Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

‘My good people’

We took a tour of Johannesburg today. A nice young man in a crisp black wardrobe and a simple gold chain picked us up at our hotel. We climbed into his car and we did the initial small talk of names and nations and how long you’ve been here. He said he was going to show us the good, the bad, and the ugly of Johannesburg. He did just that.

We started with Nelson Mandela Square, near our hotel in Sandton. It’s a shopping center, named in his honor in 2004. It is one of the largest on the continent. It felt like a shopping center, but there’s a giant statue. He’s dancing.

The statue was installed to mark the 10th anniversary of South Africa’s first democratic elections, and the first one honoring Mandela. It weighs some 5,000 pounds, considerably more than the miniature that is located nearby for the seeing impaired.

Along the ground in the square are short quotes of things that Mandela wrote, or said over the years. I took photos of a few of those, of course.

We made a quick stop at the overlook on Munro Drive. We’d done the same last night, but it’s worth seeing earlier in the day. Click to embiggen.

Munro Drive is a road that connects two suburbs (you’re looking on the northern suburbs here) and has a short punchy climb, a U-bend and slices through quartz to connect the neighborhoods. It is named after John Munro, director of Johannesburg Consolidated Investment Company. And, somehow, just from the name, you feel like there could be a problem there. You could be right, JCI was a huge 19th century South African company invested in the mining, property and engineering sectors. As we learned from our guide, who called us “My good people,” all day, the land here is rich in everything mineral. We drove by exhausted mines were people are still descending, as trespassers, looking for gold and various other things. We saw them do it. And they’re not doing it if they’re coming up empty. The story of South Africa is one of great riches, and of horrible exploitation. At a macro level, we might be aware of that. But at the JCI level, there were always allegations. The one that helped bring them down was an investigation which seemed to point to almost a half billion dollars (American) worth of fraud. Oh, and also murder.

We drove along the way from here to there to what they tell the Americans is the Beverly Hills of Johannesburg. It’s neighborhoods of high walls obscuring what might be well manicured lawns. Some, our guide told us, were lived in. Others have become generational B&Bs. Others mostly abandoned, and squatters have taken up residence. We drove them some of this yesterday, too, and all you can see are the walls.

Then we dove into some of the recent history of South Africa. “Welcome, my good people, to Constitution Hill.” I do not know how many places in the world have put its aspirations right next to its horrors, but they have done so here. This was originally a fort and repurposed as a prison in 1892. Boer military leaders were housed here. It was a prison for white men. And then, during apartheid, it became a detention center for political prisoners, strikers, anyone “anti-establishment.” Mahatma Gandhi was imprisoned here, as was Nelson Mandela, Robert Sobukwe, and others. The site housed prisoners until 1983, when it was closed. We toured the infamous Number Four.

This room was designed to keep 50 prisoners. At times, it held many more. The museum docent talked pointed out there were no windows, told us about the two blankets prisoners received, and the hierarchy within the cell. The cell boss usually got those blankets. There were 16 people in this room when we were there, just enough people to allow you the sense of a fetid crush of humanity you might experience in larger numbers.

When you leave the communal quarters you go into another room which is dominated by this large sign hanging on the far wall.

Along the side walls are smaller signs, one each for the men photographed above. Each sign shares their name, the time of their incarceration, and why they were held here. And, in this way, the museum asks you to make decisions for yourself. Not all of these men were held here for the same reasons, but you bring your same sensibilities, or your own nation’s laws, or your hopes for modernity, with you to each. It is hard for most people to think someone violating a Pass Law should be held in such conditions. It is hard for many, including most Americans, to think there should be such a thing as a Pass Law to begin with.

Pass laws served as an internal passport system designed to racially segregate the population, restrict movement of individuals, and allocate low-wage migrant labor. Also known as the natives’ law, these laws severely restricted the movements of Black South Africans, Indian South Africans and Cape Coloureds by confining them to designated areas. Initially applied to Indigenous African men, attempts to enforce pass laws on women between the 1910s and 1950s sparked significant protests. Pass laws remained a key aspect of the country’s apartheid system until their effective termination in 1986.

