Stories, Tall and Short, pt. 2

CalGal is so interesting to watch when she tries to be subtle.


Seguine: Come to think about it, this ought to merit its own page in TSE.

1002. Seguine - 10/22/1999 10:28:56 PM

I'm sure there are even people who would pay good money to watch a videotape of A5 sitting in a white room, discoursing at length on the phrase, "Breasts have lots of great uses..."

It could be shown in 15 second intervals, with interruptions from viewers' browsers advising them to deposit more quarters.

1003. Seguine - 10/22/1999 10:30:35 PM

"Come to think about it, this ought to merit its own page in TSE."

Mmm, no, my mother reads TSE.

1004. Angel-Five - 10/22/1999 10:32:47 PM

Seguine: But it's art.

Do I get to wear normal clothing for the videotape?

1005. CalGal - 10/22/1999 10:33:14 PM

Here I am lamenting our inability to market such a product, due the chief programmer's lamentable lack of interest in revenue (I can only assume it's something in that antipodean water) and I commit the sin of arousing Pixie-dust's interest.

1006. Angel-Five - 10/22/1999 10:34:05 PM

Easily dispelled. All you have to do is fall silent. It's the right thing to do and a great way to do it.

1007. CalGal - 10/22/1999 10:38:57 PM

Alas. I work here.

What is it you do, again?

1008. Angel-Five - 10/22/1999 10:39:56 PM

Point out the obvious to you.

1009. Seguine - 10/22/1999 10:41:15 PM

"Do I get to wear normal clothing for the videotape?"

Sure, if what you normally wear includes a fair amount of nothing whatsoever.

Don't worry. We'll have Banks direct it. As you've noted, he can be relied upon to be unfazed.

1010. CalGal - 10/22/1999 10:42:57 PM

Really? But you use so many words. One would think you perform such a mundane task with far less effort.

1011. CalGal - 10/22/1999 10:44:35 PM

I will say, though, that it's a relief to know that there is a reason I get so much of your attention. But your job performance leaves much to be desired.

I shall see about finding a superior replacement immediately. Perhaps Ace has some spare time.

1012. Angel-Five - 10/22/1999 10:45:52 PM

CalGal: Please, go look at what's been said so far, then tell me again about my many words. If you need to embarass yourself further, I'd suggest the Playpen.

1013. Angel-Five - 10/22/1999 10:47:39 PM

Banks, as a clove-smoking, beret-wearing cameraman, I can readily see.

1014. Seguine - 10/22/1999 10:48:46 PM

On the subject of fundraising, I think we can do additional good work if we all just think long and hard about it.

1015. Seguine - 10/22/1999 10:54:09 PM

"Banks, as a clove-smoking, beret-wearing cameraman, I can readily see."

Yes, and as you sit unclad and harshly illumined, describing in some detail the many uses of breasts, it should reassure you that he is very likely heterosexual (having sired progeny after all).

1016. Angel-Five - 10/22/1999 11:10:26 PM

I'm doomed to be a sex object, apparently. It's the height and hair and my seductive voice. Being an angel is hard work.

1017. Angel-Five - 10/22/1999 11:22:03 PM

Banks is perhaps my favorite fraygrant and I have no concerns that he would be ogling me. For one, I will be wearing no PVC for the ne-plus-ultra of sated aesthetes to fix upon.

It strikes me that we should have him on the tape saying a few words, along the lines of the taped speech in True Lies.

1018. Angel-Five - 10/22/1999 11:24:41 PM

You do realize that, my voice being the vocal equivalent of a romantic movie, a dozen roses, a limousine ride, some recited poetry and about six shots of rum to most women, that I will have to disguise it? For bandwidth purposes? I had thought to do something along the lines of the commentator in the Python skit upon the importance of remaining unseen.

1019. Seguine - 10/23/1999 4:55:41 PM

"...a romantic movie, a dozen roses, a limousine ride, some recited poetry and about six shots of rum to most women..."

What is it about that list of dating paraphernalia--apart from the rum--that is supposed to be so marvelous? The vast majority of "romantic" movies are awful. I have roses in my garden; a whole damn bush of them costs maybe thirty dollars and produces hundreds of roses for years on end. A limousine ride... well, it foreshadows the hearse ride, there's just no way around that, plus, anything you can do in a limo can be done while stationary and without a driver present.

Then there's the recited poetry: a very iffy proposition, as there is the choice of poem to consider, the delivery is crucial, and most men can't manage it without making us cringe or laugh (admit it, ladies). If the poem is good and the recitation ideal, an intelligent woman will wonder whether her swain is an actor, in which case he probably should be dumped immediately, before his lies cease to be amusing.

An ideal lover makes tea. If one smokes, he lights one's cigarettes before one asks the favor. In the morning, he operates the coffee grinder and the espresso machine. He is deft with his hands, a good conversationalist, and has a fine sense of humor. (There are certainly other qualities that needn't be enumerated here, lest we frighten the males hunkered down, listening and quivering, behind those scrubby bushes there, far from the light of the fire.)

I never have understood the importance of the diamond ring either. Why not a sapphire, or an andalusite? A ruby? Why not, even, an attractive, jewel-free band made by an artisan, rather than these mass-produced things everyone seems to need?

1020. Seguine - 10/23/1999 4:56:06 PM

As I contemplate such matters, it strikes me that perhaps A5 will be too pedestrian for our fundraising event. He's tall, he says, and mellifluous. But maybe we need someone bolder, less, well, tritely angelic. Someone earthier.

I think we all know who this is.

Uzmakk? Uzmakk, are you available to be filmed, in the nude, discoursing on breasts, by Marjoribanks? A5 will need something to do, so he can write your monologue. All you'd have to do is perform.

1021. Angel-Five - 10/23/1999 5:26:07 PM

Whew. I don't like using my voice for commercial purposes. It seems whorish.

The
vast majority of "romantic" movies are awful.

hahahaha, yes, well, most men consider them to be sufficient foreplay. I sit through them patiently.

I have roses
in my garden; a whole damn bush of them costs maybe
thirty dollars and produces hundreds of roses for years on
end.

Yes, nice effort, but you simply cannot ignore the way your whole gender goes batty over a handful of freshly killed plants.

A limousine ride... well, it foreshadows the hearse
ride, there's just no way around that, plus, anything you
can do in a limo can be done while stationary and without
a driver present.

Oh, admit it, you like the idea of the driver. Besides, everyone knows that sex and death are tied together psychologically. It's sort of like how earthquakes can make people aroused.

If the poem is good and
the recitation ideal, an intelligent woman will wonder
whether her swain is an actor, in which case he probably
should be dumped immediately, before his lies cease to be
amusing.

Women like actors, depending upon what you do or do not make plain. But I can't think that the majority are so suspicious. Especially after six shots of rum.

An ideal lover makes tea. If one smokes, he lights one's
cigarettes before one asks the favor. In the morning, he
operates the coffee grinder and the espresso machine. He
is deft with his hands, a good conversationalist, and has a
fine sense of humor.

This is mostly, of course, ex post facto, dahlink.

1022. PelleNilsson - 10/23/1999 5:26:58 PM

Have you seen the portrait of A-5? It's in Spirutual #1862.The small format doesn't do him justice. Check here.

1023. Angel-Five - 10/23/1999 5:29:03 PM

You forgot the bit about backrubs. And a general willingness to lie shamelessly when it's obviously expected of us.

1024. Angel-Five - 10/23/1999 5:30:12 PM

The thing is, that looks a lot like my uncle.

1025. pseudoerasmus - 10/23/1999 5:38:19 PM

What on earth are you people talking about?

1026. Angel-Five - 10/23/1999 5:50:23 PM

Why am I not surprised that Psood is confused by all of this?

1027. pseudoerasmus - 10/23/1999 5:54:26 PM

Angelfive: Why don't you just record yourself reciting a short poem or a stanza?


In exchange I offer a cranky frog and a boorish Japper.

1028. PelleNilsson - 10/23/1999 5:55:38 PM

Trivium: Self-portrait, by whom? Hints: Scandinavian, well-known.

In the meantime: what about a story? Nothing fancy, or exciting, or particularly well-written, just a little weekend divertissement to take your minds off the weighty issues.

The Great Cyprus Four-Wheel Debacle

This is 1988 and we live in Amman. We have decided to spend Christmas in Cyprus together with our friend, and my colleague, Stig. We have been there several times before, although separately, so we knew the island well and are looking for some new feat of exploration. On an earlier visit, Stig had obtained a set of Ordnance Survey maps at the scale of 1:100,000 which is quite detailed. This is Cyprus:



Sorry about the bad resolution. The thing that looks like a river is the UN buffer zone between the Greek and Turkish zones. The shaded portions are the British Sovereign Base Areas.

And this is the area of interest:



Our decision was to make our way from Paphos, where we were to stay, to Cape Arnauti , the westernmost point on the island. As you can see there is a road from Paphos to Peiya. Our maps showed a dirt road that continued much further. We judged that we would have about 8 km to walk from the end of the road to the Cape. We had in fact been up that road for some distance on earlier visits but had been checked by its bad state. It was difficult, perhaps impossible, to negotiate with an ordinary car. So we booked a four-wheel drive -a Nissan Patrol, I think - which we picked up at Larnaca airport.

1029. PelleNilsson - 10/23/1999 5:58:23 PM

Then the day came. We had two goals, the Cape and a place marked as "Turtle Hatchery" on the map, about a third of the way up. We departed early. It had rained quite a lot during the night, but now it was a beautiful, crisp morning. We drove on towards the Hatchery. So far the road was rather OK. All three of us had been to Thailand and seen the crocodile farms there, where the eggs are hatched in incubators and the place is full of pens with crocodiles of different sizes. We expected to see something similar. We arrived but there was nothing. Signs, there were saying "Turtle Hatchery" but no buildings, no trace of human activity.

We walked around for a while and came to the beach. And suddenly it dawned on us: this was the hatchery! We were on one of the beaches where the sea turtles emerge on a night of full moon, lay their eggs and bury them in the sand. Having established that, we climbed into the car again and took off. I was driving. After a while we climbed a small hill and there, in front of us, was a shallow depression filled with a mud pool, at least 100 meters long. We looked at each other . What to do? "Give the iron", said Stig (Swedicism). So I engaged the four-wheel drive, put the vipers on and the box in second gear, and floored it.

1030. Angel-Five - 10/23/1999 5:59:31 PM

Psood: A few people here have talked to me on the phone. The recorded poem idea is good, though.

1031. PelleNilsson - 10/23/1999 6:00:49 PM

It was an awesome experience. It was almost impossible to steer. The car veered from side to side. Sometimes it seemed to float on the mud, sometimes we seemed to sink and was slowed down precariously until the wheels found a grip and gave us back the momentum. But we made it and celebrated with a cup of coffee. There were a few more such passages, but none as deep, or wide, and with our new-found confidence in the car's abilities we made light of them.

We duly arrived at the end of the road and started trekking. It was much more difficult then we had thought with deep gullies to be traversed and thorny bushes, and it got worse all the time. After three hours we considered our situation. We reckoned we had done about five km. It was doubtful if we could make it all the way there and back before dark. Retreat was inevitable but not very palatable - the thorns and gullies all over again. High above us were the ruins of a building. Where there is a house there must be a road, we thought, and scrambled up on all fours. Up there we saw the Cape, our elusive goal. And there was indeed a road, and it took us almost to the car. The journey back was uneventful; the sun had made the mud pools much smaller.

Back in Paphos, thirsty and tired, we fell to drinking beer and examining the day's event. Nothing had gone right but we were a bit euphoric and self-congratulatory anyhow, as one gets when one is exhausted and the endorphins kick in. We praised the car and the four-wheel drive which had made all this possible.

1032. PelleNilsson - 10/23/1999 6:04:06 PM

The next day Stig departed for Amman; we went for a drive to a monastery to look at icons. We took some narrow roads back. Suddenly we found the road completely blocked by asphalting works. I then understood that the sign in Greek a few km back, probably had informed about this. I started to turn around when the site foreman disengaged himself from the work gang. He was a middle aged stocky Greek, complete with baggy trousers, high boots and drooping moustache. A regular Anthony Quinn.

He smiled a terse little smile, pointed to the car and held four fingers in the air. I nodded. He then pointed to how we could circumvent the work site by crossing a shallow ditch into a field and back again. He indicated that he would walk in front. I nodded again and engaged the drive.

When crossing the ditch I got stuck. Anthony again held up four fingers in a vigorous gesture. I checked the indicators and nodded, equally vigorously. Anthony came closer and examined the car. A great tiredness and sadness came over him. His posture slumped as he leaned forward and turned a lever on the left front wheel hub and repeated the manoeuvre on the right. Then, with a listless hand, he waved me on. And the wheels gripped, and in an instant I was out of the ditch, across the field and back on the road.

The four-wheel drive had never been engaged during our stay in Cyprus.

1033. concerned - 10/23/1999 6:33:27 PM

Re. 1027 -

The links appear to be broken or obsolete.

