[Above photo: I’m toying with making a bid on this 5 chimney mansion on the Western Promenade, with only 16 bedrooms and 9 bathrooms. It previously was donated to nearby Maine Medical Center and was used to house resident physicians-in-training. I could turn it into a group home and teach home maintenance skills to the kids. I wonder if the neighbors would object? Only $2mil. I wasn’t quick enough to capture the man in the jet-suit before he shot up into the clouds; he’s off to see his agent, I suspect.]
24 April 2022
It is a spectacularly lovely Earth Day in Portland. On a long walk through the Western Prom I saw jonquils, hyacinth, cherry trees, and ornamental dogwood in blossom. Despite our desecration of her, Ma Nature keeps trying to show us, with displays of beauty, what we stand to lose.
My house-hunt continues and I viewed two condos with an agent this morning. Neither was quite right. I attended an open house for one of them yesterday; it had seemed perfect in its Zillow layout. A cooperative sun and a good photographer with a wide-angle lens can embellish a scene remarkably. I was ready to plunk down a large sum until I actually saw it. The two freshly-painted porch planks whose rot peeped out, as well as the narrow staircases and the likely selling price discouraged me. My current apartment is fine for now. I can do all I want here with no concern for maintenance and the heat is included!
Both of my Easter dinners were terrific. It gives me a warm feeling to live next to Kim, who is an ideal landlady. Her guy, Abisch, is a documentary film-maker from Montreal. He’s in the coloration stage of a film about Bengal tigers. He is remarkably friendly and also a terrific cook. His mother published an Indian Cooking Made Easy guide 15 years ago, so he comes by the latter naturally.
Kim is eager to have a small shed in the back yard for yard equipment, offering to pay for the materials if I build it. I can store my 3, count ‘em, bikes in there: a road bike, a crossover, and a fully-suspended mountain bike, all purchased at different times with different needs in mind. And while she won’t split the cost of a charger for my car, since she doesn’t have an EV and the station will be hooked to my electrical service, she isn’t opposed to my doing it. She’ll be in Bangkok in 2 weeks, heading a UN group there to develop sustainable energy programs in Cambodia.
A fellow in my writing group, Bob, suggested we have a beer together. He is bright and curious, a transplant like me. After a checkered college career, he became the head dialysis technician at UCSF Medical Center and then the Facilities Manager for the whole place. Following a divorce and retirement, he reconnected with an old friend in Brazil whose marriage likewise had cratered. They settled in S. Portland where he is honing his writing skills and building beautiful school desks out of discarded pallets which he donates to the Boys’ and Girls’ Club. I suspect we’ll develop a friendship. He told me about a community workshop in downtown Portland—-open 24/7—where for a modest monthly sum I can use their full array of high-end woodworking tools and store my projects. They teach classes, as well, and have areas devoted to metalwork, leather and fabric, and robotics.
I’m now reading Zadie Smith’s White Teeth-–There is so much good writing I haven’t read!—and I enjoy it but, again, find her exuberant style, as I did with Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, kind of irritating. Maybe I am more white-bread than I like to think! I didn’t like the magical realism of 100 Years of Solitude, either.
Gradually the chickens are coming home to roost as the extensive documentation of January 6 emerges. It is gratifying to capture flatfooted anyone lying, but especially someone in leadership. Kevin McCarthy is a despicable animal. Power seeks perpetuity, not surprisingly. Our democracy was designed to channel that urge, if imperfectly, so tyrants couldn’t settle in. I don’t think our country has ever seen—-at least according to historians I’ve read—-such an ambitious and unprincipled attempt to take it over as the current GOP enacts.
Fealty to The Puppetmaster, no matter that he is a dummy whose selfishness trumps common sense, national interest, and decency. We, as a democracy, need to work with other like-minded nations as the sharp outlines of the global contest between authoritarianism and the will of the people develop, as well as to combat global climate change. Disinformation has been around forever, I suspect. However, our electronic media now elevates lies to resemble the truth on a scale and with a persuasion previously unimagined. What a thicket! Why Merrick Garland, celebrated by Obama, is so truculent and weak-kneed is a mystery to me. We never really know anyone until the flame is turned up beneath the crucible they inhabit, I suppose.
And the travesty of Putin’s destruction of Ukraine and Ukrainians proceeds. What a hideous man he is. “A genius” on a “brilliant peace-keeping mission”, as DT put it. It’s not surprising, since DT admires Vladimir so much and “alternative facts” appeal to them both. There was no threat to Russia that can be cited to justify the Russian violence.
I already have a scheduled sailing date on the weekend of June 18-19.
A Psychiatrist in Myanmar 