For more than 200 years people lived under these rules. Authorities would stop people on the street. And if, like one or two of the men in the large photo above you didn’t have your pass on you, you were sent here. In March of 1960 Nelson Mandela famously burned his pass book in protest after police massacred 69 people protesting the dompas laws. It is easy, in retrospect, to say these things that were so unsavory they don’t exist anymore shouldn’t be something that brings a person to a place like this. Not everyone was held here for the same reasons, and something like 80 percent of the people who were here found themselves here simply because of the color of their skin. It is a lesson of history screaming at us about our future.

And the conditions were brutal. There was a limited, segregated diet, poor medical facilities, one shower a week, no privacy, public humiliation, with prisoners being hired out as cheap labor, and it’s all just as grim as you can possibly imagine, but you’re only getting a quick glimpse.

Mahatma Gandhi came to South Africa, as a young man, to practice a little law. When the case he was originally here for wrapped up he was preparing to return home, but had a change of heart. He wound up spending 21 years in the country, and it was here that he shaped his politics and and his personal ethics, his notion of Satyagraha (a devotion to truth) and the nonviolent protest concepts that come as a defense of dignity and personal autonomy. He was also imprisoned here, in 1906. His is one of the headshots above. And in one room, there are a few displays that talk more about the pass books, and Gandhi’s time here. Also, there’s this typewriter. You’re meant to think that this was in his office. You could infer that he typed upon it. But it’s just sitting on a table in an open air room and I doubt that.

We’re skipping over the shower and toilet facilities. They were limited and almost as humiliating as the personal inspections required when prisoners came back in from their work. All of it was designed to rob a person of their dignity, to remind them of their place, and to make those in power feel a bit better about themselves.

Nelson Mandela, who once stood in the places I stood today, and suffered in the places where I merely felt eerie, famously channeled a Dostoyevsky and said “It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.”

He was most assuredly thinking of political prisoners when he said that. He was surely thinking about this place.

He stood here, a short walk from the open air plumbing, where there is today an accessibility ramp, but probably three or four steps when this was a prison. He might have been brought down those steps. He might have looked up into the blue or grey sky. This is where prisoners were held in solitary confinement. They had a barbed wire ceiling.

This is one of the rooms where people were held in solitary. The signage explains that there were rules about how long a person could be kept there. The signage also explains that that rule was often ignored.

Here’s a row of those solitary confinement rooms. They go the other direction, as well. I counted 27 of them. One, it was explained, was where they brought people to torture them. In there, people were tortured to death. To stand there, alone, in the quiet. To consider that.

I do not know how many places in the world have put its aspirations right next to its horrors, but they have done so here. Just 450 feet from there sits the Constitutional Court of South Africa, the high court of the land. Established into law in 1993, it the constitutional court held its first session in 1995. The 11 judges have presided here since moving to this complex in 2004.

That photo is from the humble press area. It’s a tiny brick balcony with a few chairs and folding tables. From here the media look down upon all of the issues that the court care to hear. Everything — from the way the light comes into the room, to the hides before the judges, to the orientation of all of the seats, to those windows behind the judges, where the jurists can see the feet of the people they serve — everything you can see from here is steeped in ritual symbolism.

And the exterior walls are made up of the bricks that were a part of the prison.

We left Constitution Hill and did a quick drive by the Calabash. FNB Stadium is primarily for soccer and rugby. It has hosted other big events, like Mandela’s first speech after his prison release in 1990, the 2010 World Cup, and Mandela’s last public appearance. They can put 94,000 people in there for a match, more for concerts.

The design is meant to be evocative of an African pot, hence the nickname, the calabash. The exterior cladding mosaic of fire and earthen colors simulates fire underneath the pot. Inside, all of the views are accessible, and you’re never more than 100 yards from the action.

