemic would still be raging about the world by that time.  Final cancellation early this year when that prediction proved all too faulty.  

Besides the big Levanto celebration, my sister and I and two or three others planned a small coda to the main event, a cooling-off period -- we joked -- to recover from all that fun.  We rented a house for one week on the shore of Lake Como, in the foothills of the Italian Alps.

We never canceled that rental, but postponed it even further until this September.  I suspected that by that time, world-wide immunization would have got the pandemic under control.

Lake Como still remains on tap.  The pandemic -- despite variant delta -- is increasingly under control in America and in much of Europe, although not elsewhere.  And more important, I and most others originally scheduled for Levanto have received both vaccination shots.

And so, eight weeks from now, barring some new disaster, I will fly to Rome where I'll stay for two nights, readjusting to Italy and renewing my love affair with its capital.  Then by train to Milan, where I'll meet my sister, our cousin, and maybe another couple.  (They are flying directly to Milan from San Francisco.)  We'll take a one hour train ride north to the town of Como, on the lake, and then a ferry ride to Menaggio, where we'll be just three miles (a taxi cab drive) from our rental.

I know.  One definition of insanity is making the same plans over and over and being confronted repeatedly by the same disaster.  But sanity is overrated.

I do have misgivings.  The delta variant is very contagious, and my Pfizer inoculations aren't one hundred percent effective.  Also, I will have reached the end of a six-month period since I received them, with conflicting reports on how effective they will remain without a booster.  But for  now, Italy is letting American tourists arrive without a Covid-19 test result and without a quarantine requirement -- so long as they come bearing a white CDC proof of vaccination card.  Who knows what the situation will be like next summer?  Grab a trip while you can is my possibly flawed instinct.

My other concern is more logistic.  The U.S. government requires a negative Covid-19 test performed within 72 hours of departure on a return trip to the States.  We'll be staying in a somewhat isolated area, and may have to devote much of one of our precious days locating and traveling to a pharmacy able to administer the test.  And of course if the test is positive ... well, I don't even want to think of the consequences, of how long I might have to stay somewhere in Italy until the disease ran its course.  

But at least I'm convinced that -- even if worst came to worst, and I tested positive -- my vaccination would ensure that I'd experience no serious symptoms.  The possibility of a positive testing does add a little stress to my preparations, but all good trips are stressful in some way or another.  Right?  The stress, once overcome, always makes for good stories once I'm back home.  

Not to mention, here on my blog. 

Pollux's excellent adventure

Better to be the cat gazing coolly down from a high wall, its expression inscrutable.

--Laini Taylor

Yeah, well, Pollux wasn't gazing down all that coolly this morning.

I woke up about 5:30.  Here in the northern latitudes, not long past the solstice, it was already light.  A cat -- Pollux -- was prowling restlessly about my bedroom, thinking deep cat thoughts.  Or maybe no thoughts at all.

He glanced over at the room's front window, a small, Gothic affair better suited for a church than a bedroom.  The window is usually just a decorative item, letting a small amount of additional light in through the stained glass.  In summer, however, when days are hot and nights are cooler, I tend to leave it open.  To my two cats -- with me only since the end of last summer -- its open status apparently served as a novelty in this otherwise predictable househould.

Pollux stared at the window for a few moments, and then tightened his muscles ready to leap.  Other, earlier cats had also often jumped up onto the window sill, surveying the front yard of what they considered their estate.  Still, there was the fear in my mind that he would misjudge his leap and soar off the second floor of the house.

I underestimated his feline instincts.  He jumped.  He teetered a bit, surprised at the void beneath his feet.  And then he settled himself with confidence.

As can be seen in the photo, the window is separated by a short gap from a very steep portion of the shingled roof, a small gable roof that covers the entrance to the house.  One prior cat, the late lamented Loki, dared as a  small kitten to make the leap onto the roof.  After some coaxing, and forcing myself to lean precariously out the window, I coaxed Loki to approach my hand and pulled him back inside to safety.

My memory of the event made me a bit nervous, but Pollux seemed settled on the window sill.  I looked away.  When I looked back, Pollux had vanished.  Outside the window, I heard a meow of surprise.  There he was, slightly below my level, hanging onto the roof.  Cats have claws; he was in far less danger of sliding off the edge than I would have been.

He scampered up to the top of the small gable roof, and sat on its summit.  His meows became more plaintive.  I enticed him down closer to the window.  He didn't get close enough for me to catch him, and I wasn't confident enough of my balance to reach out far enough even if he had.  Also, he isn't a small kitten; he isn't huge, but he weighs ten pounds.