1034. webfeet - 10/23/1999 7:47:15 PM

Well, thanks Seguine and Adrianne for the titillating preview of the post-partum breast swell to come. Can't wait. I might consider locking myself up a la maison since, if what you say is true, I will probably have nothing big enough to conceal these bumptious knockers and will have to stay bed-ridden since I am bound to topple over if I try to stand up. On the bright side, I can always use them to grind out maternal frappucinos or double lattes for hubbie and junior. Quel fetishisme!

Today I am doing the equivalent of free balling and walking around braless since my constricting, frighteningly tight DD maternity bra is suspiciously "missing." (I unconsciously throw away, hide, or leave on trains, objects that I hate or that are too heavy) I could have taken my pick of any of the oglers in the Indi-Pakistani supply shop, whisked away in a cloud of curry, leaving frenchcat on the sidewalk, where he was standing waiting for me to come out with my coriander and ginger marinade. Actually, I think they were looking at me for a diffent reason. I was the only non-Indian inthe place, a pronounced "visitor" with shameless, unhindered breasts. All the same, I feel delightfully free.

Btw, Marj, when you're around, you have to tell me what to do with the marinade and with mango pickle relish because Im going to buy that next.

1035. Seguine - 10/23/1999 9:03:59 PM

"But we made it and celebrated with a cup of coffee."

Not a pint of ale, not a shot of single malt, but a cup of coffee. Was there any joyous yelling as the coffee was poured, or was it drunk in stolid, satisfied silence?

1036. Bubbaette - 10/23/1999 9:24:39 PM

"An ideal lover makes tea. If one smokes, he lights one's cigarettes before one asks the favor. In the morning, he operates the coffee grinder and the espresso machine. He is deft with his hands, a good conversationalist, and has a fine sense of humor. (There are certainly other qualities that needn't be enumerated here, lest we frighten the males hunkered down, listening and quivering, behind those scrubby bushes there, far from the light of the fire.)"

Damn it, have you been seeing my husband!?

1037. Seguine - 10/23/1999 9:40:25 PM

"Damn it, have you been seeing my husband!?"

No, Bubbaette, I am so satisfied as to be beyond temptation.

1038. Bubbaette - 10/23/1999 9:47:31 PM

Seguine

MMMmmmmmmm, I know what you mean.

"But maybe we need someone bolder, less, well, tritely angelic. Someone earthier."

There's something about his calloused hands that's better than the feel of silk on my skin.

1039. marjoribanks - 10/24/1999 12:38:28 AM

Re#997

It is true that I'm unimpressed by Daljit Dhaliwal, though I like her voice. Check out Aishwarya Rai for my preferred sub-con look.

1040. marjoribanks - 10/24/1999 1:21:25 AM

Webbie,

"the marinade and with mango pickle relish "

What? what? what marinade? Mango pickle is extremely spicy and meant to be eaten in accompaniment with rice and curds and some vegetables, mostly. By curds I mean plain yoghurt, which most mango-pickle-eating sub-cons make at home.

Webbie, if you want to buy things from your local sub-con grocer start with a nice bottle of Horlicks to begin with, given your nutrition-needy state.

1041. phillipdavid - 10/24/1999 3:11:49 AM

A true-life domestic story:

Sometime after I had left the house yesterday, and my wife had gotten up, gotten sick, and taken a shower, my feeble old dog Sammy knocked over a lamp table in the living room. Inexplicably, my son had left four one-hundred dollar bills on it the day before.

My wife walked into the living room after her shower and saw the upturned table, the magazines and lamp on the floor, and a few small shreds of the afore mentioned greenbacks on the carpret.

Our younger dog, Guenther, is rather mouthy and likes to chew up paper towels. He apparently discovered a taste for greenbacks too yesterday, as he ate the money -- except for the few small shreds he left behind as evidence.

I came home yesterday evening to hear my wife say, "You'll never guess what I had to do today!"

Well, she spent her day following Guenther out in the yard and combing through his shit looking for scraps of one-hundred dollar bills. She did this twice and came up with about seven small slivers of paper that can be recognized as pieces of money. I found the evidence in a cup of water by the kitchen sink. If you put them together as pieces of a puzzle, they wouldn't add up to any more than a quarter of a bill.

My son came home while I was on the computer last night, and the first thing I said was, "Did Mom tell you what happened?"

Sure enough she did. And sure enough he had to ask her all about it. I couldn't help laughing, despite my son's obvious distress, as he asked her if she had checked the shit carefully. "Yes, I did, very carefully" said she.

Of course I had to do the same this morning as Saturday morning is my usual to take the dogs out for a long romp in the woods. Guenther was very helpful as he took two shits this morning. I was the dutiful helper as I thouroughly mashed around his fresh piles this morning with a few small sticks I picked up, but nothing of value was discovered.

1042. phillipdavid - 10/24/1999 3:21:20 AM

I'm still a little mystified that a few scraps could come through his bowels undigested yesterday, but nothing resembling paper, or even the color green came through today. A testament to a dog's digestive system I guess.

Having the fine temper and ruthless instincts of his mother's Scottish ancestors (his family clan was actually kicked off Scotland generations ago because of thier rough behavior -- banished to a small isle), my son was ready to thrash Guenther to bits last night. Turns out that $400 was of vital importance to an upcoming music show he is producing in town -- need to pay for the flyers and such. I was gonna let the two of them go at it without intefering as Guenther is a rotweiler and my son is much tougher and meaner than I am, but dutiful, loving mom prevented any man-beast brawl in our living room.

My son broke into tears instead, and mom broke into her wallet to replace some of the money --quite a loving act, I thought, as mom is on her way to NY city in two days and handed over her spending money to our distraught son.

1043. Bubbaette - 10/24/1999 8:19:31 AM

Mmmmmmmmm -- green fiber.

1044. webfeet - 10/24/1999 11:17:31 AM

My sympathies, Philipdavid for having to poke and prod through fresh doggie doo and also, for the unrecoverable, digested greenbacks. How maddening.

1045. webfeet - 10/24/1999 11:23:14 AM

"There's something about his calloused hands that's better than the feel of silk on my skin."

Sounds like Carl Ray and Thelma have been at it again...

1046. webfeet - 10/24/1999 12:07:35 PM

btw, Marj, thanks for the mango relish tip. I didn't know it was just used to complement vegetarian dishes.

The coriander and ginger marinade is something different. Beef? Chicken? What works best?

1047. marjoribanks - 10/25/1999 9:39:11 AM

Webbie,

I'll answer your question in a bit. In the meanwhile, I just ran across this Jackson Heights story and thought it may interest you.

1048. marjoribanks - 10/25/1999 10:39:57 AM

PD,

That's a very nice "real-life" story. Thanks.

Webbie,

I'm not sure we're necesarily talking about the same things. Mango pickle (achar) is spicy and is eaten as an accompaniment to food as described above, as are lime pickle, chili pickle etc. The common brands available in our area are Laxmi and Patak's. They tend to be an acquired taste, Indians use it to add real heat to food, especially rice and curds.

I haven't seen anything labelled "marinade" in Indian grocery stores. This may be because I haven't looked. But ginger/coriander paste is a base to any number of Indian dishes, particularly those involving fish and chicken. If you're interested, this evening I'll post for you a very good Afro-Luso-Indian recipe for 'chicken cafreal', which is a fairly simple but superb dish which uses ginger and coriander, and the paste will be useful for that. It does call for lots of fresh coriander (kothmir) as well.

1049. Seguine - 10/25/1999 10:45:00 AM

Banks, she cannot help but be interested, and if by some strange occurrence she isn't, carry on: I am.

1050. pseudoerasmus - 10/25/1999 10:47:27 AM

Achar is not that spicy, or at least I don't think so. I can make a meal of rice and half a jar of Hyderbadi achar without a thought.

Marzipranks, didn't you say you didn't like Goan food the other day? But you keep giving out recipes of Luso-Indian stuff. Or is there some difference between "Goan" and "Luso-Indian"?

1051. marjoribanks - 10/25/1999 10:56:45 AM

Achar doesn't have to be super spicy. But mango pickle tends to be.

Where have I handed out Goan food recipes? Anyway, there are several things I like in Goan food (which tends to be a curious Malayo-Afro-Luso-Indian combination as a whole), but several of the signature dishes leave me absolutely cold. This tends to alienate me from some of my relatives, since Goans are justifiably proud of the reputation their food has in the region. For instance, there tends to be an overemphasis on pig, and I've already detailed my objection to consuming Goan pig. There is also a huge dependence on shellfish of all types, shrimp, crab, lobster. These I am both repelled by and allergic to. Then, many Goan "curries" use a ton of coconut, and I'm not particularly fond of heavily coconut curries.

But the fish is excellent, the 'rechiado' chili and garlic paste is tasty and very useful (we make roast chicken using it), the innumerable sweets are favorites of mine, and I do love two or three signature Goan dishes that don't involve pork or Goan sausages. BTW, Goan vinegar is very good too.

1052. pseudoerasmus - 10/25/1999 11:04:21 AM

I can't say I'm a big fan of coconut either, except in sweets.

You don't eat any shellfish? I can live without shrimp, crab and lobster, but clams and mussels are indispensable. In particular I love "fritures de mailles".

Seguine, Webfeet: stay tuned for an absolutely fantastic recipe for shucked mussel pasta.

1053. marjoribanks - 10/25/1999 11:11:37 AM

Well, what do you know. I found this decent page of Goan recipes. I'd ignore the recipe for chicken cafreal, it looks made up to me - no coriander? how absurd. And the spellings are silly - Shakoothi? It's Xacuti, bozo. But it'll give you a good idea of what constitutes Goan food. BTW, I know the restaurant he talks about wrt the cafreal, it's called Florentine and is a favorite of mine. How he could eat there and then post a recipe sans kothmir is a mystery to me.

BTW, Goans eat and cherish literally dozens of types of clams and mussels, with variations in species and the type of water they're found in (sea, estuary, river, etc). Everyone around me goes into paroxyms of delight over them, but I remain quite happy not to eat them. You do know what function they perform in their habitat I hope.

1054. pseudoerasmus - 10/25/1999 11:13:58 AM

Wow, that Goan mussel pullao sounds good. What is it with the jalapeño seguinism?

1055. JudithAtHome - 10/25/1999 11:18:20 AM

phillipdavid:

Nice story about your dogs; mine is in the doggie hospital right now due to his digestive system failing to process pecan shells. I'll probably be losing as much green as your son did when Klaus is released from the vets...

1056. marjoribanks - 10/25/1999 11:24:15 AM

The man who put together is obviously a bit of an idiot, though quite diligent. There are no jalapenos in India, and in fact they don't make a decent substitute for either local Goan or the ubiquitous Kashmiri red chilis.

BTW, that mussel pulao is one of the most famous "grand occasion" dishes made by Goans. They tend to use little estuarine mussels (called Tisrio) which as far as I know are unavailable anywhere else and you can bring an expat to tears at the mere mention of it.

1057. MrSocko - 10/25/1999 11:27:50 AM

marjoribanks:

Kindly desist from slapping quotation marks around expressions such as "grand occasion."

1058. pseudoerasmus - 10/25/1999 11:32:19 AM

I want to have some of that mussel pullao!

#1057

I've never seen anyone use more unnecessary quotations marks than Marzipranks.

1059. marjoribanks - 10/25/1999 11:37:03 AM

Okely dokely, Psocks. But I feel it should be set apart from the rest of the sentence somehow. Would 'grand occasion' pass your test?

1060. marjoribanks - 10/25/1999 11:38:41 AM

I have been chastised for my overuse of quotation marks and underuse of the semi-colon innumerable times. But the way I use (or not use) them make sense, if only to me.

1061. Seguine - 10/25/1999 2:43:52 PM

seguinism; n., 1. culinary miscegenation, esp. one involving species of food related to endemic species, but alien to a given region's recipes.

penism; n., 1. the addition of unnecessary ingedients to a simple recipe, such as black pepper to hummus, sour cream to guacamole, etc.

banksness; n., 1. capsicum addiction combined with an inability to consume certain shellfish without vomiting.

sockismo; n., 1. intolerance of excessive or imprecise use of quotation marks.

1062. Seguine - 10/25/1999 2:49:21 PM

Banks, the pickles you mention--and those brands in particular--have never struck me as especialy spicy. Rather, they're salty.

I confess to having had, at one time in my reckless youth, a dependency on mixed pickle. I couldn't stop. Nearly ruined my kidneys. Had to take up mainlining methamphetamine as a stop-gap measure, until withdrawal was complete.

1063. marjoribanks - 10/25/1999 2:59:14 PM

Seguine,

An admission: I've never tried those brands, and in fact I haven't eaten achar since I was a child, except for lightly pickled green mangoes in briner. I don't like them, and never have. I do know their very reason for existence is to provide heat to rice and whatever, though.

1064. Seguine - 10/25/1999 3:00:18 PM

Banks, on the Goan recipes page the chicken cafreal looks very good, but as you're not impressed with its authenticity I'd be interested to know how you think it should be ammended.