Then we drove into Soweto, and into the township there. “You are safe, my good people, because I am from there,” our guide said. We stopped to see what looks like a modern standard middle class neighborhood. We drove by some structures which, if I understood correctly, were former company town housing which is basically middle class, but not the way you’d think of it in America. And then we drove by the famous nuclear reactor cooling towers, which are now a sought after advertising canvas. Just up the street we stopped in the dense cluster of structures that were barely-standing buildings. I didn’t take any photos here. This was one of the more exploitive aspects of the day, honestly, but also eye-opening. You can explore it on Google.

We walked through part of it, soberly, quietly. We met a few people that lived there. The only dog we saw all day followed us around. Each of these buildings is perhaps 80 square feet. There’s enough room for a small bed, a countertop, a kerosene stove and a short stack of pots and pans. The floors are dirt. The roofs are also that same tin. When it is cold, it is cold. When it is hot, it is hot. Today was an earlier winter day, but it was still hot. There’s communal running water, communal toilet facilities, a few stores, but probably not anything like you’re imagining.

Throughout the day we’ve been talking about the problems of Johannesburg. The biggest, we were told, is unemployment. Others include abandoned buildings, police corruption, immigration, and so on. Not everything is horrible, there are haves and have nots, there are people that work hard, and people that want more than what opportunity has offered them. If you are in a township, life can be rather hand-to-mouth. Part of the issue in this spot, we were told, is the need for housing. The government is in charge of that, apparently. People sit and wait for the government to get that done. How long can it take, how long could you be here? I asked.

A lifetime, our guide whispered.

We visited one of the Mandela’s former homes. I am standing in Nelson Mandela’s courtyard. He planted this tree.

It is a museum. There are many guests. We had a docent. It is an odd mixture of a living home, but a museum and somehow that makes it seem like it is neither of those things. Or perhaps the Mandela family stuffed their shelves and filled their walls with memorabilia. It is hard to know.

Our guide guess well about his good people. He took us a short drive from that Mandela museum to the Hector Pieterson Museum, and the site where the Soweto Uprising took place in 1976. All three of these places are within 1.3 miles of one another, and they all felt like they were worlds apart.

The street where the uprising began is a busy and bustling two-lane road. There’s an elaborate courtyard where the uprising took place. And then there is the museum. I didn’t take any photos there, for some reason. This is what happened.

In 1976, the government decided they would teach students Afrikaans. The teachers were apparently ill-equipped and untrained to teach the language. And this would have been the third or fourth language some of the students learned, but this one suddenly, and poorly put upon them. Students revolted. They got together, wrote a letter, and were prepared to march it from A to B to deliver their protests. But the police gathered and stood in their way. Eventually, a few shots rang out. One of the kids, a kid, that was killed was Hector Pieterson. He was 12 at the time. He was standing on the street corner on that June day in Soweto, waiting for his sister, so they could walk on home. A police officer squeezed off a round and, standing in that court yard you can see where the officer was, where Pieterson was, and stand on a brick line that marks the ballistic line of the round.

Another boy scooped up Pieterson and tried to hustle him to help. Pieterson’s sister arrived and ran along side him, wailing. A photographer took a photo of this, which was smuggled out of town and horrified the world. Pieterson was proclaimed, by the media, as the first to die. But another student, Hastings Ndlovu was the first murdered in the street by the police. All of this set off a days long massacre, which killed at least 176.

This we learned standing outside of the museum. Our guide walked us in, and into a courtyard, where we pumped into Hector Pieterson’s sister who, 50 years on, is still giving tours about the uprising and the death of her younger brother. (Their mom started this place, and she stayed on for years. Apparently, even after she finally retired she stopped by regularly to make sure things were going well.

In that inner-courtyard there are a bunch of markers, like you would find in a cemetery. On them, in small print, where the names and ages of people that were killed in the larger internal conflict. I’m not sure how much of this is supposed to be a part of the tour, but you know how I can be. I got our guide to tell his good people more than he was prepared to discuss. And if he has it right it sounds for all the world like they were just a bad handful of choices from being in a full on civil war.