I considered the possibilities.  From the other side of the small gable roof, it is quite possible to climb up onto the main portion of the roof, and then to move from the front of the house to the back.  At the back of the house, there's a hedge near the roof line that he might be able to climb down.  

But Pollux showed no interest in exploring that non-obvious possibility.  He was interested in getting down, not climbing higher.

No doubt waking the neighbors, I dragged a ladder out of the garage and propped it against the side of the house.  Just as I feared.  The ladder wasn't long enough to reach the roof from ground level.  I tried bridging the gap between window and cat with various articles, none of which came close to being successful.  My attempts only persuaded Pollux of what he had long suspected --  that I had no idea what I was doing.  They served only in convincing him, in fact, that I was totally useless as his protector.

I sensed despair in his feline eyes.

I decided to go outside again and survey the situation.  For lack of any other idea, other than wanting to go back to bed at what was now 6 a.m.

I opened the front door, and there on the porch sat Pollux.  Less than a couple of minutes after I last saw him out my window, stranded on the roof.

[I had to interrupt writing this adventure to rescue a bird -- alive and as yet uninjured -- that Pollux had seen fit to bring into the house in his mouth.  Never a dull moment with that cat.]

How did he get down from the roof .  Pollux wasn't talking, and I haven't the slightest idea.  Unless he jumped some twenty feet from the roof to the ground, avoiding the porch, the driveway, and other concrete surfaces.  He seemed unperturbed, and happy to accept my congratulations.

But the cat remained inscrutable.

Excessive heat

Outside the wind blew by; in here there was nothing but the beating of the hot sun on the skin. ... When he looked at the sun, his eyes closed almost tight, he saw webs of crystalline fire crawling across the narrow space between the slitted lids, and his eyelashes made the furry beams of light stretch out, recede, stretch out.

-Paul Bowles

It's been very hot in Seattle the past four days.  Snow's not falling on cedars, these days, nor is rain dripping through the firs.

I can hardly think straight.  

I may well be going mad.

Da Vinci's Cat

Sir Federico Gonzaga is the son of the Duke of Mantua.  He has been held hostage in the Vatican by Pope Julius II, in order to ensure the continued loyalty of the Duke.  

Sir Federico has a fine eye for ranks of nobility, for court etiquette, and for proper dress.  We would call him arrogant, but he is acting as he has been brought up.  He feels a strong duty to maintain the dignity of his father and of his family.

Sir Federico is also lonely and bored.  He has many important acquaintances -- the pope himself plays backgammon with him, and is often enraged when he loses -- but he has no true friends.  This is understandable, because Sir Federico is only eleven years old.  A child surviving in a court of intrigue.

The boy makes his first friend when he opens a large, ornate box and meets a lively, friendly, and intelligent kitten.  The two are inseparable, until the kitten walks back into the box and disappears.  Federico is devastated, but the kitten emerges again, a short time later, as a fully grown, elegant cat.  Federico fears witchcraft.

But the reality is even stranger.  The box is a time machine, one crafted -- we eventually learn -- by Leonardo da Vinci as a gift for the King of France.

Thus begins Da Vinci's Cat (2021), a novel apparently aimed at middle school students, by Catherine Gilbert Murdock.  The plot is perhaps too elementary, and the human relations too superficially described, to serve as an adult novel (but not perhaps as a sci-fi or fantasy novel).  And yet, it appeals to adults (to this one, in any event), while it may seem too rich in history and art to be accessible (or of interest) to the typical middle school reader. 

Leonardo himself plays little additional part in the story.  But Federico is close friends with Raphael (elegant, charming, popular) and is tactfully diplomatic with Michelangelo (ugly, hostile, jealous, and -- as Federico repeatedly reminds us -- he stinks).  The time is the early sixteenth century.  Michelangelo is painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling, and Raphael is doing the papal apartments.  (Federico brags that Raphael painted him as a beautiful young boy and inserted him into his School of Athens masterpiece.)

The boy views Pope Julius II as just another egotistical Renaissance aristocrat, the head of one of the most powerful Italian states.  He hardly touches on the pope's religious leadership.  As he observes during a service in the Sistine Chapel, below Michelangelo's scaffolding:

His Holiness promptly went to sleep as he usually did during ceremonies.  Federico could not hear the priests for the pope's snoring. 

