By age seventeen he’d convinced himself that every human he saw was a parasite, captive to the dictates of consumption. But as he reconstructs Zeno’s translation, he realizes that the truth is infinitely more complicated, that we are all beautiful even as we are all part of the problem, and that to be a part of the problem is to be human.
Anthony Doerr – Cloud Cuckoo Land
Back at BDR now and working on stuff. Mini-projects aplenty. Including just getting the house fully and completely cleaned and kitted out. But it is going well. Final result is smashing. True to mountain roots but some comforts and modernity weaved in.
We made our first and second pizza’s in the pizza oven. Delish. Quite a bit more work than just turning on the oven, but the charred and crispy crust are worth it.
Until the day I die, it’s impossible to imagine I would listen to Townes Van Zandt without thinking of Errol. Not that I would want to. Townes was one of our many connection points. And it always brings a smile to my face. So now I am sitting by the fire with a 12-year old Red Breast and a cigar. Listening to Towne’s sing and play solo acoustic country blues.
The sun goes down. The cigar burns. The whiskey rolls down. The fire crackles. The Jungle Fox keeps watch. Towne’s says ‘What can you leave behind. When you’re flying lightning fast and all alone? Only a trace, my friend. Spirit of motion born and direction grown. A trace that will not fade in frozen skies. And your journey will be. And if her shadow don’t seem much company. But who said it would be?
Sometimes we don’t understand our connections, but I suppose it doesn’t much matter. Energies align. Past life experiences intersect with modern day. Or something. Maybe just coincidence. But I cherish this moment. Looking down on the Greenbrier. Errol would have loved this place. He’d have said ‘Myres, this is one big-ass cabin’.
The spring classic bike racing season has begun in Europe. So I am back to watching highlights in the mornings while I get ready for work.
Milano-SanRemo, Gent-Wevelgem, Tour of Flanders, La Flèche Wallonne, Liège–Bastogne–Liège, and the great Paris-Roubaix. These are long, hard days in the saddle and in some cases across miles of brick pavers that are slick and hard as diamonds. Monumentally committed athletes.
Brittany signed us up for a treasure hunt in Hocking Hills a few weekends ago and it was great fun. We were on it all day Saturday and found some clues, but the primary clues eluded us. We hiked 11 miles and probably drove 150, but we had the Jungle Fox with us and it was a beautiful day. So we still sort of won in our own little way. Later, Brittany found out who won and she was very close to finding the key clue. But we had a great time so all good.
I am blessed on my current project with a very strong technical PM, associate PM, and group of developers. So the associate PM crashed in on me one day and said something super geeky like ‘we have a ripple in the force‘ and after a dramatic, expulsion of events ‘we’ll need to rally some serious kinetic energy to put this right’. Or something very much like that. It was cute and terrifying at the same time. I really like how this lady gets things done, but I’m also pretty sure we are speaking very different dialects of language. But we found some common words and made a plan.
One night in Worcester, there came a moment at the bar, where I was sitting having dinner, when it got unexpectedly quiet. A transition in television. There was a couple beside me. A sort of skinny middle-aged white dude with a younger, far hipper Latina. And in that quiet transition what she said was ‘we just had rough sex–of course it’s gonna be sore‘. So that was cool. They were oblivious, but a few of us nearby looked up and made eye contact and had a shared moment. À chacun ses goûts’.
Thursdays are always going home days for consultants on the road. But last week, I actually flew Friday morning because I had a meeting too late on Thursday to get out. But there’s still a good vibe that comes on when you start moving towards home. I took the train to Boston from Worcester and had dinner at Figs by Todd English. Amazing mussels but a little disappointing on the pizza. Wine selection was good. And….in an unexpectedly super cool development, a cigar lounge right next door. So I had a smoke and read the paper.
Today is King’s Day in Netherlands. Sjored has been sending me photos. Making me jealous. But this month and next are very busy for me so this was not my year to join. Next week I am packing for the move in Somerset, then a week in Worcester, then a few days to move and then Brittany and I fly to Missoula for rugby. Then back to BDR for the summer.
I caught an Article in NY Times about a man who started a business whose only service offering is to use dogs to chase Canadian Geese off of people’s property. Mostly golf courses. So…..as if golf courses weren’t already horrifically bad for the environment, with their massive water usage and chemical treatments and generally (mostly, somewhat?) dick’ish membership, they must now also create more havoc by disrupting migration patterns of geese.
Imagine you are a graceful, beautiful Canadian Goose, migrating north or south as your kind have done for long before humans inhabited North America and now you cannot find a place to stop and rest or have a snack without a fanatical mercenary Border Collie being paid to terrorize your entire gaggle and make them fly away to look for some other place to rest. We are paying this asshole to terrorize geese so we can play a silly game with sticks and a ball on a chemical-laden manufactured course.
It matters not that the Canadian Goose may or may not be struggling as a species. I don’t know. What I do know is that we humans treat nearly every other animal on the planet with complete indifference or even malice, if their presence presents even the slightest inconvenience to us. We will terrorize these animals, torture them, and kill them at scale. All so that we can bang a ball around a course without having to encounter the nuisance of nature.
We prefer our version of nature sanitized and orderly–and I guess free of geese.
No other news of note.
Humbly submitted
The Martini Tales 