11/6/23

 Monday, November 6, 2023

In bed at 11, awake and up at 7:30.  53° and windy, high of 64°😊,  wind SSW aat 21 mph, 12-21/39😳.  The sun rose at 6:32 and will set at 4:37, 10+4.  Solar noon at 11L35 at an altitude of 31°.

Treadmill.  No time yesterday, persistent pain.  Today, 30:00 & 0.72 at 11 a.m. watching Dana Bash.

Kiss me again, stranger is a short story by Daphne du Maurier that I read yesterday and the day before.  Written in the first person, the author does a terrific fob of describing the romantic thoughts of a young man, working-class, an auto mechanic, who is attracted by the usherette at a British movie theatre.  He picks her up when the movie is finished (or does she pick him up?), follows her onto a bus to the end of the line, dallies with her in a cemetery and fanasizes about them becoming 'steadies'.  She sends him on his way, alone, after learning that he was not in the RAF while she remains in the cemetery alone in the steady rain. "You weren't ever in the Air Force, were you?" she asked.  "Not me," I said. . .  "I'm glad," she said.  "you're good and kind.  I'm glad." . . . "Why, what's wrong with them?  I said.  What's the RAF done to you?" "They smashed my home." she said.  "That was the Germans, not our fellows.: "It's all the same, they're all killers, aren't they?"   The next day he learns that another RAF serviceman has be stabbed to death, the third in recent days, near the cemetery and it's clear that his one-night girlfriend is a serial murderer.

What a strange story!  It was published in Britain in 1952, part of a collection of short stories by du Maurier, with a lurid, sexy cover more titillating than the story itself.   One of the stories was adapted to become Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds in 1963 and this story was adapted for television in 1953.  Doris Day made a recording with this title but the lyrics were much different from the du Maurier work.  World War II was certainly still very fresh in the minds of British readers when this story was written, as was the role of the RAF in winning the War of Britain and in destroying Germany's cities and war-making ability.  The sultry, sardonic, enticing, serial killer equates the RAF with the Luftwaffe.  "It's all the same, they're all killers."

A Domestic Dilemma is a short story by Carson McCullers in the same collection of stories.  I read it yesterday.  It's a sad story about a young family transplanted from Alabama, where they were surrounded with friends and family, to New York City, living in a commuters' suburb.  The couple have a 6 year old son and a younger daughter.  The mother never adjusts to the move, never assimilates into the suburban neighborhood, and in her depression and social isolation, sinks into severe alcoholism.  It's a 'short' short story, only about 8 pages, but McCullers finely describes the wife's loneliness, the children's confusion about their mother, and the husband's solicitude for, love of, and fear for his children's welfare with their mother so afflicted and incapacitated.  In the closing paragraphs of the story, McCullers focused on the husband's anger at his wife: "His own anger, represed and lurking, arose again.  His youth was being frittered by a drunkard's waste, his very anhood subtly undermined. And the children, once the immunity of incomprehension passed - what would it be like in a year or two? . . . He and his children were bound to a future of degradation and slow ruin."  But what could or should he do?  McCullers leaves us wondering.  "As Martin watched the tranquil slumber of his wife, the ghost of the old anger vanished.  All thoughts of blame or blemish were distant from him now. . . Careful not to awaken Emily he slid into the bed.  By moonlight he watched his wife for the last time.  His hand sought the adjacent flesh and sorrow paralleled desire in the immense complexity of love."  For the last time???  Was he going to strangle her?  Divorce  and leave her?  Take the children and leave her?  "For the last time."  Or was he only looking at her for the last time that night?  Or did he now want to make love with her?  Ambiguity.

One year ago today: And they call the wind Pariah

Can't tell what the maximum force winds were after the blackout on Saturday because we had no television and we weren't listening in to radio reports but the predicted winds were gusts of 60-65 mph.  Whatever they were, they caused us to lose electrical power for 26 hours, from 5 p.m. Saturday till 7:18 p.m. Sunday.  During the dark hours, we had Ikea candles, votive lights, and an oil-burning hurricane lamp providing enough illumination to avoid bumping into or tripping over things.  Geri had a muffin tray of tea lights on the dining room table so we could see the chicken she roasted at David's house and the green beans I cooked on the stovetop here.  I had thought Sarah might have preferred to stay at her mother's home even with the howling cat problem, but she came back here and coped with the darkness.  On Sunday, she watched the hard-to-believe Packers-Lions game with her Mom and again opted to come back here after the game though the power was still out and sunset was at 4:35 p.m.  She grabbed a chicken sandwich and fries at McDonald's on the way here and we did a combo McDoanld's/Culver's dinner.  When Geri and I returned from our dinner run, there were 4 big trucks with cherry pickers on County Line Road, giving us hope the power would be restored soon, and it was, at 7:18 p.m.

Weather variability.  Today we have a high temperature of 64°.  Tomorrow the predicted high is 47°.

Daily Message from Speaker of the House & Christian Nationalist Mike Johnson.  Ever since he was elected Speaker, Mike Johnson has been sending me a daily text message.  This is contemporary life in America.  Unsolicited messages on email services have made email, once a great step forward in personal communication mostly a nuisance.  The same is happening with text messages.  Once someone with a product to sell, either commercially or politically, gets our address, we are flooded with unwanted messages.  The "unsubscribe" option that appears on the bottom of the messages are a fraud.  On the text messages (sent to me as "Ken") there is an option to "Delete and Report Junk", but it too is a fraud.  The emails and text messages keep coming, as in a terrible nightmare or horror movie.😱

A painting that I should paint over or discard but won't

So much wrong, but the subject has sentimental pull, Homecoming, corsage, a new driver's license,