And that may have been an accurate assessment of Julius II's priorities.  According to Wikipedia, Julius II "left a significant cultural and political legacy."  No mention of his personal sanctity.  

The plot thickens.  From the same box from which the cat had stepped appears an American from the year 1928.

"I am Sir Federico of Mantua."

"Pleased to meet you Sir Federico.  Herbert Bother of New Jersey.  Call me Herbert."

Federico found Herbert's Italian appalling, but then he was from New Jersey.  But despite initial dislike, he soon adopts Herbert as his second friend, after the cat.  We also are introduced to Beatrice, or Bea, also from America -- but from America in our own time -- a young girl Federico's age.  Bea becomes a protagonist along with Federico, and some of the chapters are told from her point of view.  Stir these odd characters together with the concept of time travel, and you end with a plot that is interesting enough to keep you reading.

But the better reason for reading Da Vinci's Cat is the picture Ms. Murdock paints of Renaissance Rome, as seen both through Federico's contemporary eyes, and through the astonished eyes of visitors from the twentieth century:  The Vatican, a century before the completion of the modern St. Peter's (first planned by Julius II himself).   The darkness and danger of the Roman streets at night.  The smells.  The jousting for advantage by both nobles and artists, all seeking the pope's favor.  The policing power of the newly formed Swiss Guards.  The mutual jealousies of all those competing artists whose names loom large in Art 101. 

Most of the background is accurate.  As the author notes at the end, Federico was a real kid, born in 1500 in Mantua.  A kid who really was a hostage of Pope Julius II for three years.  He may or may not be the young boy painted in Rafael's The School of Athens -- but the author is convinced he is. The personalities and characteristics of Michelangelo ("he stinks") and Raphael (charming and popular) were actually more or less as described.  Leonardo was a scientific genius as well as an artist.  As Murdock notes, tongue in cheek:

Perhaps he invented a time machine, but since many of his notebooks have been lost, we'll never know for sure.

So, I ask again.  Will middle school kids enjoy the book?  Some, probably.  I'm not sure how I would have reacted to it at that age.  It may presume more historical and artistic background than I had in middle school.  Although what seventh grader can resist a heroine about whom it is written: "Also she really needed to pee.  No one in books ever talked about pee."

Federico is arrogant, but he was an aristocrat.  He has a good heart, and becomes increasingly likeable.  (Anyone who loves a cat is just dandy in my book.)  Bea discovers a painting of Federico as an adult in a modern encyclopedia -- he had a distinguished career as Duke of Mantua and as a patron of the arts.

It's not mentioned in this middle school novel, but Federico died at the age of 40 of syphilis.

------------------------------------

Top photo -- Painting of Federico II Gonzaga at the time he became a hostage.  By Francesco Francia (1447-1517)

Bottom photo -- Fragment from The School of Athens (Raphael) with image of Federico's head, with blond, curly hair, in center.

Melting

Late Wednesday night, I stumbled into my house after 34 hours on the train, and another hour waiting for and riding local Seattle rail and bus.  My cats had been visited and fed twice a day during my absence, and they had no legitimate reason to complain.  They greeted me coolly but correctly, accepted a third meal as part of my greeting and apology, gave me some small displays of affection, and then slipped out the cat door for a night on the town.

As you all know, I had been visiting with relatives in Oxnard, a beach town about an hour's drive north of Los Angeles.  The daily weather was consistent: highs of 66, lows in the low 60s, no rain but constant overcast.  "June Gloom," I'm told.  The weather reminded me of childhood visits to the beach up here in the Northwest, and I actually enjoyed it.

Upon my return, however, I've been greeted by forecasts of Temperature Armageddon.  Today, we had a high of 90.  Tomorrow, the high will be 95.  Sunday, 100. 

And Monday?  One hundred eight (108) degrees Fahrenheit (42 degrees C.).  Lows in the low 70s.

I don't think we've ever suffered from a temperature that high in Seattle.  I can't remember the last time we had a temperature of even 100, certainly not in June.

I find myself lethargic and irritable in today's heat.  I can't conceive of how I'll feel when it's 18 degrees hotter.  But I guess I'll soon find out.  I have no air conditioning.  I have no swimming pool.  We in the Northwest Corner have always prided ourselves on never needing such decadent modern conveniences.  We even sneer at newcomers who open up umbrellas when it rains.

Well, it won't be raining this week.  In my home town, in Southwest Washington, it's even worse.  They're looking at an anticipated high of 111 degrees on Sunday.  

