Things are forever happening when I'm not looking. I have always liked to think of myself as a perceptive man, but somehow buildings are torn down, people die, decades of my life evaporate, and empires crumble and are built anew as I amble blissfully through my daily routine. Clearly not the sharp-witted monitor of urbanity that I would be, I am evidently a misty-eyed ingenu (don't try to catch me in a misspelling: ingenue is the feminine form in French) dancing his romantic way through the lilac-heavy bowers of Dreamland whilst Civilisation collapses on all sides. Somehow the most significant events of daily life evade me. I pride myself on reading, almost daily, the major papers from three of the most important States and those of mighty Germany and Austria as well, yet I invariably learn of earthshattering events only when an allusion is made to them in the operetta review columns. Things just plain happen when I'm not looking, and evidently I'm usually not looking.
As Gentle Reader may have noted from the previous entry, I am in the recovery phase of a particularly nasty 'flu. What a hateful little disease. Not so little, I suppose, considering that it laid much of the United States to waste in 1918; but it seems like a puny sort of disease. It's not as though you have cholera or the Black Plague. I did, though, have a temperature of 104 at one point. Please reference my statements regarding Nyquil from the most recent post. I am making this statement for two reasons. Primarily, I do not wish to be sued by the Nyquil people, who probably spend something approaching my annual salary on powdered coffee creamer. Trifle though it might seem to the Nyquil boys, it keeps me in bourbon, so I'd better not screw with it. They can do without powdered chemical ooo for their coffee, but I can't do without a house.
Also, several nice people have pointed out that my delusions of the past illness are more likely results of the fever, not Nyquil.
Damn.
Here I was thinking that I'd found some freakadelic way to be all alternative and stuff without actually having to talk to alternative type people, and it turns out I was just baking myself without any alternative stuff at all.
Leave it to me. Even when I try to be alternative, I'm the boiling cauldron of the establishment.
Cool.
Back to the point...Now, I came down with this particular ick on Sunday and bore it through Tuesday. Wednesday was a recovery day. Today, I simply did not feel like going to school and so I did not.
Today was also a very convenient day to NOT be in school, because it was breathtakingly beautiful. The sun shone in the morning. By ten o'clock there was the promise of very warm weather. By noon, the cats were acting spazzy in the way that cats do when spring is around the corner, and I opened up the windows. Really opened them, I mean; I frequently open the bedroom window in sub-freezing temperatures because all good Baltimore German people know that cold night air is invigorating and good for you and combats the poisons generated by a closed house with central heat. By one o'clock, I had aired the entire house and hung two beds' worth of linen out to dry. By two, I was annoyed with housework and decided to set off on a nice long walk.
Since I was still officially "sick" I figured that it wouldn't do to walk the main thoroughfares. It would be just my rotten luck that out of a million-odd people, I would pass somebody who might realize that I was malingering. I was overdue for an alley walk anyway, and I had some library books to return. I thus meandered up Hargrove street, pausing to talk to one of the local stray cats and the big scary dog who lives two blocks up. The big scary dog is actually scary in visage only. He is terrified of air, but everyone is afraid of him and he banks on that. I admired the well-tended gardens behind the big St. Paul street and Calvert street houses. I bumped into my former colleague, Mr. R., in front of the Chinese carryout, and then decided to get a late lunch at Eddie's Grocery.
Now, the rowhouse section of Proper North Baltimore does not have lawns. Some sections therein do have little front garden patches. The rear gardens are always lovely but they are also always fenced or walled. So, it was only when I broke out of the rowhouses at 33rd Street Boulevard that I discovered something.
For once in my life, a season changed while I was looking. The House of Saxe-Coburg u. Gotha might collapse while my eyes are averted (come, now, Konigin Elisabeth, we know your real last name), but Spring came to Maryland today while I watched. All along Greenway and Charles street there are pretty crocus in full bloom. I know they weren't there over the last weekend. When I passed Northway a maid was busily airing out some heavy winter curtains for what I'm sure was the last time this season before they'll be put away for good, and a few blocks later, lacrosse practice was in full swing at Loyola.
