Scotland: Cats vs. Beverages

On Friday, I boarded an Aer Lingus flight to Dublin and was astonished to find that seat 29K was an exit row seat.  How did I get so lucky?  What are the chances? Etcetera.  Only after several airborne hours did it occur to me that I must have purchased this very seat myself way back in October, prevailing upon myself to pay whatever addition fee was no doubt associated with it.  And so, to myself of October, I would like to say thank you from the me of yesterday who was grateful for the legroom.

I arrived in Dublin on Saturday afternoon and had an unfortunate two-hour layover, which proved just enough time for me to become terrifically sleepy. In the end I did not fall asleep and miss my connection, though I did fall asleep almost instantly upon boarding the plane. By the time I arrived in Glasgow, I was feeling pretty sprightly, actually, but that was probably because I was on my way to visit Jenny and Baz and I was excited. You'd like them.

They came to pick me up at the airport and after only a brief mishap when I tried to get into the driver's side of the car, we were on our way.  We came home briefly and then went to their friends' house for a BBQ. Very surprisingly, it was a BBQ sort of day. We sat on a balcony in actual sunshine. At one point I asked if I might have some sunscreen.  I know. It was a Glasgow miracle.

Among the most memorable things about my last (and only) visit to Scotland years ago, other than the whiskey-flavored condoms available for purchase from pub restroom vending machines, was the constant stream of beverages I was offered. Compared to Jen and Baz's hospitality, my own behavior toward guests is akin to putting them outside in the back alley and occasionally tossing them some crackers out the window.  [Note to self: up your hosting game.]  I thought that the beverage-offering might be particular to Jen and Baz, but the great take away from Martin and Fiona's BBQ is that it is a widespread Scottish phenomenon. As is the general graciousness: to wit, neither Fiona nor Martin took it amiss that I immediately began stuffing grilled sausages into my mouth, despite the fact that I was a total stranger who had only entered their home 20 seconds earlier.  Thanks for that. It's not that I'm really so ill bred, so much as that I was ravenous. And I apologize for not consuming more liquids; I know it made you all uneasy.  

So, on the plus side, Jen and Baz continue to ensure that I will never, ever be thirsty; on the minus side, since last I saw them, they have acquired cats. And you know how I feel about cats.  Or perhaps you don't, in which case, I will briefly explain:

1. Cats make me sneeze.
2. Cats are assholes.

Not necessarily in that order.  Regard this helpful stained glass window from the West End pub we went to last night (it had been an hour since we'd last had beverages). In it, you'll find a harmonious domestic scene from olden times in which a cat is being an asshole.

Because, as I say, Jen and Baz are ridiculously accommodating hosts, I have been provided with a cat-free zone all my own and have been generally protected from feline contact altogether. The cats are totally biding their time and plotting how best to jump on my head, but that's what cats do. I don't blame my friends.  Besides, yesterday, I managed to spray water liberally all over the bathroom from the hand-held shower,  and today I jet-lagged myself into sleeping until noon, so I don't really have any kind of high ground on which to stand.

Between beverages, we had quite a cultural outing yesterday. We stumbled upon a community orchestra in an outdoor amphitheater and heard them play a couple of songs from Frozen while several children from the audience did some very charming interpretive dance. Then we went to see some of the civic art collection at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery.  It is, in case you were wondering, not hideous.

Later, after some pasta and a variety of beverages, we made our way through the rain to Cottier's a pub/theatre that was once a church: 

Jen: It's not very old.
Me:  You're a liar.
Jen:  No. It's Victorian.
Me: Can we agree that instead of saying "it's not old" about things that you think are modern that nevertheless predate my country, you just say "it's not medieval?"
Jen: Fair enough.

Cottier's exterior

The theatre (as set up for a wedding reception, but the best photo I could shamelessly steal from the internet.)

We heard some very beautiful Bach trios and were happy as Larry.  [Helpful Scottish tip: perfect contentment is "happy as Larry." I don't know who this Larry is nor how he happened to lead such a charmed life, but I do know that, in Scotland, clams just don't enter into the thing,]

Tonight, I am promised fiddles (and beverages, of course. Always beverages.) That Larry's got nothing on me.