A landscaper just installed a new hedge for me on Thursday.  "Keep it well-watered.  Daily!" he admonished me.  He had seen many signs that diligence in garden care wasn't my strong point.  Oh well.  I'm about to go out and water it now.  In 90 degree evening heat. 

Does human flesh melt?  I wonder.

Beach reunion

Readers will be stunned to learn that another unfortunate gap in my production of blog posts awaits them in coming days.  

I leave tomorrow for the beach at Oxnard, California, where I will meet my brother, sister, and portions of their families. I met them face to face, for the first time since the pandemic began, three months ago when they traveled to Seattle to help celebrate my birthday.  We had just been told that vaccinated individuals, such as us, could meet face to face indoors, and shed our masks in so doing.  At the same time, restaurants in my state were allowed to expand service to fifty percent capacity.

We took advantage of both permissions, although nervously, carefully, and not entirely certain that our vaccinations would really "work" -- that they would successfully fend off the scary little viruses.  After three months, we are more relaxed, more cavalier as to still possible dangers, and willing to close our eyes to the various Greek lettered variants -- Delta, in particular.  Experts tell us that even if Delta breaks through the full protection of our Pfizar shots, we'll at least probably avoid serious illness and death.  

Well, that's something, right?

My visit to Oxnard was at first intended to be longer, ending in a trip back to Washington state by my sister and me by train.  Yes, Kathy is also a train fanatic; it runs in the family.  Lots of other people seem fond of trains as well, however, and the only accommodations available were for a Tuesday departure from Oxnard.  A whirlwind visit indeed.

As a result, the Coast Starlight's leisurely 33 hours to reach Seattle from Oxnard will account for almost half of my trip.  And this time, I'll have someone to talk to in the dining car (I'm assuming Amtrak still limits each table to one family group, as part of its continuing pandemic precautions.)

I'll return to Seattle late Wednesday night.  I suspect the next post in this blog will follow not long thereafter.

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Photo -- Beach at Oxnard, January 2019. My niece and her daughter.

Hacking back the jungle

I'm fortunate to live in a neighborhood where no one's starving, no one is unemployed (at least involuntarily), and no one is on any form of public assistance.  In other ways, however, we're a mixed bag.  Especially with regard to our approaches to yardwork.

A few of my neighbors have so little interest in their yards that they appear to be living on a farm.  Quite a few others pay for regular yardwork service that maintains their yards in beautiful condition.  But a majority of my neighbors seem to consider working in their yards a hobby, a hobby that consumes a large portion of their spare time.  Not just lawn mowing.  I mean continual edging and pruning and trimming and planting and fertilizing ... well, you get the picture.

And then there's me.  I subscribe to a philosophy that might be called "Biennial Rescue."  I mow the lawn, of course, although not as fanatically often as others, and that's pretty much it.  I may clip back shrubs that are keeping my car from driving safely into the driveway, ok?  

But this is the Pacific Northwest, and nature uncontrolled eventually becomes nature tyrannical.  After two years of benign neglect, I find my house disappearing into the foliage.  I discover that the width of my front walk has been reduced 75 percent by aggressive ivy growth.  That my living room has been darkened by ivy growing across the windows.  That I have trouble moving from one portion of my yard to another because of overgrown shrubbery.  

I have a hedge that has grown so high as to cast a neighbor's back yard in shadow, resulting in a certain genial neighborly friction.

But why go on?  At that two-year benchmark, despair overpowers inertia.  I finally make that call to a landscaper.

And so yesterday, the crew arrived and spent all day doing what had to be done.  As I mentioned on Facebook, the day after they do what they do, I'm always reminded of my mother's reaction when my brother and I returned from the barber after the first haircut of summer -- our long awaited "crew cut."  She didn't weep.  She just sighed with sadness and resignation.  But she knew it would all grow back.

And so I stare at my house, especially the front, devoid of all the jungle-like growth that I both loved and hated, and that provided recreational opportunities for my two cats.  The trees and large bushes are still there, although trimmed back.  But all the wild growth -- weeds, one might call them, although somewhat attractive weeds -- are gone and bare earth has been exposed for the first time in 24 months.  I sigh.  But, like my childhood hair, it will all grow back.

And then the presentation of the bill.  The price of procrastination and of refusal to do the work myself is high.  Am I being cheated?  Who knows?  I'm too lazy to solicit bids for an occasional day of yardwork.  And it's only once every two years.