Our guide let his guard down in front of his good people, and eventually realized just how much he was telling us. To be fair, I, being me, was pulling it out of him. It was a real and frank conversation, not at all official. I’m not clear if he works for a company or for himself, so I won’t say too much about it, other than to say I was glad for the talk and his perspective and trust. He sent us into the museum, which has a strict no-photographs policy. It’s a great museum, featuring life-sized photos, video and television from the period, plenty of signage and testimonials explaining almost everything else about the Soweto uprising and its aftermath. It’s a fantastic museum and a memorable way to end the day’s tour. Our good guide gave us a tremendous experience.

We had a fine steak dinner at The Bull Run, the restaurant attached to our hotel. Tomorrow we’re getting up early. We’re going on safari.

adventures / food / photo / South Africa / Wednesday — Comments Off
27
May 26

We took a food tour, and you have to guess where we are now

Here’s a short of lists of things that, if you have the opportunity to do, you should avoid.

If you have the opportunity to spend two nights in a row on an airplane, don’t. If you have the opportunity to be stuck on a plane when the ground power unit keeps failing, don’t. If you have the opportunity to do the above in the middle of the heat, you definitely should not.

If you have the opportunity to do that and meet the British Karen … actually do that, it is quite funny. And, look, British Karen isn’t going to get that plane flying any faster. You know that. I know that. I suspect she might know that. British Conspiracy Theory Karen might not know that. But what she can do is make the flight crew hand out extra snacks to mollify the human cargo. So thanks for that, I suppose, British Conspiracy Theory Karen. But, mostly, thanks for going quietly back to your seat when you scored the extra biscoff.

All of that is what we did last night. British Airways out of London and to points beyond. But to where? You’ve got just a little bit more time to guess, because the answer will become apparent below.

We got a bleary-eyed ride to our hotel. Honestly, I don’t remember much about it. I’ve not slept a lot on two successive airplanes and I didn’t sleep much the night before in anticipation of exhausting myself for two successive airplanes. On the way we heard a local newscast. People in the country illegally was the top story. The third story was the Senate primary in Texas. (We are in neither Texas, nor the U.S., obviously.)

We are staying just around the corner from the local stock exchange. There’s an American-style steakhouse out front. The hotel is gated. There is a private security guard. It all feels safe. Plenty of happy pedestrians are walking alongside a busy two-lane street. The hotel is nice. It is a sprawling affair. (We got turned around once, because who needs to pay attention to the desk attendant’s directions, anyway?) The hotel does not have amenities. It has experiences. The first experience was politely declining every bellhop’s offer to help. We’ve only just arrived, and we don’t yet have the local currency. We walked by two pools on the way to our room. They were small, and also cold, because winter is coming along. By this time I was the combination of tired and restless that put me close to tipping with every American dollar I had in my pocket. Just get me to a room, any room will do, so things stop spinning around me.

This evening we were picked up by a local driver who told us he spoke nine of the official languages. No idea if that was the truth, or, if so, why he’s a driver. He said there are 12 all told — they’ve recently added sign language to the list, but he hasn’t yet found a way to learn it yet, I thought about teaching him how to finger spell, but he was working, and I decided against telling him about the many dirty word tutorials on YouTube, because surely they are there. He said some of the languages were very similar. I assume this was easy for him to say, perhaps in several languages.

He delivered us to his colleague who took us on a walking tour of four nations cuisines. After the fact, I can say this: for years now I’ve had this idea of learning about food and eating the food and it is a bit like art, I am not exactly sure what I mean by that, but I’ll know it when I see it. This evening, we had food and culture and a lesson or two out of that and it is pretty close to what I’ve always been looking for. I suppose we’ll have to go on more food tours.

Tonight, we had Ghanaian, which was good. It was earth, rich, flavorful, and I will remember that as being a funny, spicy experience. (I am a spice wimp.) We tried Ethiopian, which was perhaps the best. The base of it is injera, or taita, a fermented, spongy flatbread made of teff flour. You eat it with your hands, tearing a bite of this off and using that to pick up the other parts of the food, family-style. I probably did it wrong, but the tour guide had to know that’s an occupational hazard.