Messy

Adjust your feelings about me as you must, but in public bathrooms, I usually don't use the toilet seat covers.  Mostly, I think they are silly, an illusion of protection more than the real thing, not unlike all of us taking off our government-toppling shoes at the airport. From time to time, though, in places I deem more questionable than others, I will employ them. I am not immune to the delights of a false sense of security. Recently, in an airplane WC, I thought I spied some visible droplets, which is a good seat-cover usage situation. Afterwards, though, when I tried to coax the paper into the bowl to be flushed, it seemed to have adhered to the seat with perplexing determination. And that is when I realized that I had neither set the seat cover nor my own arse on the seat, so much as the rim of the bowl itself, a surface baptized by who knows how many gracious seat-raising cross-country urinators. Oh.  And oh dear.  That moment seems emblematic of how everything has been from mid-May until now. Accidentally sitting on the rim of a public toilet on the way to a funeral--but!--avoiding the worst having used a seat cover.  

Things got done. Everything was messier than I intended, but not disastrously so. And suddenly (finally), after a breakneck gallop through school-year spring, we've arrived at the threshold of summer. This year I really wasn't sure we'd make it. But we did. Phew.

You could be forgiven for thinking I would never write anything again, but I am here to reassure you. There were dozens of school events, a death in the family, ten years' worth of office to pack, and general exhaustion, but this is the moment I turn the page. I have a few days to catch my breath and do some laundry and then, come Friday, I get on a plane and embark on an adventure. An adventure that will begin, obviously, with ensuring that the seat is down, but then will get much more exciting: a Glasgow flat, the Globe Theatre, an Amsterdam canal, a café in Copenhagen, a view over Berlin, a tea shop in Paris, a lake in Switzerland, a library in Dublin.  So many things (and invisible in that list, but hiding just around every corner, many people I love). I plan to tell you all about it. Even when it all goes awry (read: escalators).

Stay tuned, is what I'm saying. The good part's coming.

auf wiedersehen

Having written nothing for a month and a half, why not get out of bed at 12:15AM with a sudden compulsion to sneak up on inertia in the dark.

Lately, sleeping has not been coming easily and when it does, there are nightmares. Or, if not nightmares exactly, then nightmare-adjacent dreams.  Except the one about the child I was trying to rescue from sex trafficking. I think we can reasonably call that one a nightmare. I thought I was out of the woods when the worst thing that happened in Friday's dreamscape was that the vase of flowers I was trying to leave as a surprise on the hood of my friend Bill's car blew over in the wind.  In last night's though, I tried to take a short cut from one street to another through Adam's house and he was PISSED about it. I have not seen him in years, so I expected him to be more pleased to see me. He seemed to feel that since I haven't seen him in years I shouldn't be walking into his house unannounced through the back door. Right. Bad call. But damn.  He was so angry.

It has not been restful, is what I'm saying. And the lying in the dark for an hour staring at the ceiling that precedes these dreams (unless I stay up until 2AM or so) is not all that placid either. What gives, body?

In unrelated news, I said goodbye to someone I love last week--hustled him through the BART turnstyle at midnight like an urban Cinderella and that was it. Two days later he stopped being a Californian and went back to being a European. Though I will miss him immeasurably, I didn't cry when we parted. This astonished me (I am, as we all know, an inveterate crier). I was pretty excited. I thought perhaps this dry-eyed adieu marked some kind of new plateau of maturity and/or spiritual growth.  Oh, hi there, insomnia.  What's up, nightmares. 

Ah. So, not unrelated news as it turns out.

Stealth sadness. Dammit. That's cold, brain.

Sweet dreams.

April

It's April!  Specifically, it's April 2nd and I think we can all agree that April 1st would have been a more --ta da!-- fresh start sort of day to return, but seeing as how March came and went without comment, I think it's best that we just take what we can get.  What I am supposed to be doing right now is going to the farmers' market (this sounds like something from ye olden times wherein I would have to hitch the horse to the wagon and go allllll the way into market square or, at the very least, get the old ford pick up humming and on the road, but it is modern times and I live in San Francisco, which means that "going to the farmers' market" necessitates nothing more than putting on some real pants, stuffing their pockets with about $300 in cash, and walking two blocks down my own street). And yet.  And yet this seems instead like a great time to do something I've completely ignored for a month and a half.  Mind you, I have no food in the house.  Breakfast is comprised of a pot of tea and a handful of walnuts.  The other option was tea and a can of diced tomatoes. For about a week I've been having tea and chocolate for dinner. Why do I so loathe grocery shopping of any kind?  Discuss.

