I’m busy dumping old computer files when I came across the email Jennifer sent me with this story. Powerful prose written in her legendary parenthetical style, but this time I’m moved by the similarity between Jennifer’s mother and what I’ve since read of Susan Sontag. Both were unflinching while healthy and both denied their end until the end.

The last word on Matt’s, now Diane’s, iPhone.

After sitting in the snow and slush for two months the only noticeable problem was a quirky keypad. The numbers 4, 5, and 6, when tapped, would register the numbers above or below, unless you hit the center of the desired number and held your finger to the screen. After awhile even that didn’t work. This morning I made an appointment with a genius at the Apple Store in Pelham, N.H., and at 3:40 PM I was greeted by a young woman with straight black hair and a black t-shirt that read, “not all heros wear capes.” I looked at her and thought not all geniuses have hair like Phyllis Diller.

Kristen promptly pulled out an otoscope, one of those things you look into ears with, and peered down the hole I plug my ear bud jack into. She looked up and wagged her forefinger side to side and said, ”Has this phone been wet?” Before I could lie and say, “No, I removed it from it’s original box yesterday,” she said, “Because if it has that voids the warranty, and the little red strip inside this hole suggests it has. Would you like to look?”

Adam alerts me Sunday mornings to worthy reads in the Globe and the online edition of the New York Times. I look forward to his links. This Sunday he asked me if I’d read about Virgin Atlantic’s clubroom at Logan. I hadn’t but promised to have a look inside the Globe Magazine after dinner. As soon as I glanced at the photos I knew to scan the text for reference to his company, Collaborative Lighting. The magazine photos are much clearer and brighter than these scanned pics.

“Pesky Godson of Chicago writes: “I cannot find the words splittist or splittism in my dictionary.”

My nose has driven  family and friends crazy over the years. It’s a curse. I can smell a bear a half mile away, garlic on the breath of someone clear across the room, the clashing multiple perfume scents in a theatre.  I’ve been known to wake John up in the middle of the night with “what’s that smell” simply because a cigarette smoker has walked on the sidewalk out front.   Never mind how I’ve been tortured by teens  after skiing-hiking-baseball-soccer-snowboarding refusing to drive them anywhere until they showered…..

But yesterday my nose failed me.  Happily curled up with a book, visiting with my parents, I wondered why I had such a headache?  Mike and Di walk in and Mike immediately says “I smell gas”.  “No way” I say, and ignore him.    Mike promptly went to the gas stove and turned it on.

The house did not explode.  But indeed we had a leaky furnace.  Now we owe him our lives.

BirdBrain

Some of you will remember the “Wee Beastie” post of two years ago, in which a tree-destroying vehicle shows up on our neighbor’s lawn and the next day begins some deforestation leading up to demolition of their split-level ranch, to be replaced with better, as you’ll see.  As I got into my car to go to work each morning (and sometimes on weekends), I’d snap a picture of their progress (though the intervals lengthened as the process wore on — it kind of ground to a halt last spring for reasons unknown before a final landscaping spate).  The hydroseeded front lawn is where I leave it last September.

The curious factor for me is that their children are coming of college age — arguably an odd time to decide to rebuild, especially at such scale.  The in-ground pool needed $40k of work, Tricia gleaned third hand, so I guess that’s reason enough for some to build themselves a half-million manse — kinda like buying a new (and much bigger) car ’cause you need brake work …

Without a trace of self-consciousness he said, “I am from Iraq,” but the declaration seemed brave to me anyway, as blue as the state through which we drove is.

Unless someone’s waiting for you in the terminal, I consider it a ridiculous sign of addiction (or posing) to turn on your cellphone or Blackberry and call someone while the plane’s still taxiing in from the runway — rude, even, if you’re too self-absorbed to have set your device to vibrate when following the flight attendant’s reminder to turn it off before the plane took off, the cabin thus chirping with all these little pacifiers ringing back to life, each in their “declaration of unique individuality” mass-produced ringtones*. So I was still engaged with checking my own messages curbside when it came my turn to climb into the next waiting taxi and head into Dallas from DFW, my driver assigned to me by chance.

He made some chitchat before noticing I was bidactily absorbed in composing emails, so he gave me some space before resuming his gregarious interrogative about where I was from, what brought me to Dallas, had I ever been here before, etc. It seemed only friendly to respond in kind, hence this sudden knowledge of his ancestry.

I allowed as how he must find it difficult to live in the very state from which our Commander in Chief chooses to currently hail — he who invaded his homeland on a pretext, casting it into deadly chaos. But my cabbie (I didn’t get his name clearly at the time and don’t now remember what I thought his name was – no matter), was more philosophical than that. He knew the common man’s fate is largely chosen for him by others and with nary a hint of aggression, he wondered how it was for me to have George represent me. I assured him I didn’t feel that W in fact DID, and we spent the next while discussing American politics — how we come by the people from whom we get to choose the next POTUS, what it’s like for Americans abroad to be considered representative of America and answerable to the follies and crimes of our leadership, how it is that we vote against people we don’t want in office as much or more than we vote FOR someone, how only the rich or their designates will ever be POTUS, and some of my vague understandings of the historical reasons why we’re a representative federalism more than a true democracy, even though technology now allows the latter.