1065. marjoribanks - 10/25/1999 3:06:12 PM

My recipe book is at home. However, offhand, the chicken should be coated in a corainder-garlic paste, literally massaged with the stuff and more should be pushed through slits in the skin. And then it should be left covered in the fridge for a few hours before cooking.

I can see coriander-ginger working somewhat reasonably as well. This evening I'll try to post the recipe I use, which is an old family failsafe.

1066. webfeet - 10/25/1999 4:10:34 PM

Yes, please do, Marj. Im looking forward to that and Pseuder's recipe for shucked mussel pasta.

Maybe, just for the sake of structure and consistency, they should be posted in Glenda's 'Home and Garden.' If either of you want to add a little link from here to indicate where they will be posted, it would be helpful just in case someone misses it.

Just no recipes on Goan pig. Im actually still a little traumatized by those outhouse stories you, and I think it was scottloar, were telling. I still have trepidation when I am choosing whether or not to buy pork chops at the grocery.

1067. PelleNilsson - 10/25/1999 4:21:34 PM

Following webfeet's caveat I proceed to Home&Garden to present a nice recipe for Moules Marinière-

1068. marjoribanks - 10/25/1999 8:30:32 PM

Now I can't find the family cookbook. So, the chicken cafreal recipe will have to wait till tomorrow. Suffice it to say that much coriander is called for - coriander is the key to a good chicken cafreal.

1069. RickNelson - 10/26/1999 8:36:56 AM

I made my way back to read, found PD's dog story and found it settled my appetite for a story. Man, what a distress to have to find $400 in crap. And even more what a lesson for that young man to keep his green in a safe place. I hope the mother/wife has an ok time without her spending money in full supply. Best wishes.

1070. Uzmakk - 10/26/1999 11:19:22 AM

I am very fond of coriander, Banks, and use a good deal of it in Uzmakkian cookery.

1071. Schehezarade - 10/26/1999 11:54:39 AM

Webfeet


I forgot to mention, I think that Clement is a great name!



Sequine


Speaking of names, you correctly pointed out that mine has certain changes in it from the original. I posted (in here?) why I spell it the way I do. Basically, a close friend of mind and I read _Arabian Nights_ when we were too young (12). We both wanted to be noble story tellers and would make believe we were the heroine, but we could never get the spelling (or the pronunciation) down just right. We came of with some real doozies too. Like Schehehehehezarade, Scherezeradadare, and every other combination createable. But, we settled on Schehezarade. It always brings back good memories for me; she was a dear friend.

1072. webfeet - 10/26/1999 12:39:52 PM

Scheherezade,

Thank you, I like Clement, too. Although, admittedly, the French pronunciation has a little more dash to it. (clay-mon)

Btw, a more appropriate question on nomenclature may be redirected at seguine herself, someone whose name either unconsciously chosen or not, closely resembles sanguine, of or relating to blood; bloodthirsty.

1073. JudithAtHome - 10/26/1999 4:20:22 PM

I always thought she was named after the city here in Texas...

1074. glendajean - 10/26/1999 4:49:32 PM

So did I, Judith.

1075. JudithAtHome - 10/26/1999 4:54:11 PM

GJ:

Well, once a Texan.....

1076. glendajean - 10/26/1999 5:00:22 PM

....well, certainly not a hoosier.

1077. Seguine - 10/27/1999 8:42:45 AM

"I always thought she was named after the city here in Texas..."

There's the unconcious part. Isn't the name of the town spelled differently, though? (Guess if anyone named "Tombal" or "Killeen" ever shows up in here, y'all will know it's me.)

Webfeet: The allusion to bloodthirstiness was deliberate. As is the suggestion of a dance popular, I think, in the 1920s. But the name itself is a corruption of the name of a mythological character chosen, ironically, for her dissimilarity to me in her aspects.

Schehez: Thanks for the 'splaining. Makes sense.

1078. Schehezarade - 10/27/1999 1:13:27 PM

Webfeet


Ever since you first mentioned the name Clement, "pronounced like the French version of lemon", I can't get U2's "She wore Lemon" out of my mind. AND, the cute French guy I bought brie and olives from today was named Clement. What a hottie. Isn't it weird how we can like or dislike names depending on our experiences with people with those names?

Seguine

I've always expected a "meloncholic" to be running around loose on the fray, chasing you.



(Spelling change is deliberate)

1079. Uzmakk - 10/27/1999 1:18:13 PM

Shehezarade:
Love the moniker.

1080. Schehezarade - 10/27/1999 1:33:01 PM

Thanks, babe. What's an Uzmakk if I may ask.

1081. Uzmakk - 10/27/1999 1:43:57 PM

Uzmakk Uzbekian, child of the steppe, at your service.

1082. webfeet - 10/27/1999 1:45:27 PM

That's funny, Shehezarade, because I have visions of lemon meringue now when I say his name. I know that U2 song. I used to be really into 'Zooropa' in that post-college identity crisis state after graduation.

AS for the hottie, Frenchmen generally aren't known for their musculature, but they can be quite sexy and they are pleine de charme in the company of women. They flirt naturally, the way southern men can, in a very charming and casual way.

1083. pseudoerasmus - 10/27/1999 1:47:12 PM

But surely Webfeet you must realise that "limon" and "clément" do not rhyme -- they're different nasal sounds.

this reminds me of an American I know who used to pronounce "citroën" like "citron".

1084. webfeet - 10/27/1999 1:50:03 PM

Actually, I think it's more than 'charm,' I think they are less self conscious about the implications of flirting; they experience no embarrassment when pursuing a woman. C'est naturelle!

1085. webfeet - 10/27/1999 1:52:36 PM

Voici le pedant! Cheri, ne t'inquietes pas. I know that. Remember, Im only french by association, I still think, phoenetically at least, in my natal tongue.

1086. Schehezarade - 10/27/1999 1:55:14 PM

Webfeet


I like a man with confidence. Unfortunately, there's a fine line between confidence and conceit and most fall to the wrong side. Adult-Clement blushed when I told him that I wanted "une tranch du frommage." He also threw in some smoked puree thingy and the olives. He asked me "Mon cherie... next week... we will be ear own Mercredi, voulez-vous moor cheese?" I was going into a trance, and in my head I heard "Must have cheese. Must have cheese. Must have cheese."


Uzmakk

I like having my own MoteMan in uniform, you're very welcoming here.:-p

1087. pseudoerasmus - 10/27/1999 1:55:35 PM

Well, "pedantry in excelsis" is my motto....

...natal tongue...

Well, there's a Francism for you! Even if you remain phonetically Anglo, maybe you're turning idiomatically Frog.

1088. Uzmakk - 10/27/1999 1:57:05 PM

Mon dieu.


Pseudo, I have a little something that I hope you will like that I am going to post here in a couple of days. Hope you enjoy it. You are in the story.

1089. Schehezarade - 10/27/1999 2:03:01 PM

PseudoErasmus


What is the shape of your head?

1090. pseudoerasmus - 10/27/1999 2:07:23 PM

Schehezarade: My cranium was sculpted by Brancusi himself, the shiny bronze egg.

1091. pseudoerasmus - 10/27/1999 2:07:25 PM

Schehezarade: My cranium was sculpted by Brancusi himself, the shiny bronze egg.

1092. Schehezarade - 10/27/1999 2:17:04 PM

PseudoErasmus

Your head?

1093. pseudoerasmus - 10/27/1999 2:17:50 PM

Have you never seen a Brancusi egg?

1094. Schehezarade - 10/27/1999 2:23:25 PM

Can't say that I have.

1095. Seguine - 10/27/1999 5:45:36 PM

Try the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

[Shiny. Shiny. Has PE succumbed to street fashion and begun shaving his head?]

1096. Seguine - 10/27/1999 5:48:31 PM

Uzmakk! You must confess immediately to Schehez that one of the k's in your moniker used to live elsewhere.

1097. Uzmakk - 10/27/1999 5:57:54 PM

I confess. Seguine is actually my creator, or atleast my transposer.

1098. Uzmakk - 10/27/1999 7:06:35 PM

Seguine:
Can I actually see a likeness of Pseudo's head at the Philadelphia Museum of Art? I will make a day of my next trip into Philly and visit Pseudo's head, a phenomena which has fascinated me for more than a year now.

1099. Seguine - 10/27/1999 10:19:44 PM

One should pronounce Uzmakk using the diaphragm.

(Not that diaphragm.)

1100. SpenceMirrlees - 10/28/1999 2:43:06 AM

"(Not that diaphragm.)"

now you tell me

1101. Uzmakk - 10/28/1999 8:33:37 AM

Seguine:

I think you have come up with an excellent Mote Maxim.

Speak from the diaphragm, refer to the diagram.

Both actions to be performed simultaneously, ofcourse.

1102. Bubbaette - 10/28/1999 8:40:01 AM

When I was young, we had a lassie-dog that was a peachy/orangish color. Her name was "Baby", and she diddn't mind very well and would only respond when my dad called her. He'd say "come to me, my melon collie, Baby."

Ark ark ark

1103. Uzmakk - 10/28/1999 8:48:55 AM

Perot's problem was that he didn't speak from the diaphragm, though he did refer to the diagram.

1104. Uzmakk - 10/28/1999 11:44:42 AM

I am quite sure that his media handlers handed him the maxim-- Really babble it, and point at the tabbelit. Ofcourse, there is all the difference in the world between the two maxims.

1105. Uzmakk - 10/28/1999 6:36:54 PM

Seguine:

I must know whether I can find a likeness of Pseudoerasmus' head at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. My new assistant, Igor, and I may be taking a trip in on Monday.

1106. Seguine - 10/29/1999 12:31:26 AM

I think, Uzmakk, that you can find a whole room full of Brancusis and Duchamps, including the Large Glass (aka The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even), in the 20th Century section. Unless I'm recollecting badly and the room is actually full of Duchamps and Arps, PE's head must be reproduced there in several media.

It is a little known legend that Brancusi was careful to incorporate telltale odors into his three-dimensional works. If you bend down close to the ones that resemble Pseudoerasmus--and this should be done while the guards are distracted--you may be able to detect the scent of ginger, garlic, onions, and little subcon chiles, BUT NOT JALAPENOS.

1107. Uzmakk - 10/29/1999 6:24:33 AM

Thank you, Seguine.

1108. Uzmakk - 10/29/1999 6:52:00 AM

And I shall perform the sniff test.

1109. webfeet - 10/29/1999 2:01:42 PM

Judithathome

IF you are serious about wanting the extractor, I will purchase it for you today, as I am leaving this job (Hoorah!) where I worked as the equivalent of a door-to-door salesman in advertising plugging digital cameras from web site to web site, and won't be, alas, next door to Sephora any longer.

I'm happy to say that I start Tuesday as a Conference Producer at an Intl research institute and am doing more serious work for much better salaire!

1110. JudithAtHome - 10/29/1999 2:04:21 PM

webfeet:

I am very serious and if you will send me the details at JudithAtHome@mailcity.com I will send you a check, post haste.

1111. Uzmakk - 10/29/1999 9:08:07 PM

More interesting work, more money and that money in the form of a salary...now there's a tall tale.

1112. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:34:31 AM

The wind moves through the bleak December woods with a chill insistence; whispering between the stark black tree-trunks wet with snow, rustling the last withered remnant of the summer's leaves in a shiftless progression, and filling my ears with a low, ruffling moan as I shiver in my blind and wait for the deer to come. The air is crisp with the icy clarity that comes after a snowfall, vividly rendering the reddish browns and blacks of the winter forest in sharp contrast against the white purity of snow; the sky is a muted grey watercolor, an inpenetrable caul drawn over the earth through which the sun can be seen only as a hazy smear of pale light. My eyes move over the forest floor in a relentless sweep of determination and uncertainty, and the anticipation builds slowly in my blood. Far off in the distance I can hear gunfire, echoing and roaring intermittently.

The sun has moved considerably higher in the sky since those first moments of light and bitter, teeth-rattling cold, when it rose over the horizon. When you sit in a tree stand, motionless for hours in the cold and the wind, you attain a forced awareness of the things around you. There is nothing but you and your gear, and the stand and the trees and the wind, and after a while you get tired of pondering those things; there is a temptation to slip into reverie, but you know that you must at least partially keep your attention on matters at hand. The sameness and the greyness of the moment makes it hard to distinguish one from the next at times, but the objects around you mostly stay the same despite the passage of the day.

1113. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:35:05 AM

It is only their appearance that changes as the sun rises and moves across the sky, transforming the forest from the blackness of night to pre-dawn when the vestiges of form can be seen as grey blurs floating in the vision; then comes the first, half-lit traces of daylight, where everything has a faint, ethereal watercolor feel to it, like you could put your hands through it all. Sometime after the dawn you look around and suddenly realize that you can see everything, that the colors present themselves cleanly and that your vision is more or less sharp and clear. The trees, the blind and the shotgun have not ceased to exist, they have not changed at all, but it is strange to sit and think about how they shift appearance in the changing of the light, the different way they present themselves to the eye and the different way our brain defines them.