I’m not a food photographer, but I would like you to know that everything on this tray was incredibly fresh and delicious. I don’t even like lentils, but those lentils were amazing. The other vegetables were freshly cut. The beef had incredible flavor. The spaghetti is there, I think, as an homage to the time that Italy tried to colonize Ethiopia and failed. The pickled beets I could do without, but it was all delicious.

We also had Nigerian, which was a bit similar to the Ghanaian, but not quite to that same level of satisfying, though I did enjoy our spicy stew sample. (This could have also just been the place we were.) It was also a bit on the spicy side. Lastly we had meat from a South African braai. The only problem is that we were full by then and we, thus, probably laid insult to the restaurant. South Africa is big on red meats. They barbecue in all seasons, and the braai has deep cultural routes in their cuisine. Also it is incredibly delicious. By the time we found this out, we’d eaten our way through three countries.

I’m going to want more of that. Fortunately, we are in South Africa for the next two weeks. I’m sure we’ll have the opportunity.

adventures / history / London / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
26
May 26

A lovely little layover

We’ve landed, which is to be expected, and is the desired conclusion of a long plane ride. We flew overnight, which was the plan. I watched movies, all British things since we were on British Airways, which was the plan. I actually slept bit, which is surprising, since I’m bad at that, and airports are noisy and somewhat uncomfortable, even if you’re flying in the comfortable section, which we were, because that was a long overnight flight and we have tasted how the other half live.

We have come to a place which is not our destination. It has been our destination on previous trips. And it is pleasant enough. Also, they have the second most considerate sets of stairs anywhere — second only to escalators, which have the decency to move me around.

So we are in London. Which is the plan. Not the original plan. This is the secondary plan. Originally we were supposed to fly into Doha, but then the world happened and nothing was happening at the Doha airport, nothing good, anyway. So we re-booked, which made everyone happy. And we’re in London for the better part of a day.

The first idea was we could just stay in the airport, but we went a different route. We got our luggage, and then took it to a place in Heathrow where you can pay people to hold your things for you. We left our things with that business and I wondered how I would answer the old airport question about have my bags been in my control the entire time.

The entire length of time? No. For I am a mortal man with other hopes and dreams and wishes and preoccupations that have meant that, at some times, these things have not been under my careful and watchful eye. All of today? Also no, because there is a storefront downstairs where you can rent a locker for five pounds an hour or something, and who knows what they did to or with my stuff while I was in your beautiful, steamy city.

You don’t get asked those questions much anymore, though. Just as well. My desire to amaze myself with literal answers to rhetorical questions will get me in trouble one day.

So we dumped our bags at this place which has earned the approval of the airport and has, hopefully, carefully vetted their employees. We caught the train away from Heathrow and then caught the hop-on, hop-off bus. We did that after wandering around in the wrong direction two or three times, and then sitting for a while at a bus stop that wasn’t on the bus line. Also, it was quite hot in London. It was 35 C today, which is 95 degrees for American readers. That’s about 30 degrees higher than the seasonal average.

Don’t rush, indeed. Don’t rush, don’t sweat. Those stairs knew some stuff. We are, as they suggested, taking one step at a time.

Here’s the National Gallery, where the banner is enticing you to come in to see some of the works of Francisco de Zurbarán, a Spanish Baroque painter. He painted still-lifes and a lot of religious works.

The exhibition brings together works from major galleries across Europe and the US that span Zurbarán’s career from his first religious commissions to paintings made for private devotion. Stand in front of monumental works that can still move and inspire us today.

In the background is the beautiful St Martin-in-the-Fields. It first shows up in the written records in the 13th century, though they are celebrating the tricentennial of the current building this year. It’s been a proud centerpiece of Westminster for a long time, long before there was a Trafalgar Square, or before Nelson’s Column was installed.