I can almost hear the little invasive plants stirring and beginning to grow back.

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The photo is a stock photo, and exaggerates my own problem.  But you get the idea..  

Adam's Peak, Sri Lanka -- 2004

It's been nine days -- nine uneventful days -- since my last post.  Once again, I resort to my travel journals.

In August 2004, Pascal and I traveled to Sri Lanka, a trip organized by a British travel company.  Besides the two of us, there were two other travelers, both Americans -- neither of whom we found particularly agreeable company.  Aside from the company of our fellow countrymen, however, the trip was enjoyable, and Sri Lanka itself was fascinating.

Sri Lanka is densely populated, and not exactly typical fodder for "adventure travel."  But we were inspired by our rail trip from Kandy, up and up into the mountains, through the hillside tea plantations, until we reached the British colonial hill town resort of Nuwara Eliya.  Our group stayed at the St. Andrew's Hotel, a hotel reminiscent of days of British rule. 

The high mountain air must have inspired in Pascal and me (and only in us) a desire to hike, and specifically to hike to the top of Adam's Peak (7,359 ft.), probably the best known hiking opportunity on the island.  Adam's Peak is considered more or less sacred by Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, and some Muslims.  Christian legend says that the "footprint" on the summit is that of the apostle St. Thomas, the apostle to India.  Other religions ascribe it to Adam, to Buddha, or to Shiva.

The reception clerk at the hotel was appalled at the idea, and even more appalled at our desire to be atop the peak by sunrise.  But he agreed to give us a 1 a.m. wake-up call.  We were picked up by a friend of our local guide, and my journal continues:

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We were picked up promptly at 1:30, and we drove for the next 2 ½ hours on deserted one-lane roads through dark mountains and forests.  We met hardly any other traffic on the road during the entire drive.

Our driver finally let us out of the van and pointed out the general direction of the trail, assuring us he would still be there on our return.  Bearing flashlight and headlamp, we bravely set out into the void, feeling like Frodo and Sam leaving behind the cozy safety of the Shire.

After a false start up the first unlikely path we encountered, we pulled ourselves together and launched out on the correct trail at 3:50 a.m.

At first all went well.  We soon came to a fork in the trail, however, and both forks looking plausibly like the correct choice.  Actually, both were -- a fact we didn’t discover until we followed the right-hand path for about a quarter mile and discovered that the two parallel paths joined back together again.  Meanwhile, we had wasted about 15 or 20 minutes trying to make a choice, confounded by the fact that all signs in the area were in Sinhala – aside from occasional advertisements, of course, in English.

The early stages of the trail were not difficult hiking, but the experience was made eerie by various shrines, dagobas, and Buddha images that loomed up, palely illuminated, in the dark night.  Eventually, the horizontal stretches between short flights of steps became shorter and shorter, and the climb became more serious.  And vertical.

As we reached the point where the climb was virtually an uninterrupted stairway, the fog thickened and the wind began howling.  My flashlight revealed only a short stretch of the long stairways ahead, which disappeared into streaming swirls of white mist.  The howl of the wind was at times ungodly.  We both were disconcerted by the metallic flapping sounds of a broken sign clanging in the wind, a fog-muffled signal seemingly warning us to turn back. 

We agreed that if unquiet spirits walk anywhere on earth, they were probably afoot on this very trail, a trail that ironically was considered holy by the peaceful Buddhist pilgrims.  (And I don’t recall Pascal’s offering me any words of spiritual comfort from the depths of his Buddhist heritage!)

At this point, in fact, Pascal let out a blood-curdling scream.  I flashed my light ahead and saw a dark formless object shuffling down the stairs ahead.  Like some ghastly object out of an Asian ghost story bearing down on us, carrying no light that would indicate it was human.  Turned out, in fact, to be two hikers who had separated from their party without reaching the summit, and were staggering back down the trail.  (Why in the dark, I have no idea.)  But for a moment, they scared the wits out of us.

A bit later, we ran into the other two members of their party at a rest stop, with whom we did the final climb, taking another ten minutes or so, to the top.  We reached the summit at 6:05 a.m., quite pleased with our time of 2 ¼ hours.

The gate at the summit was locked and would not be opened until 6:30.  But the authority figure – whom I had mistaken as some fugitive from the hippie 1960’s, wearing a Save the Dolphins t-shirt – invited us into his small humid hovel where we met other climbers who had arrived before us.  Our host served us all hot tea.

