May 26, 2024

 

Dear Everyone,

The cicadas are here.  They began emerging a week ago and I think we still have another week or two before peak eruption, but a significant amount are flying and crawling all about the neighborhood.  I don’t understand how the raspy clicking noise they make as individuals translates into the singing chorus that sounds like very loud high tension wires.  Maybe someone with a better physics background can explain.  Perhaps the low frequency sounds don’t travel as far?  Anyway, today is quiet as it’s been very rainy.

We have had some days of good weather (not too hot or cold, low wind), and I have been able to get in some games of outdoor pickleball in the public park nearby (Brook Park)  I am far from the best player there, but also not the worst.  I hope I can get in some more before the French barge trip, but I’ve had to move my tai chi class from Sunday to Thursday, which leaves only Friday for outdoor pickle.

Last Saturday Cindy and I went to a ‘Family Repack’ at the Greater Chicago Food Depository.  We were team pasta (there were also bread and potato teams).  We chose the shovel detail: there was a big box (about 1000 pounds) of ziti paste that I and another guy shoveled into smaller boxes of about 35 pounds, which were carried by Cindy to other stations, where people packed 2 pound bags of noodles.  These were sealed and labelled, and then six finished bags were packed into other boxes for later distribution to food pantries around Chicago.  I shoveled about 1500 pounds of pasta in a couple of hours.  I should do this more often than a couple of times per year; perhaps I will get Jami Walloch to come with me and we will do this instead of lifting weights.

Yesterday Cindy and I had lunch with my college roommate Armando Corpus at our favorite Indian restaurant, Kama Bistro in Lagrange.  This was an inspired choice in my part, since Armando is a pretty strict vegetarian (and Indian restaurants usually have a good selection of plant based dishes).  Armando spent the last thirty or so years in Oakland CA doing social work, but he moved to Lansing Illinois about two years ago, first to take care of his chronically ill brother-in-law who was clinically bereft after the death of Armando’s sister, and after his BIL dies, Armando has been taking care of his own chronically ill brother.  It does not sound like fun, and I would guess that after he finishes up taking care of his BIL’s estate, and depending on the health of his brother, he will move back to the Bay Area.

Next weekend Cindy and I will be out west visiting Nicola and Wes in Eugene, and then a stop to see Cindy’s Aunt Jane and another of my college roommates, Tim Crump, in Portland.

We tried watching the new series of Dr. Who on the Disney channel.  I think it is pretty horrible - - you can clearly see the heavy hand of Disney in the new production: the background music is overwhelming and annoying, the interior of the Tardis is bright and shiny, the Dr.’s companion seems to take the whole idea of time and space travel without any trepidation, and the plots (we’ve seen the first and the beginning of the second adventure) have been really dumb and not even third grader scary.  We’ll give episode three a try and then that’s it.

Reading non-fiction lately was The History of White People by Nell Irvin Painter.  This is a pretty interesting take on the whole concept of a ‘white’ race, and of course, the relationship (in the last 200 years) of race and slavery.  In fiction, the best book was probably Liberty’s Daughter, a good read if you like Corey Doctorow, Neal Stephenson, William Gibson, etc.

Love, H.