Horatio Nelson’s column was built in the 1840s, made of Dartmoor granite. The statue of Nelson at the top was carved from Craigleith sandstone. It is 17 feet tall. There are four bronze relief panels, each 18 feet square, made from captured French guns. They depict the Battle of Cape St. Vincent, the Battle of the Nile, the Battle of Copenhagen and the death of Nelson at Trafalgar. This is the latter.

The sculptor of this one was John Carew, an Irishman who had a lot of work, but this is his most renowned. It depicts the death of Nelson. He was killed by a Frenchman aboard the Redoubtable as that ship and Nelson’s Victory tangled. Nelson’s unorthodox approach to the battle won the day, despite being outgunned and outnumbered. It ended French invasion plans, but otherwise did little to sway things in that particular war. He was, nevertheless, a hero. The column was refurbished in 2006, and found to be 169 feet and 3 inches tall from the bottom of the pedestal to the top of Nelson’s hat. That was a surprise. They seemed to think it should be some 14 feet taller.

I guess it never occurs to people to measure things.

One man who never forgot to measure was William Slim, who was a World War 2 hero. This statues was installed in the 1980s and it has the unnerving ability to look as if he has a different perspective from different angles.

He was wounded three times, twice in the Great War and again in World War II. He led the Fourteenth Army, the so-called “forgotten army” in the Burma campaign and rose to some considerable fame — beloved by his soldiers, respected by his peers, and duly honored by his country — which all became secondary after allegations of child sexual abuse while he was the governor-general of Australia (in the 1950s) emerged some years after his death.

The London Eye and the River Thames. The Eye is the world’s tallest cantilevered observation wheel, and the UK’s most popular paid tourist attraction. More than three million people a year take a ride. We did it several years ago.

And here’s the Queen Elizabeth Gate, or the Queen Mother’s Gate, guarding the entrance to Hyde Park. It was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1993 to celebrate the 90th birthday of The Queen Mother. The red lion and unicorn represent England and Scotland, respectively.

Still stands out, all these years later.

And so we rode around on the bus, until we decided we must leave the bus and march back to the train station, to ride the train back to Heathrow. We had to collect our bags, check back in, and then went to a lounge with showers. After a long hot day like this, that was the right plan. You get a private little fiberglass room, sink, toilet, shower, and a fold-down seat. It’s all cleaner than you might imagine, and it was necessary after a day in the heat, a night in a plane and so on.

Now we’re boarding another plane. But to where?

adventures / Monday — Comments Off
25
May 26

And we’re off

It occurred to me that I should reconfigure where things sit on my desk to reflect the summer mode.

Somewhere earlier this year a small batch of pens and a highlighter took up residence just to the left of this computer. (I am right-handed.) I say “this computer” because there is another sitting to the right of this one. (I am super-talented.) But I doubt I’ll be dabbling too much in the joy of manual, hand-held edits this summer. (That is not an unpleasant experience, and I catch much more that way, as readers of this site can attest.) I took the pens and put them back into their place in a small hand-turned bowl that someone got me. It was a tourist souvenir; it is beautiful. It still has the price on the bottom, $14, and it was probably not too much to the purchaser. Probably it was too much to me at the time, when I first noticed it, because it is unnecessary to spend money on me, but it seems like the best deal ever now. I don’t know what you’re supposed to put in that bowl, but I see it every day and some days I think about it like this and it’s priceless. It sits behind my elevated monitor. (Sometimes my desk has four screens. (I am super-distracted.) The bowl is within easy reach, but not immediate reach. Opposite that is a little ceramic tourist gift that someone else purchased me. A former colleague had asked me to water their office plants while they were gone, and I got this silly little Dutch shoe trinket. I don’t know what you’re supposed to put in that shoe, either, but it holds highlighters perfectly.

Moving those pens from my left completes a series of tasks I hadn’t realized was necessary. But they’re now tucked away. And the little notepads and things have all been tidily arranged. Previously there were also class notes sitting to the left of this computer. They got filed several days back. Then there were months of calendar pages there, but they were discarded last week. There were also some itemized To Do lists, but they’ve been re-positioned to their next staging area. In the back left corner of the desk, which may as well be on the other side of your neighbor’s house, sat some library books I’m going to read for the fall term. I moved them down to the front edge of the desk, next to my forearm as I type. I am not going to read them next, so, I’ll put some other books on top of them.