In this light, pale and anemic as it is, I have an excellent picture of the forest and can see for some distance beneath the spreading branches of the towering trees. But when I first walked into the forest everything was night-black and I could barely see at all by the thin circles of my flashlight, and the trees that have now fully resolved in the light of day were hulking and menacing monoliths in my sight. As I look around now it is hard to reconcile the forest I see now to that that appeared to me in the long walk before the dawn. I survey the forest for any movement, eyes flicking over the snow and leaves, but nothing new has presented itself, and my mind drifts back through long hours of waiting to the blindness of unlit night and the bone-shivering shock of the cold as I stood beside the car, loading shells and checking gear with my brother and father, and then following them off through the brush and into the fields.

1114. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:35:35 AM

The pack and blankets pull heavily upon my back as I move through the tall grass, white with frost, that fills the field; cradling the length of the shotgun in my left arm and following the dim shapes of my father and brother as they traverse the muddy path. We move in a crouching, pregnant black silence, alleviated only by the occasional thin beam from a flashlight as we pause to orient ourselves and by the low muttering of necessary speech, and by the soft building voice of the wind. Trees loom from the blackness as we enter the woods, and in this absence of senses they take on fantastic, malign proportions; the smallness of the noises we make, the dull tread of our steps, the rustle of our clothing and the muted crunch of branches beneath our feet seem to magnify the enormity of the trees and the dead growth that covers the leaves beneath. Looking around, one can see no landmarks, no points of reference, and the trees seem nightmarish and alien in the darkness. There is a sudden awful feeling that the forest is alive and merely feigning sleep, breathing with infinite slowness, pulsing with a lifeblood too slow and rare for me to sense; that it is watching these intruders upon its soil, waiting. I imagine the trees crashing down upon us to tear and rend our flesh, the ground gaping beneath my feet to swallow me alive, without a trace, buried beneath the vastness of the fallen leaves and trees, our cries smothered by the rising wind. I want to stop and turn around, but I cannot.

1115. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:36:35 AM

The memory sends a shiver, even now in the light of day as I sit safe in my blind.

I have been in the tree stand long enough for my feet to grow leaden and numb, and the wind bites at the exposed skin of my face with a thousand teeth. It rattles in the trees and transforms the forest into a sea of movement ; an endless chaotic repetition of noise and motion that the mind shapes easily, and for many hours after dawn I turned at every loud rustle of brush, gun raised to fire and body transformed by the shaking pulse of adrenaline, knowing that the long wait was over... but the deer were never there, and once again I would sit and resume my endless wait.

In the cold and the wind my world has pulled back its borders, has become a concentration of anticipation and physical discomfort, and I am trapped within it. The branches rock gently in the wind, shifting the blind with minute creaks. Hands of perception stretch the present in both directions; it seems that I have always been waiting in this blind, always cold, that I have always been waiting for the deer. A part of my mind, cold and devoid of logic, tells me that I will always be here waiting, that they will never come... the beginnings of metaphor begin to assert themselves in my mind, and for the first time I wonder what it is, what it really is, that I do here.

The shotgun is black and lethal in my hands, as cold as the death it brings. I shy away from its answers.

My eyes perform their searching scan of the forest again, and I think of the deer. What they will look like, the movements they will make as they carefully step over twigs and leaves. The way they will blend into the forest. For a moment I hear my father telling me that some men cannot shoot the deer once they’ve seen them, that they are captured by the wild grace of the animals and cannot make themselves pull the trigger. Buck fever, he called it.

1116. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:37:09 AM

I think of my father's words, last night in the heat and the firelight, the words spoken as we reached the tree stand, and as my mind attempts to discern the meaning behind them the anticipation comes again. It will be good, to make the kill. To test myself against the animal cunning of the deer and to emerge triumphant, bearing home a prize and newfound manhood.

An eruption of noise behind me brings me surging to my feet; shotgun barrel moving in a swiveling arc, coldness forgotten, thoughts forgotten. My eyes can find no movement, no target; I frantically crane my neck about, trying to find the deer but seeing nothing. For a moment the forest is as still with a cathedral hush, then abruptly the noise begins again. Two squirrels tussle on the icy leaves, leaping and chittering wildly, now chasing each other around the trunk of a dead oak tree. My breath comes fast from the start they gave me, and for a moment the shotgun wavers in their direction; but I recall the stories my father told about my brother's first trip deer hunting, and instead of shooting I offer a short, explosive curse and sit back down. The combatants freeze, rather comically, in their positions; their ears and whiskers twitching as they attempt to discern the source of the noise. Then they dash off like two grey blurs across the snow , their quarrel laid aside, and once again there is only cold and wind and thoughts that chase each other around my head like fighting squirrels.

1117. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:39:08 AM

Circles of flashlight bob up and down as we walk through the trees and thickening brush toward the first tree stand. Despite the chill, sweat has begun to build beneath the many layers of clothing and my breathing is deep and regular, for we keep a stretching pace. The scent of the dawn woods fills my mind; a rich scent of decaying wood and leaves, clean sap, snow and pure cold country air. My anxiety has passed, driven away by the pace and the concentration upon the day to come. Small strips of iridescent tape now gleam like eyes in the beams of our flashlights; unobtrusive markers left by my father to keep us on the path through the thickness of the brush in the confusion of a forest before dawn. When we pause steam curls from our mouths in crisply edged streams that hang in the air like smoke. The forest floor is dusted white with snow; the sun has not yet risen and the warmth that today is supposed to bring is as of yet unformed.

The first tree stand lies atop the far side of a low hill, overlooking a low area thick with cover, cris-crossed with animal trails and a meandering stream that runs cold and deep in the winter. We trudge up the slope to the stand, branches crunching beneath our feet like firecrackers in the icy air. At the top we pause for a moment beneath the blind, looking about, and then my brother murmurs, "Okay, then," and slings his bag up into the blind. Handing his shotgun to our father, he clambers up into the tree stand, awkward with heavy clothing; once he gets inside Father and I wait for him to make sure that everything is in order. He looks around for a moment, then shines his flashlight down at our father and says, "I'm all set."

1118. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:40:15 AM

Father smiles, the light emphasizing his dark beard and the strong lines of his face. "Good luck, Steve. Make those shots count." He looks as if he wants to say more, but doesn't.

The flashlight shines over to me. I grin and say, "Don't shoot any bushes this time. Even if you get bored."

Father snorts; I am sure that my brother is blushing from his silent posture. After a short moment he straightens and stares back down, and I am abruptly reminded that Steve has already gotten his first deer, and I have not. He smiles down without rancor and says, "Whatever. Just don't shoot your foot off. Doofus."

I want to respond but Father grips my arm and says, "Let's get to your blind." My brother sits down on his stool, and the two of us walk down the hillside toward the stream.

The sun is noon high in the sky. Far off in the distance I can hear gunfire – the deep roar of rifled slugs and the sharper crack of high-velocity sabot rounds. The shooting began in earnest about a half-hour after sunrise, peaking in the first two hours of light, and since then has been scattered and sporadic. Morning's icy chill has abated; the sun shines through the overcast sky like an insistent reminder of the promise of warmth, and it is a little easier to feel my toes. The snow has begun to melt, falling in clumps from the trees and punctuating the rustle of wind and leaves with the sound of dripping and the occasional muffled thud of impact. I scan the surroundings carefully; then, having assured myself that there are no deer in the vicinity, I carefully lay the gun against the railing of my blind and begin searching in the haversack for a sandwich.

In the course of my search I am struck by the many things I have brought with me; food, blanket, thermos, knife, poncho, tissue, extra shells, plastic baggies, flashlight, canteen, rope, matches and tinder, woolen socks, bandages, an amazing plethora of items to help me on my hunt.

1119. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:41:15 AM

Things that I will in all probability not require, many unnecessary things that I carried all the way out here, yet I am comforted by having them, and I know that I am prepared for any eventuality I might conceivably run across. Hunger stirs my thoughts and I resume searching for the sandwich.

I find it at the bottom of the haversack, compressed and cold in the foil, and eagerly unwrap it, taking a bite. Its taste takes my mind off the matters at hand; thick slabs of smoked turkey and cheddar, spicy mustard and mayonaisse on sourdough. Savoring the sandwich, I eat it slowly, washing it down with lukewarm coffee; I am wishing for another when the shooting starts again; a series of shots from the east, much louder this time.

Grabbing my gun, I come to my feet and stare off in the direction of the shooting; hearing it stop abruptly. The echoing from the trees gives the shots a curiously drawn out sound, somewhat like breakers upon the shore. I listen intently but the wind and the melting snow blot out any shouts of triumph or curses of dismay. It occurs to me, distantly, that the wind is dying slowly. I check the length of the trail, gun ready in my hands in the arms ready position my father taught me, but there is no movement, and despite the lessening of the wind I can still hear nothing else. My hat rubs at my forehead as I swivel my neck, and the gun begins to pull downward infinitesimally. I gaze at the trail for a while longer, but my father’s admonitions return to haunt me and shamefacedly I return my eyes to the east and wait.

There is another shot, finally, and then very faintly I can hear joyous shouts, tinny and distant in the wind. My heart sinks; someone has gotten their first kill and performed a coup de grace.

1120. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:41:27 AM

Visions of large, heavy bucks charging down the trail, away from the gunfire and into my waiting sights, fade away into nothingness. For a long moment I stand filled with the impatience of my time and wondering why I’m even here wasting it. The questioning and the anticipating, the wondering and the waiting, all is buried in a deep surging frustration, and with a sigh I slump down into my seat and give the forest one more cursory sweep of vision.

It is only then that I see the deer, two of them, small and brown, moving like ghosts across the forest floor towards my blind.

1121. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:41:59 AM

We cross the stream on a narrow log my father cut years ago for a bridge. It creaks and groans as we gingerly negotiate it; my father first to see if it will support us still, edging carefully in the light of my beam, then me as my father stands on the other side and waits for me to step carefully across the log and over the icy deep water running beneath it. My feet slide haltingly and with trepidation across the log, stepping uncertainly in the circle of light of my father’s flashlight. It feels good when I touch down on the other side and we move off together up the inclining path. We do not speak as we walk; there is a slowly growing sense of urgency to reach the stands and set ourselves up.
The second blind lies perhaps a quarter of a mile to the north of the first one, situated in the lower branches of a giant elm tree. Some ways to the west lies a large corn field and dense brush litters the ground along the edge of the trees, the kind of cover that deer are attracted to. When we eventually work our way through the brush to the blind it is an almost palpable easing of the urgency. My father walks around the blind, eyeing it for signs of decay, and then examines the surrounding woods with his flashlight as if to assure himself of its safety. I toss my haversack up into the blind and lean my gun against the tree, and am about to climb up when my father grabs my arm and says, "Wait."

1122. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:44:35 AM

(last post should be all in italics, mea culpa)


I look at him and he gives me a thorough once over with the flashlight. "Always make sure that your gun is on safe. Is it on safe now?" I retrieve it and check; the indicator is set to safety. He waits for me to nod my head, then continues. Your gun is on safe, and it stays on safe until you are going to shoot." I nod my head again impatiently; oblivious to my impatience he goes on. His face is serious; the cold has reddened it but his deep-set eyes bore into mine unaffected, twin pools of darkness in the winter-light skin." Be as quiet as you can; noise travels in the woods and deer hear very well. You’ll hear them before you see them, sometimes," --he grimaces – "at least when the wind isn't up like this. Don't get out of your blind unless you absolutely have to. Let the other hunters push the deer to you. There's plenty of deer sign on that trail," -- indicating the low path running off southeast to northwest – "but don’t just keep your attention there. "

" Once the shooting starts the deer will scatter and be coming from every which way. Remember to make sure of your target and aim for the ribs, just in front of the leg. For God’s sake don’t shoot unless they’re closer than the fifty-yard range markers, because these damned shotgun slugs won’t hit anything past that. I mean it. Shoot like I taught you to. Don’t you take a bad shot and end up just scaring the deer away. If you wait, they’ll circle around until they’re in range, or else they’ll head to Stevie or me. If you make a bad shot, you might gut shoot them and we don’t want to spoil the meat. And don’t forget… stay put, even if you hear one of us shooting. If we need you we’ll holler."

1123. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:45:46 AM

I nod. I have heard all this before. He looks at me steadily, our faces half-lit by the lights, and I know he is trying to help me, to give me what he can for my first time out. It feels curiously sentimental coming from my father, the man of iron and precise command of my youth; it feels like a moment of sharing in this ritual of manhood, and for a moment I wanted to thank him. For a moment there in the black woods I am six years old again and my father is teaching me to ride a bicycle, his hair darker and his face less lined in the summer sun, smiling as he shows me the pedals and the brakes, telling me how I’ll do fine. I am aware of how much all this means to my father in a way that I never was before. I know that I should let him know that what he’s doing is appreciated, and that I am glad that he cares enough to worry so, and I should hug him or at least shake hands. Instead, I look at him for a second and say, "I know, Dad," and, jamming my flashlight into a waist pocket I climb up into my blind. The wood is cold and slippery and I feel foolish and sentimental, climbing hand over fist, feet shifting from branch to hammered peg and back as I work my way up and into the blind. Inside the stand, I brush the snow from the floor and withdraw the folding chair from the plastic bag where it lies propped against the trunk, and I set it up. Retrieving my flashlight, I shine it down at my father, reaching out and taking my shotgun from his outstretched hand as he offers it up to me, then for a moment we watch each other from opposite sides of a yawning chasm of time, the wind blowing through our clothing.