We were finally admitted to the summit shrine.  It was a little anti-climactic, because all possible views were obscured by the dense fog.  We waddled around devoutly barefoot in the cold, while the other more pragmatic hikers stayed bundled up in hiking shoes or boots.  But it was satisfying to stand at the spot where Buddha’s foot first touched down on the soil of Sri Lanka.  Or was it St. Thomas?  Or Shiva?

The hike down was much faster and easier.  (Don’t let anyone kid you that it is harder to go down than up!)  And because it was now light out, we could enjoy the beauty of the scenery and get a better feel for some of the things that had seemed mysterious going up in the dark.  Back to the van in 1 ½ hours, including time for photography, and then a very scenic ride back to the hotel, past incredibly enormous waterfalls (Devon Falls and St. Clair Falls) thundering off the opposite hills down into the valley.  (Pascal slept like a babe all the way back!)

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Our two fellow travelers were appalled at the very idea of our night climb.  For me, at least, it was a high point of our visit to Sri Lanka. The hoped-for sunrise never appeared, but the dense, mysterious fog that obscured the sun made the climb even more impressive and memorable.

Going back to high school

A thirty-year-old mother attended her daughter's middle school in El Paso. She represented herself as being her own seventh grade daughter.  She got away with it for six periods, until in seventh period a teacher called her out.  She was masked, which had helped, but had removed the mask to eat lunch. Not even her older appearance had aroused suspicions. 

According to the El Paso Times, the mother was arrested on charges of criminal trespass and tampering with government records.  She was released on bond of $7,908.  She claims that she was just trying to prove how lax security is in public schools.  Hmm.  Ok.

The El Paso mother's exploit brings back memories.  I did something similar the summer after graduating from college and awaiting post-graduate work.  I'll confess it, only because I'm certain that the statute of limitations has run.

A friend from school, still an undergraduate, visited my home for a couple of weeks.  We were bored.  University classes would not begin for several weeks, but the local high schools were about to open.  My friend thought it would be cool to attend high school for a day.  I'll call him John.  (John went on to hold a surprisingly high position in the federal government, and probably would prefer that his real name not be used.)  I wasn't really interested.  Or rather, I was interested, but I was justifiably chicken.  John was never chicken.  Not always wise, but never chicken.  

John was very persuasive.  Eventually, I gave in.

We couldn't do it in my old high school -- teachers would recognize me immediately.  But we felt safe attending school in a neighboring town.  We dressed in what we considered to be then-popular high school clothes, which were already different from those we had worn four years earlier.  We stood outside the school and cased the joint.  I had attended games at this school, but had never actually been inside the academic building.  

We walked in.  Unlike the El Paso mom, we weren't wearing masks.  I prayed nothing would go wrong, although it never occurred to me that I might be charged with criminal trespass.

High schools are high schools, and once inside it all felt familiar.  Only four years earlier I'd been in high school, but four years might as well be a couple of decades when you're 22.  First day of school, and everyone was a bit confused.  We found that the first order of business was to be an all-school opening assembly.  We walked into the auditorium.  No one gave us a second look.  High school kids come in all shapes, sizes, and apparent levels of maturity, and we both looked young for our age.

The assembly was boring of course, but my adrenaline level was high.  I didn't get drowsy.  When it was over, everyone headed for their first period classes.   We didn't have schedules.  I don't think we had thought through to this stage.  The halls were beginning to empty.

John muttered, well, maybe we should leave?  Yes, yes, oh yes!  I thought.  And thanks, John, for being the person to suggest it. 

So my story peters out.  Sorry if I aroused higher expectations.  We left the high school behind to the high schoolers, hopped in the car, and gladly returned to our real lives as high school graduates and university students.  We learned nothing from our experience.  Absolutely nothing.  It added not one whit to my lifetime accumulated wisdom.  

Except, perhaps, that I'm not the sort of guy who is cut out to be a crook.  And that, unlike that odd woman in El Paso, you gotta know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em!  Especially when to fold 'em.

Circling (almost) Mont Blanc -- 1997

Yet another of my excerpts from a travel journal kept during past travels.  In 1997, my nephew Denny and a mutual friend Chris, who we'd met the year before in Peru, undertook a hike around the Mont Blanc massif -- the Tour du Mont Blanc. 

