• #10528 (no title)
  • 15 September 2020
  • Gourmet, Down South
  • The Author
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  • What Endures. What Passes.

Dispatches From Dystopia

~ "What man by worrying can add one cubit to his span of years?"

Dispatches From Dystopia

Category Archives: Travel

Sweet Morning

16 Wednesday Oct 2019

Posted by David in Railroads, Travel

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#attitude

I slept almost four hours before I awoke at Three AM. It isn’t all that unusual that people awaken and stay awake in the middle of the night. Regular sleep schedules are important for office and factory workers. I am neither.

There will the Northbound Silver Meteor #98 passing through Ashland in about 3 seconds, headed to New York. There are the darkened coaches, the lighted dining cars and those with bedroom accommodations. It rumbles through. No horn sounds, just the bell’s metallic clang. Trains are poetry, each car a stanza. Each passenger has a reason why he or she takes the train that has little to do with efficiency. An airplane is prose, a paragraph in a newspaper article. Those of us who admire the necessarily inefficient find no problem with the train.

I wish I had seen the old Pennsylvania Station, the one demolished in the early Sixties,whose demise sparked the historic architectural preservation movement. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was one of the earliest patrons, one reason why I admire her greatly.

J has a cold coming one, so she said as she left for work. We shall see how she feels later. She has her lunch, though.

It seems autumn days never get darker gradually, but they do. When we notice that it is dark at seven, then six we know that the next solstice is approaching.

No drama today. No hurt feelings. No longing. I will put expectations aside. I will not compare my life against a fictitious standard.

I will accept the love given to me exactly as it comes. My mother would quote a saying by Victor Hugo,”Profound hearts and wise minds accept life as God grants it,” After her stroke had left her aphasic, she could complete that saying, “….as God grants it,” By way of context she could also complete, “Bevis and…” “Butthead.” Good old Mom. Funny the things we miss.

This Morning: A List

18 Sunday Aug 2019

Posted by David in Travel

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

#Lists #Dreams #Sleep

This morning:

  1. I woke up before J.
  2. I made a pot of gunpowder green tea, according to the directions.
  3. I read other people’s blogs.
  4. I watched my Ukrainian metal detecting guys on YouTube, CrazySeeker.
  5. I wished I was back in bed, but J has to leave for work when it is dark outside.
  6. I wish I had known my cousin who was a lesbian and died at age 46 better.
  7. I want to visit New York, see a Yankees game, cross The Brooklyn Bridge, and go to the top of the Empire State Building.
  8. Swim later today.
  9. Sleep in a roomette on a train, and eat in the dining car again.
  10. Stop apologizing to myself for who and what I am.

Staring At Devon On A Saturday

04 Saturday May 2019

Posted by David in Travel

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#Saturday #Relaxation

I am looking at a scene in Devon, Dawlish, to be exact, looking at the Brunel Railway. A train just went by, a swift, sleek, Vision Of The Future train.

Quite lovely. It’s a coastal scene. There is the English Channel, some cliffs in the distance, people strolling or cycling on the paved walk below the rails. All very England. Somewhere to the left, off camera, is the “sceptered isle” Shakespeare praised.

I look out at the sea. I’m reminded of what Melville wrote about the sea and bodies of water at the start of Moby Dick. We humans need to look at the sea. We pay big money to do precisely that.

Ever since I found The Magic Of Tidying Up, my house has gotten even messier. That’s probably how we all are. Once I discovered that things aren’t working, the not working part of my life is making its presence more obvious. Were it vocal, Not Working would be screaming.

I can’t decide what to do today, except spend time with J and swim. Definitely swim.

I have heat on my neck and shoulders. I still get “tingles” down my arm. But I will take my problems any day over what other people have to deal with.

My time at the seaside must end. A shower is on the horizon. And brunch. And time spent with my beloved. Later.

Home: The Clean-up

09 Tuesday Apr 2019

Posted by David in Relationships, The Villages, Travel

≈ 2 Comments

Going away involves getting the dirty clothes from the trip washed when one returns home. I am doing that now.

I talked with #1 son last night. He wants to do more stuff with me. No problem there. He is far more emotional than I am and gives me feedback like it’s OK to cry. He told me he has a greater sense of my stepmother in his his life than my mother. Mother died in 1995, when he was 19. Dorothy, my stepmother, has been in the family since 1998, or twenty-one years. so he is right. My perspective is much broader, naturally. His concern around her current illness is quite painful for him. She is the last of the grandparents and step-grandparents in his life. Her passing will represent the final act of the Greatest Generation.

I have a post planned around the billboards I saw on the trip from The Villages through to our first stop in Macon, GA. In short, it seemed the ads for porn shops, liquor, erectile dysfunction treatments, hormone replacement therapy, HIV testing, and pro-life concerns outnumbered the usual exhortations to accept Jesus, once the billboard mainstay of the Bible Belt. Sexual liberation, it seems, is not without complications or limitations.

So I am tired. And hungry. I will have dinner with J when she gets off work at 2:30. I am incredibly glad to be home. I feel like I have been away from everyone here, my cyber-family.

A Hotel In Savannah

03 Wednesday Apr 2019

Posted by David in Catholic Life, food, Travel

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

#Savannah GA

We drove from Lumberton, North Carolina to Savannah, Georgia, stopping for gas, a shopping trip to the Sabatier Knife Outlet (I am a fan of Sabatier K Thiers knives) in Yemassee, South Carolina and the Georgia Welcome Center, where Forrest Gump sits on his

park bench. What else can I say?

We decided to stay in downtown Savannah at the DeSoto Hotel, influenced, in part, by the fact that my grandfather, whom we called Pop, drove a DeSoto automobile.

It’s a nice hotel, except that the shower curtain is inadequate to block the water from running out the bottom of their really nice walk in shower, with two shower heads. There were no instructions on how to turn off the smaller handheld head. It was a mess waiting to happen.

The room has a kingsize bed, very comfortable. There are also the usual mechanical noises, compressor motors run incessantly.

After we checked in, we walked around a bit, but it was cold and windy. We thiught we could find a nice restaurant. I suppose there are nice ones besides the 1540 Restaurant inside the hotel, but the chilly weather discouraged us. We did eat at 1540. We had two entrĂ©es at the low end of their price points. J had a nice chicken pot pie, I had the braised oxtails on dirty rice. Both were excellent. I had never had oxtails before. I couldn’t see much difference between them and a chuck pot roast, but what do I know?

Our trip continues. We got a voicemail from Father Tony, our parish priest, checking up on us. We were touched by his concern. He is a real pastor, so despite the fact he doesn’t celebrate the Mass ad orientam, I am glad we stayed at St Benedict after Father Kauffmann was transferred.

We are enjoying each other’s company. We both found the Lion’s Den Adult Superstore kind of creepy. I saw it as more laughable than offensive. J found it offensive, although the sign said the store was for men, women, and couples. Yuck. It seems that the billboard signage on I-95 has a large Jesus Saves sign near the billboards for The Lion’s Den and its competitor Fantasy Land, as if to dissuade us from visuting these dens of iniquity. And dildoes.

Noteworthy for its staggering banality is South Of The Border, a motel complex on I-95, just south of the North Carolina / South Carolina line. The enticement of its Reptile Lagoon was not enough to lure J into checking it out.

So like Simon and Garfunkel, a half century earlier, We’ve All Gone To Look For America.

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