Finally I look around and say, "Well, I think I’m all set up."

He nods solemnly up at me. "Don’t get buck fever, Jake."

"I won’t."

1124. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:46:50 AM

My voice must have been a little testy; he grins and says, " I know you’ll do fine. Good shooting." And with that he retrieves his shotgun from where he propped it and walks slowly off into the darkness toward his own blind, away to the northeast, and I am alone.

I have been waiting all day for the deer to come; playing out scenarios in my mind, romanticized notions of manhood and bravery. Now that the deer are finally here, as I ease the shotgun up and over the railing and slowly stand, they seem small and strange as they move up from the southwest.. They move with oddly jointed yet delicate motion over the leaves, heads turning about and eyes dark as they raise their heads and examine their surroundings, then lower their muzzles to the ground. With an odd fascination I realize that even now, with the roar of gunfire in the distance and hunters swarming the woods, that the deer are feeding. They will have been moving since the hours of darkness before dawn, separated from their companions by the chaos of the day, running from the shots and hiding in the scrub until the danger has passed, and now as they inch closer to me with their bobbing steps and furtive movements of their heads they are attempting to fill their stomachs. Their brown coats blend into the leaves, and their hooves make little noise as they carefully make their way between the bushes and around fallen branches and trunks of trees. I am struck by their adaptation to their environment. It occurs to me suddenly that they move so quietly that I may have indeed missed one earlier under the cover of wind, but now the wind has curiously and suddenly almost died, as if the world is holding its breath. As the deer near the blind I can see that one is a bit larger than the other, with tiny antlers that poke through the fur of its head. Though I have schooled myself to silence, both deer abruptly raise their heads and swivel their gaze over the forest.

1125. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:46:59 AM

The doe raises her nose questingly for a moment, jerking her head; she stamps a forehoof into the leaves in a curiously deliberate motion, and the two stand there motionless. I hold my breath, absolutely silent and still, wondering at first at the sound they might have heard, and then struck by the nature of the moment. For a long moment we three figures are frozen in a tableau, there in the trees, forest and plains stretching off into the horizon, frozen beneath a covering slate grey sky, in the gray light that glows through the clouds that gird this massive spinning globe as it hurtles around the sun in its ancient course, frozen, unmoving in this world of motion, a pause framing us like the purest instant of time – I am suddenly acutely aware of the thing my father meant when he spoke of buck fever, in a way that I could have never otherwise misunderstood, the surging magnificence of these animals as they stand perfectly in their being – then the buck lowers his head to the ground and pulls at a few low plants with his teeth, and the deer resume their feeding and their slow careful movement. I stand, the deer filling my vision, all thought vanishing under a roaring that swells in my ears, I see nothing but the two deer, there is nothing but the two deer, the muzzle of the shotgun swinging effortlessly and the bead centering on the buck’s chest, feeling my breathing slow and deep, no sound but the roar of blood, the hammer of my pulse, and the deer are coming closer, in range now, moving like ineffable destiny, and there is nothing, nothing, nothing at all but the waiting, moving deeper into range, closer, closer, the bead is locked, closer, the pulse and the roar in my ears and the buck and the gun and my breathing and the buck stops and raises his head and stares directly at me and I fire.

1126. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:48:26 AM

The shot echoes in my head like thunder and I jack the slide back and forth and fire again, arm pistoning, spent shell flying from the breech, the smell of gunsmoke reaching my nostrils instantaneously, an acrid metallic tang on the tip of my tongue, and then the deer are off and running impossibly fast through the trees, flashing and dodging between the trunks and sailing in great leaping bounds over branches and brush, and I duck through the flap of the entry and leap down to the ground, feeling a slight pulling at my ankle as I hit and scramble to my feet. I run off after the deer, and as I run, my body alive with adrenaline, in my mind’s eye I can see the hunching of the buck’s body as he leaped and I know that I hit him.

There are a few tufts of hair lying in the wet leaves where the buck had stood and gazed up at me. I stop and orient myself, turning to walk after the two deer, my pulse fast, my breathing hard, my body shaking. Twenty yards from where I started I begin to see a few drops of blood on the leaves and my pulse quickens further as I track the wounded deer. As I follow the track down the hillside, boots digging into the wet leaves and earth and the air still now on my face, the drops grow in number and in size until they become splashes on the leaves. Over one large blotch of blood, bright red, I stop, looking about for the deer. It cannot be too far from here, but I cannot see it.

The brush crashes. I swing my gun up, but it is my father. It occurs to me that he must have been moving very fast to get here this quickly, but I did not hear him coming at all until the last. I point the barrel back down, smiling crazily.

1127. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:48:37 AM

"Hit it?" His voice is pitched slightly high, with the faintest rush of breath.

Wordlessly I point at the splash of blood, but he is already looking at it, and says, ‘yep! Hot damn!’ We begin walking further down the hillside, following the blood trail, guns up and ready. There is a larger splash of blood at the bottom of the hill, and I am examining it, seeing the blood with a strange kind of clarity, when my father starts and looks up the hill behind us, and I hear my brother shouting, ‘Did he get one?’ For a second I wonder why the two of them left their blinds. What if I had missed?

1128. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:50:29 AM

My father shouts, ‘Yeah!" He looks down at the splash of blood and says, ‘Buck or doe?"

"Buck. Spike."

"Hot damn!" he repeats, and my questions are forgotten. A fierce joy suffuses my blood as my brother joins us, eyeing the blood briefly, then we fan off and start off after the wounded buck.

It is my brother who sees the buck first, shouting wildly and pointing his shotgun at it. The buck had run perhaps two hundred and fifty yards after I shot it; it lays sprawled at the base of a large oak, a trail of strewn leaves and earth behind it suggesting that it had collapsed and slid a few feet. My heart surges again and I sprint to the buck, my gun pointing down as I run, Steve and my father behind me. We circle around the fallen deer, and I look down at my kill, and then with a horrifying sickening wrench I realize that the buck is still alive and shivering against the cold earth. Its eyes roll whitely in its head and it grunts softly, breathing with great deep rattling wheezes. My slug had taken it just in front of the left shoulder and blood trickles weakly from the black hole of its entry. For a moment I stand there, transfixed, and then the buck lifts its head a fraction of an inch and looks up at me with dazed eyes and moans, a deep, lowing sound. Dropping its head back down to the earth with an audible thud, it feebly shuffles its legs, tremblingly pushing them into the ground, and I realize that the buck is trying to crawl away from me.

My father stares down at the buck happily. "Nice shot, Jake! Look at that buck!"

Numbly, I reply, "I aimed further forward." Our voices seem to echo slightly from the trees.

1129. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:51:45 AM

The dying buck moans again, writhing its legs, but my father is oblivious. He lays his shotgun against the oak and stands looking at the buck. "Got him right in the lungs. See that blood on its nose? Nice shot."

Steve says, "You okay, Jake?" His voice is hesitant.

I stare at the buck, watching tendrils of barely perceptible steam curl from its nose, seeing the blood that oozes out in bubbles with each labored breath.

Now my father swings his gaze back up to me. I raise my gun and point it at the deer’s head but my father’s arm pushes the barrel back down.

"Don’t waste the shot." His voice is stern. "Hear that rattling? He’s almost dead, now. That last with a touch of something strange, unidentifiable in his tone. He draws his large-bladed knife and eyes the deer, then looks at me again. I can feel his eyes, and when I look up and meet his gaze he stares at me with the look of a man who’s forgotten about something for a long time and found it unexpectedly.

Suddenly the buck gives a loud snort and pushes at the bloody, churned earth with tremendous effort that brings blood bubbling out of its nose. Straining and trembling, it raises itself to a half-crouch and gives a long, rattling moan, and then I am moving, the barrel coming up, and the shotgun roars and kicks in my hand and the buck slumps back to the earth, still and motionless, a large hole behind its left ear.

I shudder, and in the corner of my eye I see my father and brother exchanging looks.

My father shakes his head as I turn to them, his face showing nothing now, and Steve asks me if I’m really okay, and I say I’m fine, working the action on the shotgun, the spent shell tumbling end over end to land in the leaves several feet away.

1130. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:53:08 AM

My father gives the shotgun a pointed look, and I thumb the safety back on. Steve looks down and says softly, ‘Nice buck. Bigger than mine."

My father bends down and says, "Let’s gut him out."

Steve has returned to his blind , and Father and I are dragging the carcass out of the woods when the sun finally begins to break free of the clouds, its light lancing to earth between low-level clouds moving in the wind that has picked up again. My ankle aches dully now, protesting with each step. We walk in silence mostly, every once in a while my father clears his throat as if to say something, but catches himself. I do nothing but walk and keep my grip on the rope, thinking of the way they walked over the leaves and between the trees, thinking of the grace and speed they ran with.

Thinking about the way the buck rolled its eyes and moaned in pain and fear as it tried to crawl away, legs scrabbling in the dirt, the terror of its last waking moments on this earth surrounded by tall hunters with guns and knives and the deep tearing pain of the bullet and the rattling and the blood. I want to talk, but can’t find the words; want to say what I’m feeling but find that the feelings surpass speech. My brother and father are proud of my buck, I know, and maybe a little bit worried about me, and I feel ashamed that I let them down. But I still see the white, flickering eyes, the unbelievable speed as the deer launched themselves through the trees, and as we drag the buck’s body out of the trees and into the now wet grass of the field , I feel like I am that six year old child again, only now I have broken one of my mother’s lamps playing in the house and will get punished when I get home, and despite my shame it is a feeling I cannot shake.

1131. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:53:18 AM

We breast a low, rolling rise in the field and my father stops. Curtains of light are moving across the field, like waves in the soft hum of the wind that whispers through my hair. My father turns and nudges the deer with his toe, grinning. "Heavy bugger, isn’t he?" I look up at him, and he looks back down at the deer. Almost as an afterthought he adds, "Been eating the farmers’ corn. Lots of muscle. Good meat. Lots of good meat for the table." He looks steadily at me for a moment, then flits his gaze back over the grass and the chasing waves of light. "Ol’ buck lived a clean life. Cleaner than a cow in a stockyard. God, but I love getting out here in the fresh air on a beautiful day." He looks back at me, and because I feel I ought to I nod my head and we resume dragging the deer back to the car, and there is nothing left to do of it, it is all done. I am struck by the momentous nature of the day, how I could have never realized what it was like, how my father could never have told me what it felt like to kill a deer, as we sat last night by the fire and talked. I know that I never would have understood, even if he had said it as plainly as one could, and I wonder if I would have better off never knowing.

1132. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:56:01 AM

We sit and watch the fire, my father and I. It burns cleanly and the warmth feels good as it radiates in the firelit darkness. The flames glint off the wooden floor and shines orange from the glass picture frames hanging on the walls.

"Are you ready for the big day tomorrow, Jake?" His eyebrows waggle and he smiles, wrinkling his dark beard, nibbling meditatively on his pipe.

"I guess I’m ready for venison," I answer, and we both laugh. We sit like that for a moment without words and then I ask the question I’ve wanted to ask all day.

"What’s it like? The hunt, I mean, getting a deer?"

My father gazes at me for a moment, then taps his pipe out and carefully begins cleaning it. For a moment I fear that he will not answer me but he finished and says, "I can’t quite get the words. Oh, I could try, but… You have to just have that shotgun in your hands and see the deer coming at you to know. Mostly, it’s long, boring and cold but those few moments make up for it." He fumbles with his pipe for a moment, silent in the crackling of the fire, then adds, "It’s a sort of a test. You’re pitting yourself against nature. That’s why we don’t hunt with scent, or a lure, or a salt block – that isn’t sporting. What we’re doing, in our own way, is getting back to nature. It refines us, Jake. It’s where we came from and where we belong."

1133. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:56:16 AM

I struggle with this thought, and he waits for a moment, chewing his pipe, then continues, "You know, man is the only real predator left to hunt the deer in these parts. We’ve killed all the mountain lions and lynxes and bears and wolves because they went after the livestock. No we’re the only predators left, and if we don’t hunt them to take the weakest and the oldest, keeping the numbers down, then they breed and breed until there’s too many and they eat up all the food and then most of them starve to death. We made this situation, and it’s our responsibility to nature to control the population."

Father smiles. "It’s sort of a rite of manhood for the Browner family, too, Jake. Our family has been hunters ever since they came to these parts, and before then. My daddy took me hunting when I was younger than you are… and I didn’t know anything about it then, either." He pauses, then says, "But you’ll see more of what I mean tomorrow."

I sit there, wondering why he won’t tell me what it’s like, my mind brushing against the implications of what he has said. I want to say, "No, what’s it like?" But I know by now that I will get no further answer, and so I sit, the unknown growing in my mind like a dark flower coming to bloom as I stare at the fire. We remain like that for long moments, then my father reaches over and pats me on the knee – and says, "Off to bed. Your brother is already asleep. You have an early morning tomorrow, a big day. Be quiet and don’t wake your momma, you know she ain’t been feeling well."

