Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition

I said to H yesterday, "You know, they did catch some actual witches during those trials." I meditated quite a bit over this anniversary of a long global nightmare. It's tragic to realize that many, many people are willing to entertain the most specious of connections and shadows of evidence. Public security has been society's weal for quite some time, but that the average, good and reasonably circumspect person is willing to buy into this suspension of disbelief, like the rapt audience of an absurdist stage play, is astounding. In a few years Iraqis and other subversives may be blamed for a whole range of misfortunes from bad harvests to difficult births. I wonder if those witches were ever blamed for what they were actually at fault for, like for being easy targets, scapegoats, objects of mass-hysteria, distracting people from their true problems, or for not being real.

Mohs scale

Having retrieved the miraculous car from the garage, I've had some time to reflect on my own injuries, lick my wounds, so to say. It's funny how we two, the car and I, are generally twained. The car is running hot and angry any longer, but, and H would agree, being in a stellar mood and of sound health should not be a prerequisite when starting off to work. Or should it? I sustained a terrible burn on my forearm, while trying the state of the boiling raditator--not that it was steaming so dramtically when I pried the cap loose. I thought I had waited long enough for it to cool down, but the cap blew off and was lost with a hot torrent of sticky anti-freeze that clung like Napalm. Of course, the burn should have been he top priority but I was not in any pain, and hours later, catching one glimpse of the ugly blister that hung off my wrist like more reverend testicles, H arranged for a doctor to see me and fix me up. Of course, after several days, it is still healing, though still without any pain. The blister skin peeled away in one great wet scale, revealing the partched, new skin below, blotchy white and pink and plasticene. The lesion, hard and smooth, reminds me of the things around the house made of Melmac and Bakelite, which I think are leagues better than modern, tawdry plastics, and Bakelite and the like are far superior in certain ways, like for insulating and heat resistance. I'll show it off, my arm, and people squirm, insisting it must hurt a lot. It doesn't though, and I wonder at my high threshhold for pain. It certainly contributes to my shoddy record of taking care of myself--I don't dislike the idea of potential pain or bad news from the doctor but moreover the bother of it all. Looking at my resined arm, I wonder if tolerance like that is purely mental, bloddy-mindedness, or is also some measure of material property. Like Mohrs scale of hardness (diamond--err, that'll be a ten and baby powder, we'll make that one), I am sure it would be very subjective.

Come Josephine in my Flying Machine

Last week H and I trekked to the slopes of the highest summit in the region and hiked about a bit. Though apparently more popular for winter sports, this turned out to be an amazingly jaunty place, like punting on the Thames and badminton and fancy, fully-equipped picnic baskets, with not only beautiful views and families flying kites and running radio-controlled model airplanes, but it also boasted a UNESCO heritage site for the nature reserve and the world's oldest glider school and a recreational airport. Sport aircraft were buzzing back and forth and towing gliders into the sky over the swarms of kites and toy planes. We see some pretty neat stuff, I must say. (Those hapless people who were messing up my shot are neither H nor myself--just my shadow in the foreground.)

Idle Fridays--Your Tax Dollars at Work

Come to think of it, I always did manage to get myself in trouble on Snow Days, and pretty much any other time I was left to my own devices. There is only a hint of a waning summer left, and I think people this afternoon have abandoned the idea of working. And at the risk of jinxing this peace, I'd venture that it is rarely this quiet. I wonder what pattern, series of insults, deadlines and mounting tasks ultimately lead to this sort of afternoon when people skip out early. I was never one to just disappear, but maybe that is the safer route, since in a more controlled-environment, one tends to become more and more creative in finding ways to incriminate oneself. There is discovering blogging, for example, and really testing the tolerance of your company's nannying software, not to mention those more ambitious projects with the inherited files and binders of uncertain provenance. It is less often, in my experience, than one would expect--certainly not every week, regardless of how routine one's job might be. It is the collusion of an appropriately spaced holiday that makes for a shorter week, the weather, a dodged bullet, and a dozen other factors coming together, that make for afternoon like this. I should make myself scarce, too, before prying into the next can of worms.

I am so happy--in fact, I think I'll have to blog about it!

A few days ago, the miraculous car decided to give out on me, and despite my poor bed-side manners and the mental "do not Resuscitate" bumper-sticker that I had being meaning to add, I've decided to try to haved it mended. That, I am sure, is an expensive proposition, and it illustrates the strange sort of attachment that people have for their cars. I've managed to imbue with not only a sort of long-suffering personality, but more over with a kind of family of characters: the talking navigator has his own distinct selfhood, as does the little notebook where I make lists and jot down things that I might like to blog about and always forget and leave beside the passenger seat. Those accessories could only go with this car. In the interim, I can't fret over too much, and rented a bouncy little Smart, a smug vehicle that's made me a measure more daring when it comes to parking closer to my front door. I'm waiting for a Jetsons' flying car before I'm willing to put this one to pasture.