Evanston: a chessboard
Evanston: a chessboard
Cities are best seen through veils. Night, fog, distance, snow: all help to soften edges, add mystery, and conceal distracting and often ugly detail.
We have only a couple of inches of snow on the ground, but as I looked out our side windows at the nearby cemetery this morning, I saw the grave markers as chess pieces.
The photo shows s
ome of those distracting details: telephone poles and wires; a fence separating the cemetery from a parking lot.
Perhaps I should mention that it is in color.
The tree limbs outside our west windows are outlined in white and make an interesting pattern, but there is no way I can isolate them from a background of buildings and parked cars.
The contrast between the two parts of my life is great and never more so than now.
But beyond the climates, there are many other differences.
In three months in New Zealand I only saw television the one night Carol and I stayed in a motel ashore while driving to Cape Reinga. Here I have more than a hundred cable channels, and have watched various soccer games, basketball games, the Super Bowl, the news, and episodes of the HBO series THE WIRE Carol recorded while I was gone.
An aside about Cape Reinga is that I read online that flooding following recent rain has washed out one of the bridges on the only road to Cape Reinga and that the 500 northern most people in New Zealand are cut off. So I presume are the northern most cow and sheep.
Except for my breakfast of uncooked oatmeal, trail mix and nonfat dried milk which remains the same, food is different for me here. Refrigeration helps. And that there are good supermarkets within walking distance. And I have access to a car.
Thus far I haven't read a word since I returned in either of the two books I was reading on the airplanes: Hugh Thomas’ RIVERS OF GOLD and Alexander McCall Smith’s BLUE SHOES AND HAPPINESS, the seventh in his No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency Series set in Botswana. I have read the first six and found them charming. However I see that he has just published another and I may have had enough.
Having a reliable broadband Internet connection here is splendid after the slow and understandably, but still frustratingly, finicky connection in New Zealand. I uploaded my last journal entry in a fraction of time it would have taken me from the boat, and was able to do so without having to reboot into Windows, which was the only way I could connect with the shore from my mooring.
Also having access to the great American marketplace.
When I first return I have a back log of pent up consumerism.
Without leaving this room I have ordered books, a waterproof camera, computer peripherals, clothes, and downloaded software as well as music from iTunes. I have yet to start on boat equipment.
I have also been able to satisfy a craving, despite the cold outside, for a martini. On the boat I do drink warm beer, but a warm martini is out of the question.
Aided by snow reflection, the sun is shining very brightly. The temperature has reached the plus side of Fahrenheit and now stands at a balmy 2ºF. Still -16.6ºC. I feel restless and am going to bundle up and walk to the lake.
Thursday, February 8, 2007