I nod sullenly and he chuckles me under the chin. "Don’t you worry about tomorrow. You’re a good boy and I know that you’ll do it right. I know I’ll be proud of you. I know I‘ll be proud of my boy."

1134. Uzmakk - 11/1/1999 6:48:16 AM

A5:
My eyes are misting ever so slightly.

The woods, the squirrels, the sandwich, the hunt, the kill, the father, the son. I loved it.

I am printing it out and taking it to a hunter friend of mine who also has a father.

1135. cigarlaw - 11/1/1999 12:35:28 PM

?TO DIE IN HAVANA – Chapter 1
It is not easy to visit to a Third World
country when you are in the best of health ,
particularly one your own country officially does
not recognize and which threatens to prosecute
you for trading with the enemy if you go. It is
even more difficult when you have a terminal
disease and someone has to come with you to
take care of you. Cuba however, has been on my
mind since the day in 1959, I saw Fidel Castro
on television ride into Havana on a tank.
Perhaps it is my ingrained romanticism or, like
Danton, my belief that even a revolution can be
fun. Call it whatever it is called, I figured I had
waited long enough for the United States
government to realize that Castro was not going
to go away. The problem was, my wife refused
to go with me. So who could I pick?
In 1970, upon graduation from college
I bought a new motorcycle. I telephoned my
best friend, CHR, and suggested we take a cross-
country motorcycle ride. He thought was a good
idea, so I packed my backpack, put on my
helmet, and headed north. I rode from San
Diego to Seattle, but when I got there, he was
involved in other things and did not want to go.
He owed me, I said to myself. Perhaps it is time
to call in that debt.
I telephoned CHR and laid the picture
out to him. I was somewhat surprised when he
said okay. Since he has had business dealings in
Mexico involving a distillery, he understood a
lot more Spanish than I do, so I sweetened the
pot by telling him we could go to distillery
where they make rum and pick up a few
interesting ideas. Another plus was that I found
out I had corrupted him into smoking cigars
after 50 years of abstinence. Cuban cigars are
the best, after all.

1136. cigarlaw - 11/1/1999 12:37:59 PM

?After we had decided on the date to go
– he had appointments, and I was rapidly losing
control of my arms, so we both had a few
priorities to be met – it was my job to make it
legal, since he did not want to take the risk of
going to federal prison. I didn’t care. I figured,
what could they do to me – take care of me the
rest of my life?
I contacted two groups in the United
States who help organize tours to Cuba. The
center for Cuban studies in New York (124 West
23rd Street, New York, New York 10011 – (212)
242 – 0559) was very helpful in explaining what
has to be done to cover your butt with United
States government if you wish to go to Cuba.
There are essentially two ways you can
go legally. One is via a specific license for those
who are academics and/or journalists who wish
to lecture or write in 9r about Cuba. It is
necessary to apply for this in advance and to
receive a license from the government.
The second way to go legally is to
declare on a form that you are professional and
that you want to go to Cuba to study professional
systems in Cuba. I am an attorney, so therefore
I decided to go to Cuba to study Cuban criminal
justice systems. It is not necessary to make
formal application, nor do you have to have any
particular documents. The one thing you do
have to do sign a declaration under penalty of
perjury, stating you are they professional, and
that you are going to be spending your full-time
working, meeting with Cuban professionals,
and/or, basically not enjoying yourself. CHR
also signed one stating the same thing – after we
first checked with the State Department, that if I
needed caregiver the caregiver could go with me
on my license.

1137. cigarlaw - 11/1/1999 12:40:31 PM

? There is a much easier way to go, and
one I recommend. Fly to Mexico and then fly to
Cuba and pay the passport person a dollar not to
stamp your passport. When you come back, just
tell them you were in Cuba on a general license
doing some bullshit. Or don’t tell them
anything. After all this is the United States of
America, right? You don’t have to account to
the government. Who the hell is Bill Clinton to
tell you where you can go or what you can do?
Who does Jesse Helms think he is, after all?
The only reason why you may wish to inform
the government you gone to Cuba because it
may be easier to get your cigars and rum back
into the country. Of course, with the search they
gave me I could have smuggled an AK--47,
10,000 rounds of ammunition, 50 boxes of
cigars, three kilos of cocaine, and a couple
young Cuban girls in my luggage and no one
would have noticed – but more of that later.
What it boils down to it is this: if you
go you have a choice; tell them or don’t tell
them. Insofar as I’m aware no American
citizen has been prosecuted under the Trading
with the Enemy Act for going to Cuba. The
only hitch is, you have to have a visa from the
Cuban government to enter Cuba. If you get it
in advance from a travel agency you won’t have
to mess around with the Cuban Ambassador or
consul in Mexico.

1138. cigarlaw - 11/1/1999 12:42:36 PM

That out of the way, I needed establish
contacts in Cuba, in case some bureaucrat
wanted to know what I had been doing in Cuba,
I could the name names. In November I could
have taken a tour to do the same thing, however,
I did not know if I would be able to tour in
November, plus, who wants to hang around a
bunch of left wing lawyers all day long? I
figured they’d be shouting revolutionary slogans
all day long. Besides, back in my days in the
SDS, I was the only left-wing revolutionary I
knew who enjoyed fine cigars, good whiskey,
and good-looking women who shaved their
armpits. So, I telephoned the center for Cuban
studies and got some names of people to contact.
The center then put me in touch with a
travel agency. CHR and I wanted to fly to Cuba
in one day. The only way we could do on
October 6, was to fly from San Francisco to
Miami, from Miami to Cancun, Mexico, and
from Cancun to Cuba. The flight from San
Francisco to Cancun, via Miami, was in theory,
to take 11 hours. Little did we know.
We wanted to stay at a nice hotel, but
we wanted to also have some Cuban ambiance,
so we selected the Commodoro, and asked for a
two-bedroom bungalow. In October, the cost of
this was one hundred forty U.S. dollars per day.
Since the bill would be split two ways, that
seemed pretty reasonable.
In the last three days prior to the flight,
it was chaos. Fortunately, both CHR that I had
lists of things to take with us. My wife was very
helpful. She packed one bag for me, and I
packed my briefcase and she gave me a little
thing to hang around my neck to put my
passport and money in, with the advice, “Always
have your passport in your possession.” Good
advice – if I had taken it.

1139. Hashke - 11/1/1999 4:36:39 PM

Damn fine info, cigarlaw. My wife and I want to go there, so we'll have to think of some stupid excuse, I suppose.

1140. cigarlaw - 11/1/1999 6:23:33 PM

?Chapter 2
THE LIST

Everyone has their own specialized travel list. The list below, is just an attempt to tell you
what the bare essentials are and why.
Lightweight clothes – in 12 days I went through four pairs of khaki pants and half a dozen
Hawaiian shirts (of course they were sweaty, but hang them up for a couple days to dry out and
we put them on, walk outside and you won’t notice the difference because they are going to be
soaked in a few minutes anyway.)
Cigars – what kind of a fool takes cigars to Cuba? Remember, once you are out of California,
smoking is not considered akin to child molestation. And I assure you, if you are stuck in Cancun
for six hours you need a cigar.

cigar case – essential for traveling, because Cuban cigars are not cellophaned

lighter – what else would you use to light your cigar – cheap book matches?

sunglasses – even when it is cloudy it is bright in Cuba

credit card – only for emergency use in United States or Mexico. Remember, you can only spend
183 dollars a day, and credit cards leave a paper trail.

money – I took $5,000 in cash. I came back with well over $3000 left. Considering that we did
not scrimp on expenses, plus I bought a lot of cigars, and had a huge bar bill, you can see Cuba is
not an expensive place to be.

Passport – keep this on your person until you get into Cuba. Remember, a U.S. passport is like
money in the bank.

drivers license – you may want to rent a car.

1141. cigarlaw - 11/1/1999 6:24:59 PM

Kleenex – I never had to use the kleenex I took, but toilet paper in Cuba can be a hard commodity
to come by some points.

Sunscreen – the sun is very hot and bright in Cuba. If, like me, you tend to turn red whenever the
sun is out, you want sunscreen that is like +4000 when in Cuba.

T-shirts – to give to the people of Cuba. Particularly ones with logos. They are great gifts.

Condoms – go to your local high school and pick some up. You can buy them in Cuba for a very
small price, but those are made in China and break about 50 percent of the time.

Liquid hand soap – at major hotels you’ll find soap, but if you go into the countryside you may
not.

Anti-diarrhea medication – in case you get Cuban water into your mile.

1142. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 7:43:17 PM

Cigars – what kind of a fool takes cigars to Cuba?

H'lo, Cigarlaw. Incidentally, how easy is it to return with Cuban cigars?

1143. cigarlaw - 11/2/1999 12:42:59 AM

if i had known how easy it was, i would have brought back 10 times as many

1144. Uzmakk - 11/2/1999 7:35:46 AM

Enjoying Cuba very much, cigarlaw. It troubles me to ask, but I assume that you are terminally ill?

1145. cigarlaw - 11/2/1999 3:21:49 PM

yep--lou gehrig;s disease

1146. cigarlaw - 11/2/1999 3:29:18 PM

btw web, i have been trying to post chap 3, to no avail. i am sending it by email. perhaps you can tell me why it says it will be posted, but never is.the

1147. cigarlaw - 11/2/1999 3:33:14 PM

actually i can't email you. i don't have your address. if you email me at maylen@thevision.net i will send it to you.of

1148. theDiva - 11/2/1999 3:40:09 PM

ciggy, this is wonderful stuff. I hope you're feeling okay these days. It's good to see you here.

1149. webfeet - 11/3/1999 11:17:52 PM

In case anyone hasn't noticed, I haven't been around. Thanks Angel Five and Cigar for sustaining this thread with your stories and travel anecdotia. There is no such word as anecdotia but maybe it should be.

I had such a shitty day. I was waiting for 45 minutes in the over-crowded bar of chic Hotel W on lex for a friend who never showed up. Pregnant, drinkless, examining the crowd in an armchair feeling like a complete bovine alien, I was completely relieved that none of that shit means anything to me anymore now that I have this lovely gold ring on my finger. A room full of overworked, balding, trenchcoated sex demons does nothing for me. I was imaginign them going to the bathroom (pooping specifically) and then watching MSNBC inthe morning before going to work. Not a sexy thought. Then I thought of Frenchcat who is having trouble finding the right job here, (when he will officially be able to work that is) spending the day all alone making financial calculations on his own website, or reading "Les Trois Muskateers" and I was filled with a pitiful, spiteful anger. At what exactly? Nothing except the fact that someone called him yesterday and asked if he wanted to sell life insurance. And, he was very polite and agreed to go for an interview.

And then I went ballistic with rage. I was crying hysterically like a total, quasi psychotic freak. I will not be married to a life insurance salesman--i would rather he wash dishes in Casa Cookoo Pollo on fucking roosevelt aqvenue then turn into real middle class losers. But he feels guilty and wants to earn money, and that is what is really touching. But no, he will never do that.

Now he wants to read what Im writing and I have to go.

1150. JonesAtLaw - 11/4/1999 1:37:44 AM

Ciggie- love the Cuba stuff- I've loved Cuban cigars since I was in college and a Soviet diplomat who spoke at the Model UN passed some around to the staff. Nothing like them, even the cheap ones... You moved from Kaui, no? Where are you now?

1151. ScottLoar - 11/4/1999 2:41:07 AM

Webfeet, someone I'm close to worked the night shift 4:30 in the afternoon to 1:00 a.m. for US$4.05 an hour at age 38. A year-old daughter at home and the wife with tears in her eyes asks if maybe the factory could hire her as well for only two bucks an hour. His education, talent and area knowledge stood useless until only pride was left, and that had to go too. 13 years later education, talent and area knowledge made a success which higher corporate hands are trying to arrogate to others, and only pride and some few allies remain. Still, it was a good ride.

Believe me, your day will come. Maybe not as soon as you wish nor in the manner you expect but... it comes. Don't let events twist you.

1152. cigarlaw - 11/4/1999 11:38:45 AM

jones, never been to0 kuai-- i'm a transplanted southern calif boy, stuck in the middle of the state--modesto to be exact

1153. JudithAtHome - 11/4/1999 11:47:17 AM

webbie:

Please try to remember you are in an altered state right now. Too many hormones and too much fright about the future. Frenchcat is going through the same fright. It's an enormous responsiblity to bring a child into world and it wouldn't make sense if this event caused nary a ripple in ones emotional life. Try to keep everything in perspective......