Hang on.

Two history books, right on top. I’ll be reading them soon. I bought both online. Perhaps one was a gift. I hate, hate, hate that I’m not clear on that. Please don’t spend your money on me, but if you do, know that I will see it as the honor of a lifetime that you have decided to give me this thing, because you thought it might be meaningful to me, because you thought it might make my day better. It will. It does. Unless I can’t remember if this was a gift. I hate that. Also, I stacked a book that I picked up from one of those “Please take this away from my shelves” that characterizes university life. No, not theft from a library. Occasionally some colleague will need space for new materials, retire, die over this very book, whatever. And out into a common area the old ones go. There will be a sign, sometimes an email. I have many books like this. Most of them I remember picking up. This one, on folklore, could prove very useful for next fall. I remember from whence it came, but not the day. That’d be absurd. I’ve had it for a decade or more. Besides, I probably picked it up in the evening or at night, anyway. So, all these books are moved right down the corner.

I am eager to get all this reading underway. I can’t explain that without making it sound even nerdier.

Fine, there’s nothing better than slipping into someone else’s world and seeing their best work.

Just behind the books I have placed a big stack of CDs. This summer I will return to the Re-Listening Project. Longtime readers will not be surprised: we are behind.

Behind the CDs on the desk … you know what … nothing. There’s nothing back there. I took the rest of the stuff and put it below the desk. My old pallet desk (I built it in the pure rebellion of 2017) sits on fancy birch IKEA sawhorses. There’s a shelf on the bottom of each sawhorse. Those shelves need to be cleaned up. I look around my office … all of it needs to get cleaned up. But it’s the kind of cleaning you don’t mind doing? The kind you play loud happy music and do it and wonder why all cleaning doesn’t feel like this? The kind of cleaning that signals progress.

I’m not starting that at 1:19 a.m., as I write this. I must simply bottle this feeling for a more appropriate time. A more appropriate time for progress.

Anyway.

I agree, 869 words is an awful lot of throat clearing, but remember: you came here for this.

We are setting off on a trip. The little graphic above is from airport signage at Dulles. It’s a silly sign for a very standard airport store. The “Oh, shoot, I forgot a book and need an overpriced drink and some earplugs would be nice, and hey, is this neck thing better than my other neck thing? That’s Stellar News!”

We will be gone for several weeks, and you’ll have to figure out where we are. I give you until Wednesday, maybe Thursday at the latest, to get it right.

Here’s your first hint. It’s a long overnight flight. And I’m watching a lot of British media on the seat screen. The UK is not our destination, but we are flying BA and, for some reason, it seems like I should be watching something the flight crew would appreciate as being of their own.

The King’s Speech it is! And probably also some BBC dramas. And maybe some sleep. Tomorrow, when I wake up, we’ll be somewhere else. Or on the way to to somewhere else. It’s a long flight, but I am terrible on planes.

errands / Friday / Ireland / memories / overwriting / photo / site / video — Comments Off
22
May 26

The video, at the end, is the only impressive thing here

Things that will impress no one: Today I got both of my inboxes down to 30 or less emails. Also, I reorganized some of the subfolders. You can take pleasures in the simplest, dumbest, weirdest, least useful, and effective things if you don’t try too hard. In a related story, I have a document on my computer where I keep several small bits of code that get used a lot on the blog. It had become a sprawling thing. Four pages, some of it outdated. But, today, I shaped that up. Now it is two pages. And it is organized by section! This will come in handy since — when I know I want to go C&P a bit of code — I just use Command-F anyway. But it made me happy and looks neater because, again, if you don’t try too hard.

This is what it looks like outside. This is the best it has looked since Wednesday evening. Sometimes it has been almost-drizzling. At some point, after hours of that, you just want to fling open a door and yell, “C’mon and rain already!”