If not motivational on the grocery front (and nothing is), April is otherwise inspiring. April itself is a musical little word and it brings with it daffodils and hyacinth and real spring. What's even more exciting, if you clamber up to the top of the hill of April (it's not steep; even I can do it), summer is clearly visible on the horizon and we begin to believe that the school year, like all school years, will eventually come to an end. In February, they tell us it's true, but we don't really believe it.

This particular April is among the most wished-for Aprils of all. It marks the end of a hideous year for my friend who has had to spend it self-administering shots of cancer-killing poison, which, unsurprisingly killed other things along the way. Things like joy and concentration and more than three consecutive days without a fever. It has, in a word, sucked. But yesterday marked the last shot of a whole year of shots. The last shot!  It is very likely that you don't know my friend, but I invite you to join me in a small celebratory, April-welcoming, life-affirming jig anyway.  It'll do you good.

I have other things to tell you: a litany of small maladies coupled with my reluctance to engage with my new health insurance; thoughts on theatre for which you may have no personal context whatsoever; exciting developments on the neighbor front; possibly some kind of update on having bought food and thus fended off starvation (but no promises).  I'll tell you these things another day.  No, I will.  I'm not even lying this time.

Arts and Letters

I have a friend who is recovering from back surgery, which I imagine involves a lot of lying very, very still. That's probably false, but I am cowardly about pain and that would probably be what I would do after back surgery inasmuch as possible. I am not that bad at lying very still, but many people are. I expect that this friend does not excel at it and is very bored indeed. In light of this, I promised to try not to suck at blogging in the manner of January, such that he might have something diverting to read. This didn't totally work out in that I have continued to suck, except that now I just feel guiltier about it than I did pre-promise.  Also, you know what the world is not short of?  Diversions. Have you already read everything in the public library? Well, I guess it's time to get started on the internet then.  Knock yourself out.  Me?  I've been pretending that reading isn't a real thing and watching The Wire for hours a day for weeks now.  I no longer have any idea what's going on, but I plod joylessly toward the series conclusion as though there will be a pass/fail on my permanent record. 

I have started this bold new paragraph four times now. Here's the thing. I'm having a lousy week. I've been lonely and sad. I can't find a way to make it amusing or even interesting, so let's just take it as a given and try to think of something else to talk about.

A couple of weeks ago, I took myself to the ballet one afternoon. I very seldom go to the ballet, but it was a mixed program and I was interested in seeing a piece inspired by Magritte. Ultimately, I did not like the Magritte piece at all. (Perhaps this is because I know nothing at all about Magritte aside from hats and apples. Whoever choreographed the piece presumably knew a lot more about Magritte and none of those things was cheerful.) That's the bad news. The good news is that I liked the other two pieces very much, particularly the first one which was choreographed to Brahms and was as elegant and romantic as a ballet could hope to be. The final piece, a highly modern one, was also compelling, though I will confess that by that point, I was thinking pretty steadily about my post-show hot chocolate.  Sorry, dancers.  I am a lightweight. Also, I should have eaten before I came.

Later, post-ballet, post-chocolate (and excellent chocolate it was), I was in the Van Ness station waiting (and waiting and waiting) for the J Church  (me: do you have any theories about why the J is so delayed?  Muni booth man [looks at schedule display, laughs ruefully]: the J just has pretty bad service. I know that's not what you want to hear.) I was sitting reading the (at that time ubiquitous) Villette.  A large, somewhat untidy-looking older man sits down next to me. He looks over my shoulder and sees "Fraternity" at the top of the page.

Man: [friendly, not creepy]  I see you're reading about a fraternity.  Which fraternity?

Me: Oh. No.  It's just the name of the chapter. In this case it's fraternity as in the idea of brotherhood, not an actual organization.

Man:  Oh. Brotherhood?  Like brethren?

Me: Yes.  This is the book. [I show him the cover.] It's a sort of romantic novel by Charlotte Brontë.

Man:  I don't know her. Is she famous?

Me:  She is quite famous. She wrote a book called Jane Eyre that a lot of people have read, but she died a long time ago. [I check the back of the book] She died in 1855.

Man: [whistles amazement] I don't read a lot of books.  Some newspapers. Some magazines. Not a lot of books though.  But my friend gave me a book. He gave me Moby Dick.

Me: [incredulous hoot of laughter] Wow. I've never read that one.  If you don't read books, that seems like a tough one to start with. 

We nod in agreement.

Man:  Did you go shopping today?  You're dressed to the nines.

Me:  I went to the ballet!

We smile quite happily, both seemingly pleased that I dressed to the nines and went to the ballet.

My train arrives.