1154. cigarlaw - 11/4/1999 4:46:46 PM

?Chapter 3
SPANISH PHRASES YOU SHOULD KNOW IF
TRAVELING TO CUBA

One thing that is important for you understand is that,
like English, Spanish has many
different nuances and, like most people, those who speak
Spanish like to pretend they're being
very polite when actually they're saying something else. The
literal meaning of many phrases are
different than its implied meaning in the language. To give
an example, while in Cuba I received a
new nickname, el Cigarro. This is a shortened version of
the actual phrase, which I do not
understand at all. One day, shortly before we were to leave,
I saw one of the maids pointing at
me, smiling, as she uttered a phrase. I asked the bartender
what the phrase meant, making as
good an attempt at it as I could. He told me that it was a
nickname I acquired, given to me by the
staff of the hotel. It meant, "The Great American Who
Smokes the Big Cigars Will Live for
10,000 Years in the Hearts of the Cuban People," but
generally they just referred to me as el
cigarro. I thanked him for the information and gave him a
tip, and, as he smiled warmly, I went
and went back to the room. I proudly told CHR about the
new name, and gave him my best
Spanish rendition of it. He got out the phrase
book/dictionary to look it up. He told me the
literal translation seemed to be "The Fat American Who
Smells up the Bar with His Cigars, May
His Heart Be Ripped from His Chest, Chopped into 10,000
Pieces, sauteed in his own lard, and
Fed to a Syphilitic Cuban Pig." I must not have gotten the
Spanish right, but if I did, as you see,
some very interesting phrases lose in the translation

1155. cigarlaw - 11/4/1999 4:50:05 PM

? To give another example of how things lose the
translation, CHR and I had another
nickname. I was told by the bartender it meant "The
Yankee Adventurers". Upon my return to
America I looked in the phrase book just to see what it
meant literally. Translated literally it
means "The Two Yankee Queers in 710".
With that in mind, below is a list of Spanish phrases you
need to know, their literal
translation and what they actually mean:
Buenos dia good God it’s early (hello it’s morning)
Buenos tardes–I’m good and late (hello it’s qfternoon)
Buenos noches–good chips, salsa and cheese (hello, it’s
time to party)
con permiso with your permission. (Get out of my way
you filthy
[wog/peasant/tourist/etc.])
Pardono --pardon me. (To bad I ran over your foot and
broke your toes, you shouldn't
stuck your foot where I was moving my wheelchair)
Por favor please. (Say this all the time and people will
do wonderful things for you
your mother was right.- such as-Por favor, don't make me
shoot you.)
Daiquiri daiquiri. (A wonderful concoction the only
Spanish Fraser ruling faster it
was por favor, un dacquiri otravas.)
Ron rum. Need I say more?
Cervaza beer
auga natural bottled water. (The only water you allow
in your mouth in Cuba -- even
the locals boil it first.)
Chica bonita good-looking chick. This phrase is not to
be used in polite company.
Also, bear in mind that all Chicas are not prostitutes, but all
prostitutes are Chicas.
Jinatara literally a female jockey prostitute

1156. cigarlaw - 11/4/1999 4:51:36 PM

.
Casa particular private home. (Never call a person's
home a casa particular. It is used
in the following manner, " casa particular, sucky-fucky."
When you hear those words if you had
any doubt before about the occupation of the beautiful
young woman who just sat down next you,
you now know it is time to negotiate price. Of course,
many of them are seeking a single young
American man to marry and move to America. You may be
able to negotiate a much better price
if single.)
Palladar private restaurant. (Good food (maybe),
cheap price. There are licensed
palladars and unlicensed palladars. They are, theoretically,
forbidden to serve lobster and they
may only have 12 customers seated at a time. Generally
they do not have a large menu, because it
depends upon what was available in the market that day. I
had good experiences at every one I
ate and the prices are much , much lower than the
government restaurants.)

1157. CalGal - 11/4/1999 4:53:23 PM

Cig,

This is great stuff. If you are having trouble posting, could you mention it in the Tech thread?

1158. CalGal - 11/5/1999 3:11:52 AM

Cigarlaw is having trouble posting chapter 4, so here is is:

Chapter 4

Prelude to Cuba

The trip began for CH the day before mine. He drove non-stop from Bellingham, Washington, to Modesto. I do not recall how far that is, but it is a long way from the Canadian border to the center of California. He arrived at my house about 5: 30 in the evening. I had some advance warning of the mood he was going to be in, because I had received a very strange email before his arrival, from Elizabeth, his girlfriend, something about eradicating dust mites. Having known CH for 42 years, I knew he was allergic, or so he said, to dust mites. They gave him a good excuse to never vacuum because, he said, it just stirred them up. As he walked through the door, I handed him the email.

" God damn it, this stuff better work. Oh hello, Chuck. I can't believe she vacuumed my truck. I have been sneezing and sniffling for 14 hours because of her. Damn dust mites, she just stirred them up. I've been driving with the windows down for 14 hours because of her, and it was raining all the way through Washington and Oregon. This email is about some product that kills the dust mites. I mean, I hope it works, she tried to do me a favor and clean my truck."

" No good deed shall go unpunished," I replied. "How are you doing?"

1159. CalGal - 11/5/1999 3:13:54 AM

(Prelude to Cuba, Chapter 4)

"I'm just great. Just great." Somehow I knew he wasn't.

Just then my wife walked in and said, hugging him, "Hello. Would you like some dinner."

" Let me get my stuff in first and I would love some."

CH had been down to see me a few months before, so he knew of my physical problems and their impact upon my ability to function. I talked to him on the telephone a week before, so he was well aware of the problems my wife and I were having. In fact, I told him in no uncertain terms that I was leaving once I got back from Cuba and my business was closed. Notwithstanding my disability, I had reached the end of my rope with her. Of late, she had been constantly angry and upset with me I knew she had good cause to be angry, and so did I. It is not a pleasant thing to find out, just at the time when things seemed to be going our way the business was good, the money was good, and we had finally reached the point where she could quit the job that she had and hated the rug got pulled out from under us by Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis at 49 years of age. She was pissed and so was I. The thing is, I figured after two years she should be over it. I wanted to live my live as I saw fit, and couldn't do it. The worse I got, the less I could do with my hands and arms, the more frustrated and angry I became. She took it all personally. I viewed the trip to Cuba as a last great adventure, and Declaration of Independence. I don't know what she thought, but she seemed happy to see me go.

At any rate, we all went to bed early that night, knowing that we were going to have to get up at 3 a.m. to get to the airport on time

1160. CalGal - 11/5/1999 3:18:20 AM

(Prelude to Cuba, Chapter 4)

After five hours of sleep, I got up, my wife dressed me, we loaded the bags in the vehicle. My wife was driving, and CH was in the backseat trying to get some more sleep. As we headed for the airport the last song from the country and western opera "Jesse James" kept running through my mind:

"One more shot just for old times, one last stand. One more hit oughta do it then I'll quit while I can."

And then I realized, this was the first time in almost 30 years I had seen CH without at least one.45 automatic somewhere on his person. Strange thoughts swirled in my mind. Here we are, about to go to what could be a Caribbean North Korea, and we are completely unarmed. Even I began to get a little paranoid at that thought. `

We arrived at the San Francisco airport right on time to get in line and wait. Sometimes, there is an advantage to be in a wheelchair. For one thing, once you check in your luggage, they move you to the front of the line to get on the airplane. Of course, that means you get to sit in the medieval torture device airlines install on their planes as seats presumably so you will not stay long, or you will appreciate the booze when it comes around until everyone else stows their luggage and finds their seats.. Of course, I had an advantage. As uncomfortable as the airline seats are, you do not have to lock the wheels in place to keep them steady.

The plane left right on time for a rather uneventful flight. I had a window seat and spent my time looking out the window at things I knew I would never see again. I was impressed by the vacant spaces that stretch to infinity. My God, I thought, You could take twenty Cubas, drop them in the middle of this country and not hit anyone.

1161. CalGal - 11/5/1999 3:19:40 AM

(Prelude to Cuba, Chapter 4)

After five hours of flying time we were over Florida. From the air, Florida it looks like a vast swamp. My wife, who had lived there for a year and whose daughter had been born there, had told me that it was a vast swamp. She also said the swamp did strange things to people's minds, the first being, they were all mentally retarded, or at least seemed that way.

You could not prove that by me. All I saw of Florida was the runway, the swamp, the inside of the Miami airport, and a bunch of airline employees with Cuban accents.. We had just enough time at the airport to buy some bottled water and a couple of the best chocolate chip cookies I have ever had. Then we boarded the plane for Mexico. I turned to CH in said, "This is our last go 'round. Let's do it right."

CH, pushing the wheelchair down the ramp to the airplane, laughed and said, "You just keep thinking Chuck. You're good that." He had been saying that to me for years. I was always his Butch Cassidy and he was always my Sundance Kid. His Pike Bishop, my Dutch Engstrom. (For those ignorant of movie history, The Wild Bunch, our all-time favorite movie came out just before Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. They told the same story, of outlaws at the end of the road, but The Wild Bunch was directed by Sam Peckinpah and was not funny. My favorite line of all-time (and the title of Sam Peckinpah's biography) was one of the first lines from that movie. Pike Bishop (William Holden), wearing an army uniform, walks into the railroad office, grabs the head teller from behind his desk, and throws him against the wall. There is a tight close-up on his snarling face as he says, "If they move, kill 'em." At that moment, you realize, this is not your typical William Holden film.)

1162. CalGal - 11/5/1999 3:20:56 AM

(Prelude to Cuba, Chapter 4)

It seems strange to have to fly 500 miles to Mexico to reach a city only 90 miles a way, but such is the political climate in the United States today. Before we arrived in Cancun, we flew over the Yucatan Peninsula and, for the first time a my life, I saw a jungle. As we landed at the airport I could see it had been literally hacked out of the jungle. It lay only about 20 meters away from both sides of the runway. I wanted to go exploring and look for Mayan temples, and realized that was another dream that would never be fulfilled. I was sad for a moment, but I realized I was fulfilling a much bigger dream.Then, I left the airplane.

`Apparently, they were having problems with the air conditioning at the airport. We left the air-conditioned comfort of the airplane and walked into a steam bath. How lucky I was to be wearing my blue blazer, long-sleeved white shirt, Panama hat, my leg brace, and long pants. They were soaked with sweat in about five seconds and, as I was pushed toward customs, the passing breeze cooled me to about 180 degrees.

They wheeled me to the passport check spot and I told CH that my passport was in the little bag hang around my net (along with a stack of 100 dollar bills). CH reached down, got out the passport, and told me, "I guess I'll hang on to this. I will need it when we get to Cuba."

That turned out to be a prediction he will never forget.

1163. CalGal - 11/5/1999 3:21:48 AM

(Prelude to Cuba, Chapter 4)

After stamping our passports, they pushed us to Customs. Mexican Customs is quite interesting. They randomly select whose bag to search. The way it is done is, as you approach the entrance areas, you see a red light and a green light on a poll, very much like a traffic light. A lovely young lady asks you to press a button on the poll and then if a red light comes on they search everything, but if the green light comes on (which it does about 90 percent of the time) you go on through with no questions asked. Well, that is not exactly true. I got a green light, but I had a cooler filled with my drugs and syringes sitting on my lap. A Customs officials saw my cooler, and asked, "What is in the cooler?"

Surprised, I answered, "Drugs and syringes." As soon as I said it I knew it was a mistake. Suddenly, I had visions of spending the rest of my life lying in my own feces in a Mexican jail cell, the floor covered with vomit from the drunken Mexicans and tourists that shared it, or taking off the little bag around my neck filled with all my money and handing it over as a bribe to the official. I did not know which was worse dying in jail, or going to Cuba without any money.

" Do you have any vegetables or fruit?" The official asked.

I wondered how many years I would get for smuggling a banana or some broccoli into Mexico. "No," I answered.

" Do you mind if I look," he said, grabbing the cooler and taking it from my lap.

He opened the cooler and immediately lifted up the syringes, the ice, and the medication, and finding no fruits or vegetables, zipped the bag up, and handed back to me. I suppose the lesson is that in Mexico, they don't give a damn about drugs, but by God don't bring in a zucchini.

1164. CalGal - 11/5/1999 3:22:46 AM

(Prelude to Cuba, Chapter 4)

Once through Customs, we rushed to the Mexicana Airline counter as we had 50 minutes to catch the plane to Cuba. On the sign we saw the flight was delayed. Here we were, stuck in the steam bath, both of us wearing jackets, to look professional and get better service, so we thought, and our flight is late.

So we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

For six hours, we waited in little plastic chairs (at least I had my wheelchair and butt pad).

Fortunately the Mexican beer was ice cold, because that is what we did for the next six hours, drink ice cold Mexican beer. At about the four and a half-hour mark, I decided to do something I had not done for years. I pulled out my cigar case, handed CH one, stuck the other in my mouth, and lighted up. I come from California, land of clean-air and anti-smoking zealots. Smoking in public was a rare treat and the lack of complaints seemed to make the rest of the wait go much faster.

In a mere six hours the plane arrived. As we boarded, CH was setting difficulty pushing me up the ramp and carrying his luggage at the same time. A friendly airline employee told him that he would take his bag even makes her did got on the airplane and he could push my wheelchair with both hands (which he needed, since we had consumed mass quantities of Mexican beer by that time. When we got to the plane, I walked on and took my seat, the stewardess told me that my wheelchair would be stored in the luggage compartment, unlike American Airlines, that stored it in the front of the plane, where was handy. I did not care. We were on our way:

TO CUBA.