We need the rain. And I won’t begrudge having the rain. But if you’re going to look like this, make with the rain.

It’ll be like this through the weekend. Through Memorial Day, according to the latest forecast. Maybe the clouds will move off or burn off by Tuesday.

Something else that will impress no one: I went shopping today. There’s a Kohl’s 20 minutes away and it is a straight shot and, honestly, I thought it was farther away than that until I really studied the map. So, I went there. I discovered it is right next to a Home Depot. These are good things to know. We’ll never know why it takes me so long to learn these things.

I needed some jeans. I couldn’t tell you the last time I went to a store for jeans. I’ve worn the same size for ages and it’s easy enough to order online and that’s life in the 21st century. Well, I wanted a 2003 experience today, and let me just tell you … everyone in this town wears the same size jeans that I wear. Or the store thinks no one wears the same size I do.

Two walls of neatly folded pants — respect to the person working in retail there — and exactly one pair in my waist and inseam size. I also picked up two pairs that are slightly longer, because maybe I’ll grow into them.

Grabbed some socks, which you can buy in sets of three or Thanks For Propping Up The Sock Darning Factory for Q2. Has anyone ever asked why someone needs to buy 12 pairs of socks? Has anyone ever asked if the sock people and Big Dryer are in on this together? And what about — hey! Look at those shirts on sale!

The soundtrack was from early 1990s, I don’t know when the last time you heard “U Can’t Touch This,” but I heard it today.

Kohl’s does this neat thing now where they leave you alone in the store, and then urge you to walk through this maze of impulse buys aimed at children — this poor mom and her 4-year-old, ‘I want this!’ daughter in front of me — and then proceed to ignore you while checking you out in the slowest speed quantified by man. This store was operating as a -4 on the Disney World scale, that is you could be getting on your fourth ride at the Mouse before you got through this line.

I asked the woman at my register — the one who was demonstrably the slowest, because you have time to assess the efficacy of each register and eventually it come down to you and “Next!” and you’re thinking, Please not that one, please not that one, please not that one. — how her day was. She seemed surprised and pleased that I asked, but these are the joys of going to a store, that little bit of banter. Or so I’m told, anyway. I’d watched her try to ring out one customer for about 15 minutes, a demonstration of “Oops!” with good cheer. Sometimes we have days like that, and maybe the good cheer helps. It’s the right attitude. I helped her by presenting all my items scanner-side-up. She said no one ever did that. I began to think I might be the person that keeps her in this job another month. You never know. She tallies my totals, or totals my tallies, and gives me the price, but if you had a Kohl’s card it’d be something like 40 percent of that, somehow. And, once again, I wonder who they’re stealing clothes from. There’s just a bunch of people on a highway somewhere in maroon vests with giant Ks on the back and they’re knocking off trucks bound for TJ Maxx and Belk and JC Penney, I’m sure of it. Anyway, I do not have those cards because I never come to the store. This is the first time in more than three years. Probably six. Let me pay and get out of here because this line is embarrassing and it’s quite warm in here for some reason and 55 degrees outside sounds lovely right now.

Which was when her entire cash register went down.

And friend, mindful of those Progressive “homeowners turn into their parents” spots, I resisted the urge to say, “That must mean it’s all free.”

Only, what I do when that happens is, I don’t deliver the line and smile and wait for the obligatory customer service laugh. I deliver the line, gather the things up and hit the door.

I did not do that. Seeing blue lights in my rear view mirror didn’t seem worth it for a few pairs of jeans, and more socks than all the children in my neighborhood could need.

But that was what I did today. Also, the grocery store. Strawberries for lunch. And the bank.

Three stops for me is a full day. Impressing no one.

But this! This is impressive. I’ve been living in the happy memories of our wonderful Irish vacation and sharing extra videos that we didn’t get to at the time. This is the last post (for now) with video from that trip. It is fitting that it is the last video I took at the end of our March journey.

This is the northernmost point of that beautiful island nation.