After a few days sampling the urban pleasures of London and Paris, we took the train to Chamonix, France, where we prepared for our hike.  From Chamonix, we took a short (6 km) train ride to Les Houches, where the hike began.  We ran into a heavy lightning storm on that first day of hiking, and decided to stop for the day sooner than expected at the Miage dortoir.  (A dortoir is a mountain refuge; literally, "dormitory." ) 

I begin my journal excerpt with the entry from the following evening. 

July 24 -- Thursday
Refuge de la Croix du Bonhomme, France

I'm writing this by very dim candle light in the Refuge de la Croix du Bonhomme.  It's raining outside, still twilight at 9 p.m.  I've just skunked Chris 2-0 at gin rummy.  This is the first time I've approached this accomplishment -- dimmed only slightly by the fact that he was writing in his journal at the same time that he was playing.

Today was a long day.  But at least we did not have to endure much in the way of rain, fortunately.  We got a late start, being the last hikers out of the dortoir, at 9 a.m.  Up to Truc, then down to the resort town of Les Contamines where we had crepes for lunch.

Then along a level road and path, past many local families out for a stroll, each of whom greeted us with a "Bon jour."  We arrived at Notre Dame de la Gorge, a painted church that is a prime sightseeing attraction in the area.  Then steeply up an old Roman road to Nant-Bourrentz, where we stopped at a pleasant outdoor café, surrounded by neat lawns and high mountains, and had cokes.

We continued on to Balme, where we planned to stop for the night.  It was only 4 p.m., however, and so we decided to go on to this refuge, in order to make up some of the time we lost yesterday by stopping at Miage.  I figured that we were only an hour and fifty minutes from de la Croix, which would get us in about dinner time.  After we had hiked about a half hour uphill, however, I discovered that the actual time would be two hours, 50 minutes.  I suggested that we return to Balme.  I was concerned that we no longer had any food in our packs -- we had split the last Snickers into three pieces -- and that we might arrive starving after dinner had already been served.  But Chris -- who had been looking very tired since the beginning of the  trek -- resisted the idea of giving up the altitude we had just gained.  So we went on ahead, with Chris unexpectedly charging into the lead.  Chris led for the rest of the day, and was first at the col du Bonhomme and the first to arrive at the refuge.

As I came over the final col, the col de la Croix, I was totally exhausted.  The sight of this large, modern, clean-looking building was like a mirage.  Chris had already checked us in, and had found us a tidy room with bunkbeds all to ourselves.

A few minutes of examining maps, and then on to dinner -- rice with beef stew topping, soup, cheese plate and custard.  Then gin rummy, and journal writing.  Now, at 9:10, we realize that we're almost alone in the common room. Bed will look very good, although, strangely enough, I feel quite well and alert now that I've had dinner.

July 25 -- Friday
Elizabetta, Italy

I woke up several times last night feeling dehydrated.  I have to remember to get more fluids.

I'm writing this in the dining room of Elizabetta refuge -- Italy!  This place is really crowded.  Our beds -- straw mats -- are side by side in a large dorm room on the third floor under the eaves.  The roof comes so low at the foot of the beds that we could get our feet wedged between the roof and the floor.  Chris and I inveigled Denny into playing rummy with us.  Denny won -- but still hates the game.

Up fairly late this morning, and began the 1½ hour descent into Les Chapieux.  It was raining all the way down.  (We had lots of lightning last night and very heavy rain -- nice to be under a roof, and not in a tent!)  We arrived at Les Chapieux fairly early, and stopped for café au lait.  We drank slowly, but the rain continued.  So we sat around some more, and I surrendered my briefly-owned gin rummy championship back to Chris.  Then we had lunch in a crowded room filled primarily by a tour group who had arrive by bus.  (The restaurant is part of the Auberge de la Nova, in case I'm ever back this way again.  A very pleasant hostelry.)

We couldn't decide whether to stay at the auberge because of the inclement weather, or to hike onward.  Braver thoughts prevailed, and we hiked for 1½ hours up a long road to Mottets, then up an interminable series of switchbacks to the col de la Seigne -- which marks the Italian frontier.  Then down a valley to Elizabetta shelter.  It's been a long day, and we're all tired and in need of showers.  But feeling quite satisfied with ourselves.

We had a brief conversation with some Italian hikers who had come the same direction as we did, but who hitchhiked up the long road to Mottets.  I had some satisfaction in serving as a translator between these hikers and Chris and Denny.

We've decided to take a break day in Courmayeur -- and are feeling quite excited about this prospect.

