I'm watching a National Geographic program on Great Whites. One of the crew is talking about the expedition and the sharks and I think, "Good looking guy" and then "I know this guy". Turns out he is action actor Paul Walker, who studied marine biology. Good for him.
Watching a History Channel DVD set about Teddy Roosevelt. This guy was a man. I'm impressed with his father: when TR was an asthmatic child, his dad was constant in care and support; when dad decided he needed to become a man and overcome his limitation, he was focussed and formidable. Great combo of challenge and reliability. A good father.
Visited a former workplace last week to get a form signed. I was head administrator there. One of the staff told me my successor left or was fired last month, no one knows for sure. "You lasted thirteen years; they wore her down in less than two!"
My impromptu out of town trip with my friend and his dog, the handsome and very mellow Mauli. The dog is a really beautiful animal: he's half wolf and he looks it. It is amazing how many people stop and comment and compliment and want to talk and ask questions. Old ladies, gang bangers, families, kids, guys at the gas station.
An unpleasant note: there are a lot of fat and unattractive and badly dressed people in Modesto!
We were at my friend's family home, where he was raised. His parents are dead and his siblings live far away; he keeps the place up. On the outside, it's a standard working class house, with trucks and an old Silver Stream RV on the property, a big TV antenna on the roof. Inside it would not win any House Beautiful awards. But it is jammed with books, in every room: history, philosophy, geography, novels, politics, religion. Hundred and hundreds of books. And opera records, vintage records, with librettos and books about all the great operas. Western culture, high culture, living a secret life behind a very ordinary door in the San Joaquin valley.
Last night was a perfect summer evening down there. We sat in the backyard with the puppy, with pizza, chicken wings and beer. Warm breeze, slowly setting sun. Nice. Very nice.
B's two weeks in Shanghai and Tokyo will be over soon and he'll be back in town later in the week. He has made some other trips where I would have loved to have gone with him --Uzbekistan and Italy, for example--, but for some reason China and Japan didn't draw me, so my jealousy level was very low. He's bringing me back some stupid T shirt I specifically and serially asked him not to get for me. I'll forgive him, of course. Senex and puer in a nutshell.
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