1165. cigarlaw - 11/5/1999 6:54:26 PM

thanks cal. i was runningn out of patiencve and knew you could do it. chapter 5 -- lost at jose marti is in the works.

1166. webfeet - 11/6/1999 11:07:04 AM

cigarlaw

Going back a bit, it seemed that 'Tales from Cuba' seemed to be a hot editorial topic. There was a piece in Harper's on Castro that was very good. Unfortunately, I can't remember all of it, but I think it was something like Castro's 9 lives and it at least was newsworthy at the time. Then, maybe several months ago, a lame "tales from Cuba" piece appeared in Salon, which tried to be appropriately edgy, sordid and cool, but came off instead sounding trite and contrived; it was too slick. In the first few bars, the journalist is dancing in a 'smoke-filled' room with a young prostitute, who he refuses to go upstairs with. "But dont you think Im beautiful?" she asks. "Im sorry, but I have a girlfriend," he replies..that kind of self-conscious, superifical c-grade dialogue set the tone for the entire piece, and I declined to read the rest. Your travel tales, however, are a much better read, far more realistic and sincere. Maybe it's not too late to bring back 'Tales from Cuba'.

1167. cigarlaw - 11/6/1999 9:27:27 PM

web -- i/ve been debating fiction v nonfiction. thus far everything in it is the absolute truth. i thought the first paragraph of chapter 4 would be a good start for a fictional work ala-hemingway. i dabced with a prostitute also, with my eyes if not my feet/ had not my friend forgot the condoms i ny not havew been as relutant as the solonista, however. things are better at home since the trip, so it is probably just as well.

1168. RickNelson - 11/7/1999 8:02:21 AM

Cigarlaw,

I love to read your world. No amount of response is adequate to relate what I've gained from you and this time. No words seem adequate to express the desire of wanting to read what you will give.


It's not really amazing that we grow fond of the personnas we share here. I've been true to myself throughout as I've read in you. And of course the many, many here who share this same style. I wish Ariel would stop in and read with us, sharing the old times as well as the new chapters in our experiences. Yet, that thought is really just one geared toward you. I don't suppose it's totally necessary to have Ariel stop in and read your latest. I just remember how we were back then.

Well, post more poems too. I always read your poems. Always.







I saw a man being pushed around the gardens I love yesterday. It was a dignity I related to you. It is dignity and human strength I see in you. With a love and passion for what you want. Keep wanting, and speaking for myself, keep sharing.

Man, I love to read you, man. My response to your terminal illness has internal passion for you. I teared up seeing the man in the gardens, then remembered your strength. Reading you I see you're as strong as ever.

1169. ScottLoar - 11/7/1999 8:45:11 AM

Those are very kind thoughts RickNelson.

1170. webfeet - 11/7/1999 10:35:40 AM

Yes, there is a lot of love in this room.

Scott, the storyof your friend and his wife put minein perspective. Now, that is a difficult situation. We're far from having to work in a factory, but nonetheless, it is reassuring to know that your friend eventually rose to the level he deserved to reach. Maybe I should let frenchcat volunteer to wrap christmas presents like he suggested if he cant find a job. After all, It's not a question of pride since he still has his french impot (taxes) to pay.

Speaking of french, my aprtment has been Eurohostel for the past month. Since we've livedhere, Jackson Heights is HOT and HAPPENING. An American friend from Paris has been living with us for the past month to find a job here, and no sooner did she leave than my husband's best friend and his wife arrived to stay with us for a week.

I was just lectured in french for 45 minutes this morning on the subject of an american sugar company's production of genetically engineered sugar granules which can't be replanted and therefore threaten to sterilise the global sguar granule universe. This is a project, needless to say, that was financed by the americna government. I imagined myself being coached by a new age guru and I adapted a placid, serene expression on my face to mask my utter frustration and boredom.

Now, we're off to watch the New York City Marathon. And I have a total, f---ing, blinding headache.

1171. ScottLoar - 11/7/1999 12:48:45 PM

Webfeet, as to your headache please remember - love hurts.

Let Frenchcat get the job wrapping Christmas presents. Believe me, let him do it and encourage him, laugh about it later, but get him out of the apartment and keep him busy.

1172. cigarlaw - 11/8/1999 4:28:13 PM

rick, thanks. don't know what else to say. working on chap 5, as soon as i finish reading the trial transcript of a paranoid-schzophenic kid sent to the youth authoprity for assaultive behavior..

1173. cigarlaw - 11/9/1999 3:28:29 PM

?Chapter 5
LOST IN JOSE MARTI AIRPORT

It began innocently enough as we boarded
the plane in Cancun. I was in my wheelchair with
my medicine chest on my lap and CH was
attempting to push me and pull his carry-on luggage
behind, a monumental task when one considers my
bulk (although we’re the same height, I outweigh
CH by over 100 pounds). One thing I learned about
wheelchairs, is that while most people in the United
States ignore you and pretend you are not there, I
suppose from some inner voice that tells them, “ If I
don’t see someone in a wheelchair, it can’t happen
to me,” people in charge of mass transportation, and
amusement parks, at least, go to great lengths to
show everyone how humanitarian they are by always
moving you to the front of the line. (If you ever go
to amusement park, for example Universal City in
Los Angeles, or Disneyland, always remember to
rent a wheelchair before you go. If you do, you will
find that you and your entire party will never have to
wait to get on a ride, even the “Back to the Future”
ride. As everyone else in the world is taking hours
to get to the entrance of the ride you will always be
moved to the front, which is just about the only
advantage being in a wheelchair has.)
At any rate, as we were boarding the plane,
one of the airline employees offered to help.
“Senor, let me help you. I will make certain
your luggage is put on the plane for you, you just
push your friend in the wheelchair.” I thought this
somewhat odd, since no American airline employee
had bothered to help us, but being new to this area
of the world, I assumed it was a Latin courtesy. I
was right, it was a Latin courtesy, with typical Latin
efficiency – but I am getting ahead of myself.

1174. cigarlaw - 11/9/1999 3:37:26 PM

? I was surprised when CH handed his bag
over. I have known this guy for 42 years, and I have
never seen him do anything like that before. Since
he had, in the past several years, traveled to
Mexico’s several times, and, as he confessed over
dinner the night before we left, he had actually
consented to go on a Caribbean cruise with
Elizabeth (which he admitted was somewhat strange
on his part, since it was the first time he ever went
anywhere unarmed -- perhaps this was a measure of
his devotion to Elizabeth, or maybe his ingrained
paranoia was getting better. I must admit, that I
never traveled anywhere, other than England,
unarmed until I was diagnosed ALS -- but I was not
paranoid, only prudent.), I assumed he knew what
he was doing --a big mistake.

1175. cigarlaw - 11/9/1999 3:53:46 PM

the rest of this is been sent to CalGal, with a request that she post it, since I cannot seem to get into work.

1176. cigarlaw - 11/9/1999 4:47:05 PM

? When we got to the airplane, they asked me
if I could walk to my seat or if I needed assistance. I
told them that I could walk, and they told me that
they would take care of my wheelchair. My
paranoia then kicked in.

“Where are you going to put it? Is it going
to be stored in the front of the plane?” I asked,
assuming that it would be stored with the
stewardess’ luggage as it had been on the American
airliners.

They muttered something in Spanish, and
with and when it met with a look of bewilderment,
in halting English they said, “There is not room,
Senor. It will be stored in the luggage compartment,
but we will make certain you get it when we get to
Cuba.”

I muttered thanks, and placed myself in their
hands. CH did not. As says we found our seats he
muttered something about his luggage and, against
the flow of traffic, worked his way to the front of
the airplane. A few minutes later he reappeared, and
muttered something about his luggage being in
storage also. About that time I looked out the
window to see my wheelchair being wheeled to the
back of the airplane and CH’s luggage going with it.

1177. cigarlaw - 11/9/1999 4:52:39 PM

? Soon the plane began to move, and the
stewardess began giving her demonstration of what
to do the should the plane come to a sudden stop in
the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. I had heard it
many times in English, but it was far more
interesting in Spanish, particularly when the
stewardess threw her hands before her face and
began shouting, “ Madre de Dios ! Su morte!”
(What ever that means). She then repeated the
whole thing in English, but when it came time to are
where she explained what to do if we crashed, it was
the standard spiel you get on U.S. airliners. I have
no idea what the added Spanish things were, but
they were certainly interesting to watch --
particularly all of the passengers who began crossing
themselves and playing with the beads many of
them0 carry.

It is a one-hour flight from Cancun to
Havana, which arrived two hours after you left,
something to do with time travel distortions I
suppose – I know on the way back we arrived in
Cancun 15 minutes before we left Havana, so I
wonder what other secret inventions, besides time
travel, the Soviet bloc had come up with before they
collapsed and wondered why I had never heard of it
– then I became really paranoid thinking, maybe the
government knows of it and are keeping it is secret
so they can spy on us. But that is another story.

The flight to Cuba was uneventful, the
chicken, goats and small children calmed down
within a few minutes and the two-hour flight to
Havana seemed to take less than an hour.

1178. CalGal - 11/9/1999 4:53:20 PM

Cig--I think I just got the file open, if you want me to post the rest.

1179. cigarlaw - 11/9/1999 4:54:11 PM

When we began our approach to Jose Marti
Airport, I became interested in the surrounding area.
It is difficult to survey an airport at night, but I did
my best. Frankly, the runway and surrounding area
looked like photographs of the international airport
in Uganda. A few yards off the runway was very tall
grass. I could almost see the enemy snipers, peering
through telescopic sights, and/or wild-eyed Cubans
with machetes that were standing by to hack the
passengers to pieces as they fought their way onto
the airplane to escape their repressive government.
(See, I’m not paranoid it all.)\

1180. cigarlaw - 11/9/1999 5:02:25 PM

? After the chickens, goats, small children, and
other passengers left plane, CH and I began exit
ourselves. I was very happy to find my wheelchair
waiting for me. A Cuban grabbed the chair and
began pushing me up the ramp into the terminal. So
far, it was just like I was arriving in any airport in
the United States. Once we were in the terminal,
they pushed me into an elevator which took us to
the second floor and passport control.

Passport control looked sort of like the gate
at a racetrack – the one the horses are held at before
they start running. There were about 10 open
doors, each of which open to a very small hallway,
blocked by another door that was closed. Inside the
hallways, which were about eight feet long, there
were glass windows, behind which sat unsmiling and
officious-looking men and women in green military
fatigues. Pacing back and forth in front of the open
doors was an officer, with two stars on his
shoulders, followed by 3 or 4 other men with pistols
on their hips. I found almost as disturbing as my
first view of England,, when I arrived in Heathrow,
the first thing I saw were two policeman carrying
submachine guns. I asked myself what the Major
General (actually he was only a lieutenant colonel)
was doing there at 2:30 in the morning, as they
wheeled me into one of the small hallways.

1181. cigarlaw - 11/9/1999 5:04:59 PM

“Passporte, por favor,” asked the young,
mulatto woman, who appeared to be a captain, since
she had 2 bars on her green fatigues, from her seat
behind the glass wall.

“He has it,” I announced to the officer,
looking back and moving my head in the direction
CH.

As I turned to look at the officer, over my
shoulder I heard a moan, coming from CH, followed
by, “Shit. It’s in the carry-on luggage.”

“So what’s the problem?” I asked
innocently.

“They took it from me in Cancun. When I
had to push you on the plane, remember?”

The passport officer did not look amused.

Neither did CH.

I, on the other hand, innocently asked, “So,
what’s the problem? We just go through this door,
get the bag, take our passports out and give them to
her. Hell, if there’s a problem, she can come with
the us, can’t she?”

The vacant look in the face of the passport
officer and the snarl that suddenly appeared on CH’s
face, caused my travel-addled brain finally kicked in,
and I realized that they were not going to let us into
the country without passports, and our passports
were in the country beyond the door.

An airline employee overheard this and
asked, “What is the color of the bag? I will go get
it.”

1182. cigarlaw - 11/9/1999 5:08:12 PM

? “It’s dark green.” I replied.

`“Huh?” She replied.

“What the hell is ‘green’ in Spanish?” I asked
CH.

CH, looking as if he had not slept for a week
and he had just been told that he was going to be
castrated at dawn, muttered, “Verde.”

“Verde,” I repeated rapidly.

“Verde,” she replied, smiling and exited the
room.

We were escorted into holding area and
politely asked to wait.

The room was huge. It was about 50 feet by
50 feet with periodic pillars holding up the ceiling.
The floor was tiled and, all in all, the whole place
was well lighted and looked fairly new. There were,
however, only eight seats, in banks of 4, one bank
on each side of the room, all occupied by Cuban
military personnel smoking cigarettes. CH, with
look of a man who is so exhausted he does not care
when they tell him he is to be castrated the following
morning, leaned against one of the pillars and slid to
the floor shaking his head as he squatted with his
back against the pillar, muttering to himself. I
thought perhaps he had developed a sudden case of
schizophrenia and his hearing voices and answering
them. Then I heard, “Shit.. God damn Mexican
airlin