After all these years I've actually seen the dawn of a season as it happens. Now, I'm sure that we'll have another nasty cold snap, because Maryland just does that to you. Also, whether I've witnessed the birth of spring or no, I can't confirm the event because I have not been downtown for several days. Every good Marylander knows that Spring has not officially arrived until the crocuses bloom in front of the Archbishop's Residence .
As Gentle Reader may have noted from the previous entry, I am in the recovery phase of a particularly nasty 'flu. What a hateful little disease. Not so little, I suppose, considering that it laid much of the United States to waste in 1918; but it seems like a puny sort of disease. It's not as though you have cholera or the Black Plague. I did, though, have a temperature of 104 at one point. Please reference my statements regarding Nyquil from the most recent post. I am making this statement for two reasons. Primarily, I do not wish to be sued by the Nyquil people, who probably spend something approaching my annual salary on powdered coffee creamer. Trifle though it might seem to the Nyquil boys, it keeps me in bourbon, so I'd better not screw with it. They can do without powdered chemical ooo for their coffee, but I can't do without a house.
Also, several nice people have pointed out that my delusions of the past illness are more likely results of the fever, not Nyquil.
Damn.
Here I was thinking that I'd found some freakadelic way to be all alternative and stuff without actually having to talk to alternative type people, and it turns out I was just baking myself without any alternative stuff at all.
Leave it to me. Even when I try to be alternative, I'm the boiling cauldron of the establishment.
Cool.
Back to the point...Now, I came down with this particular ick on Sunday and bore it through Tuesday. Wednesday was a recovery day. Today, I simply did not feel like going to school and so I did not.
Today was also a very convenient day to NOT be in school, because it was breathtakingly beautiful. The sun shone in the morning. By ten o'clock there was the promise of very warm weather. By noon, the cats were acting spazzy in the way that cats do when spring is around the corner, and I opened up the windows. Really opened them, I mean; I frequently open the bedroom window in sub-freezing temperatures because all good Baltimore German people know that cold night air is invigorating and good for you and combats the poisons generated by a closed house with central heat. By one o'clock, I had aired the entire house and hung two beds' worth of linen out to dry. By two, I was annoyed with housework and decided to set off on a nice long walk.
Since I was still officially "sick" I figured that it wouldn't do to walk the main thoroughfares. It would be just my rotten luck that out of a million-odd people, I would pass somebody who might realize that I was malingering. I was overdue for an alley walk anyway, and I had some library books to return. I thus meandered up Hargrove street, pausing to talk to one of the local stray cats and the big scary dog who lives two blocks up. The big scary dog is actually scary in visage only. He is terrified of air, but everyone is afraid of him and he banks on that. I admired the well-tended gardens behind the big St. Paul street and Calvert street houses. I bumped into my former colleague, Mr. R., in front of the Chinese carryout, and then decided to get a late lunch at Eddie's Grocery.
Now, the rowhouse section of Proper North Baltimore does not have lawns. Some sections therein do have little front garden patches. The rear gardens are always lovely but they are also always fenced or walled. So, it was only when I broke out of the rowhouses at 33rd Street Boulevard that I discovered something.
For once in my life, a season changed while I was looking. The House of Saxe-Coburg u. Gotha might collapse while my eyes are averted (come, now, Konigin Elisabeth, we know your real last name), but Spring came to Maryland today while I watched. All along Greenway and Charles street there are pretty crocus in full bloom. I know they weren't there over the last weekend. When I passed Northway a maid was busily airing out some heavy winter curtains for what I'm sure was the last time this season before they'll be put away for good, and a few blocks later, lacrosse practice was in full swing at Loyola.
After all these years I've actually seen the dawn of a season as it happens. Now, I'm sure that we'll have another nasty cold snap, because Maryland just does that to you. Also, whether I've witnessed the birth of spring or no, I can't confirm the event because I have not been downtown for several days. Every good Marylander knows that Spring has not officially arrived until the crocuses bloom in front of the Archbishop's Residence .
posted by Daniel | 11:57 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home