Sunday Morning with Sid and Nancy (and George Foreman)

The people downstairs have been keeping strange hours lately. They were up until at least 2 last night, and yet they were grilling a rack of ribs by 10 this morning. They are devoted barbecutionists. The fellow often expedites the readiness of the charcoal by focusing a blowtorch upon it. Perhaps to procure spices, they go in and out of the apartment, slamming the door for all it’s worth. They sounded upset last night, but this morning’s conversation involved the continual dialing of the wrong number to reach someone called Ernie (who would surely have perished if not for the intervention of our neighbor), and the virtues of George Thorogood.

In other news, there is a hint of fall in the air. The weeping willow by the window now sports a cheery festoon of yellow, and I noticed a leaf falling past by face at the farmer’s market today. I like the fall. Maybe it’s my introverted Norwegian coming to the surface, but I think it’s easier to think clearly when the weather is cool, better still if it’s raining. (I also think that there are ways of learning and improving that don’t really involve clear thinking. That kind might better be called a “letting in” of the world, if it must be called anything.)

Yesterday, we drove towards Mt Rainier. Faced with a breathtaking scene, it seems like it ought to be possible to enter, break open and taste a landscape as if it were a nectarine. But rather than consuming, one is consumed; you cannot observe a whale that has swallowed you. Anyway, we came upon a lake with clear water. Sunk to the bottom were fallen trees, stacked spookily in the basin like ghostly bodies.