We had a long day hiking from the Elizabetta shelter to the Italian resort town of Courmayeur.  We loved the town -- what's not to love? -- and felt like explorers, long lost in the wilderness, who had stumbled into an upscale resort community.  We found a hotel  room for three, at $100 per night, at the Select Hotel.  We stayed there two nights.  I exulted in my journal:

July 27 -- Sunday -- 11:20 a.m.
Courmayeur, Italy

Happiness is reclining in a canvas lawn chair on an old wooden deck outside your hotel room in Courmayeur, the warm sun at your back, staring at snowy peaks through the trembling leaves of nearby trees, and listening as a favorite nephew reads you rambling, poetic passages from Jack Kerouac -- passages that transform the gritty world of South San Francisco into images as dreamy and evocative as a lazy summer day in the Italian Alps.

We didn't realize it at that point, but our Tour du Mont Blanc would come to a premature end just two days later.  Denny had injured his knee several years earlier, and had undergone knee surgery. On Monday, his knee began giving him problems, and we had to hike very slowly down to the valley at La Vachey.  His knee only became more of a problem the following day, as we crossed the Swiss frontier to La Fouly.  We decided to cut the hike short at that point -- two nights short of completing the circuit -- and took the train back to Chamonix to pick up our non-hiking baggage.  We spent the extra days before our return flight from Geneva on train trips to Zermatt and across the border to Munich.  We of course celebrated the end of an enjoyable vacation in the usual manner at the Hofbrauhaus.

Mountains are eternal -- I'm not

I was 26 when I first climbed Mount Si.  A younger fellow student suggested that we climb it.  Although I'd lived in Seattle for three years, I'd never even heard of Mt. Si -- one of the most popular day hikes in the state.  At 26, I wasn't quite yet a hiker, wasn't quite yet a wilderness devotee.  But a hike sounded like fun, so I said, sure!

I've climbed Mount Si so many times now, and done it with so many different friends, that it seems odd to recall how appalled I was once the hike was under way.  I whined all the way to the top.  I was so tired, I didn't even try to resist, once we reached the "top," when my friend insisted that we do the class three scramble of the "haystack" that juts from the top.  We made it up the haystack, and while I sat panting on a rock, my friend unfurled a kite he'd carried all the way up, and flew it from the summit.

The kite was surreal, but no more so to me than everything else that day.

I described Mt. Si, and a typical climb, in a post on this blog exactly ten years ago Saturday.  See "Mt. Si."  And since that post, every time I've climbed Mt. Si, I've gone back to that 2011 post and added my latest time at the end.  I completed the climb memorialized in the post in one hour and forty minutes.  My times since have been fairly consistent, but with a gradual overall increase from year to year in the time I needed to struggle to the top.

Yes, sometimes I was in better shape than other times, and that is reflected in blips in the otherwise increasing times.  But, I'm convinced, my increasing age was the most important factor in causing my times to get worse.  This fact is a sad reversal of the situation when I was in my 40s and 50s -- when a training program, good conditioning, paid off in climbing ability, swamping any effect, if any in fact occurred, from my advancing years.

For years, I climbed Mt. Si at least once per summer.  Usually, as a way of kicking off the hiking season, but sometimes just because it's an enjoyable hike.  However, for reasons I can't really recall, until today my last climb was in 2017.  Sometimes the snow lasted late, and I was involved in other hikes as the summer progressed.  Sometimes I was just lazy, I suppose.  And last year was Covid-19, and I was (probably unnecessarily) afraid of hiking without a mask, a mask that would inhibit my breathing.

But, yes, today, I returned to the Big Hunk of Rock.  I didn't do any mountain hiking all last year, and I was pretty sure that, together with aging, that fact would ensure that my time would be worse than it had been in 2017.  I realized how bad my conditioning was within minutes of starting the hike.  I was panting, and my legs felt wobbly.  I seriously considered making a small plateau ("Snagg Flats"), about half way up the mountain, my destination -- and coming back for another attempt in another week or so.  But I persevered, and the hiking got easier as I hiked upward.

But not real easy.  In 2011, my time had been 1 hour, forty minutes.  Six years later, it had increased -- to my shock -- to one hour, fifty-seven minutes.  Today, as I staggered to the top, my watch showed that my time was two hours, thirteen minutes.

If I do a lot of hiking this summer, and try Mt. Si again in August or September, it probably will show an improved time.  But I suspect that my days of conquering Mt. Si in under two hours are over.  No matter how much I exercise.  

But of course I'll try!