We also talked about family and patriotism and living abroad, I having grown up in Venezuela an American, he now having been here 15 years but with family in Iraq to whom he sends money. Bonds of family, torn allegiances, prejudice, finding belonging. The miles from DFW to the architects’ offices fairly flew.

And then we were there. We both got out, and he helped me with my bags then gave me his card – generic, just the name of the cab company, not his own. He thanked me for our conversation and my insights into this country, that he had much to think on, and he said he’d love to drive me back at the end of my trip if that worked for me. I told him genuinely that I had enjoyed our conversation, wished him luck, and then summoned the only Arabic I know, torn between presumption and respect.
“Salaam aleikhum,” I wished him, hands clasped before me, hoping that was all at least close to appropriate, and with a broad smile, hands clasped before him in a small bow, he wished me the same. And I wheeled my bag inside the sprawling modernist building, feeling more like I’d just arrived from an international trip than a cab ride, and thinking this must be a little like what it must feel like to travel as Michael.

* I only ever heard one ringtone I thought was truly original – a landscape architect had recorded the night chirpings of crickets and had used that as his own.

Once I realized that the sunrise was not at that conjunction but over land, I raced down the beach, but I was too late to see the sun lift off the water. Oh well, there’ll always be another time. The real question is what do I do now that I’m up?

I could take pictures of prints of paintings on the wall of our motel.

We’re back at the Pilgrim Sands in Plymouth. This photo’s from last night and now I’m up waiting for the sunrise hoping for a clear horizon of one the sun can burn off. The above view is northeast from our deck and the overnight guy, who works two jobs, the other in Boston,  tells me the rise occurs over there where that spit of land dies into the ocean. You’ll see.

This morning I checked cnn.com, as I do everyday, and their headline photo showed earthquake damage in St. Louis. Captivated, I read on. The center of the earthquake was 133 miles east of St. Louis. I did the math and wondered why they didn’t say the center’s in Evansville, Indiana or damn close. Christ, why not say the center is twelve hundred miles west of New York City?

I thought this behavior more appropriate for a Californian.

I agree with some of what Louise says about Mark and Ginger’s daughter Molly’s latest play “Travesties,” but if I were writing the review I would have donated more page space to the acting, which to our minds (I’m speaking for Diane too), was extraordinarily good. The best we’ve seen in any of her plays. Combine that level of performance with a script that teases history and demands more focus that my brain has available cells and you’ve got one terrific afternoon . And, again, we had close-up seats in a small theatre. It’s been fun riding Molly’s coattails but after this play she’s moving back to New York.

After the play we ate dinner at Addis Red Sea, an Ethiopian restaurant across the street from the theater.

The rakkities are risking a trip to Italy in May. (Manarola, in Cinqueterre on May 9-12, then Pisa, then Sicily and the Aeolian Islands, May 15-22.)

MAY 2008 HEADLINES

May 7. Alitalia airlines goes bankrupt, IATA revokes Alitalia’s license before a buyout can occur. Newly elected Prime Minister Berlusconi promises that his government will fix the situation when he comes into power.

May 10. Repeating the events of December, 2002, landslides in cliffs of Cinqueterre close train line connecting cities. Travelers staying in Cinqueterre’s towns must walk out of the National Park region, following ancestral routes through the terraced vineyards.

May 13. Railroad strikes stop train traffic across Italy. Anti hitch-hiking laws are not enforced, permitting disgruntled travelers to gradually move towards their destinations.

May 14. Tower of Pisa unexpectedly collapses. Unfortunately it falls onto the spectacular Baptistry in historic center. Carnage closes city.

May 15. Alitalia’s flights from northern Italy to Sicily become intermittent. Only flights between
midnight and 4 am on Mondays and Thursdays operate until further notice.

May 17. Mt Etna erupts, pouring lava down onto Catania and neighboring towns, repeating the disaster of 1992. Routes to Syracuse and Ortegia are closed, forcing locals to take boats or roundabout land routes.

May 18. Ever-rumbling Stromboli, highest and most active of the Aeolian Island volcanoes, creates a tsunami worse than the one of 2002, flooding the neighboring Islands, forcing residents and travelers to seek high ground.

May 19. Prime Minister Berlusconi eliminates all Federal taxes. Citizens celebrate with massive wine fests across Italy. Taxis, buses, and ferries become more erratic than usual.

May 20. Air France buys Alitalia at fire-sale price of 25 Euro-cents per share. Alitalia’s pilots and airline workers quit in disgust.

May 21. British Airways workers cannibalize old terminal 4 at Heathrow, while re-constructing terminal 5. Incoming flights from continental Europe are stopped from landing at Heathrow. Connections to the United States fail. Travellers stranded in Europe, some happy, some not.

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Some of these events are currently in progress or promised, others having happened in the past. But what the heck, you can’t worry in Italy. Good meals of fine pasta with excellent Italian house wine are ever available, regardless of the chaos.

-rakkity