Halfway down the Danube

The 1950s, decade of civility

Dateline, 1956: on election night in the U.S., on the Mutual Radio Show, the popular columnist Walter Winchell told his audience, "A vote for Adlai Stevenson is a vote for Christine Jorgensen."

For those of you who maybe fell asleep in history class, Adlai Stevenson was the intellectually driven governor of Illinois -- he earned a law degree from Northwestern while working at his family's newspaper -- who became the Democratic candidate for American president, twice. That sterling judge of character, Richard Nixon, once called him an "egghead". He was a divorcee.

Christine Jorgensen was one of the first recipients of gender reassignment surgery -- male to female, in her case -- known to the American general public.

As the humorist Chris Sims once put it, "Yes, at this point, anything resembling 'subtext' has been thrown out the window and replaced with some kind of supertext, a rare substance known for its sheer overtness."

Walter Winchell's reputation hasn't aged well. And at this late date, it's hard to tell how much he was believed. But his authority gave people an excuse to act as if they believed what he said -- the 1950s were also a decade of personal integrity -- and Winchell had a lot of fun doing it.

More Brie?

The Guardian. Comedy. Just, no. Please, no.

This article in the Guardian, on British versus German alleged senses of humor, reminds me of one of those furious non-fact discussions you used to hear in bars before the Internet became popular, where no side in the argument had any clue what the hell they were talking about. The author, some sort of British ha-ha guy, claims deep linguistic differences between the two languages cause a difference in national styles of humor -- the strong Sapir-Whorf hypothesis as applied to comedy.

Of course the article reeks of bogosity.

There are six overt jokes in the article, two supposedly British, four supposedly German, all supposedly funny. Let's go through them.

Joke 1: The German Child, a British joke about Germans. Except it's not: it's a joke that can be successfully told without any ethnic identification at all -- and it is, in its American form. The tension in the joke comes from a recognition of parental anxieties about childhood linguistic development, not from stereotype.

Joke 2: A British joke, presented as an example of an English-language joke style, that ends "... and then I got off the bus." It's a type of joke that ends with an incongruous short kicker to an elaborate set-up. Lee calls it a "pull back and reveal," and the kicker the "failsafe," and claims it can't be performed in German because of German sentence structure.

Except the humor in this type of joke is almost entirely dependent on delivery, not language. Read the paragraph in the article again; see how lifelessly the words connect on the page. The comedian has to inflate this apparatus from scratch, and the humor comes from how quickly they can deflate it. You could do this by mime.

Also, it's not a popular American joke style. (There's a tired tired quip British pundits like to make, that Americans don't speak English. It was old in John Maynard Keynes' day. It was probably old in Joe Miller's day.) If I had to guess, its genealogy comes from the shaggy dog story, also not so popular here. The recent movie The Aristocrats basically hammered this one into the grave.

Joke 3: From Schleswig-Holstein. Actually, I've come across this joke in a history of the New Orleans red light district, presented as observational humor of the era. "Naughty is when you use a feather. Kinky is when you use the chicken." No call-and-response in that version.

Joke 4: From Stuttgart. A combination of a typical cop-and-drunk joke and a typical animal story. The fox and the rabbit don't have iconic roles in the U.S., so it's a little mysterious at first glance. (What sort of animal jokes do Americans make anymore? Bear jokes; dog jokes.)

Joke 5: From Bad Toelz. It's the same type of joke that Lee claimed couldn't exist in the German language. There might be a pun missing; doesn't matter.

Joke 6: From Lower Saxony. Except for the Evangelical pastor -- and in Wisconsin this would still work, although the theological content would have to be revised -- there's nothing about this joke that couldn't be told in any American supper club to polite laughter. Maybe a little too edgy for Reader's Digest? Maybe not. Also, Americans wouldn't include the dog dying.

(Possibly these jokes were made up by Lee. If so, WTF?)

There is one hilarious joke in the article, however.

I looked back over the time I had spent in Hannover and suddenly found situations that had seemed inexplicable, even offensive at the time, hilarious in retrospect. On my first night in Hannover I had gone out drinking with some young German actors. "You will notice there are no old buildings in Hannover," one of them said. "That is because you bombed them all." At the time I found this shocking and embarrassing. Now it seems like the funniest thing you could possibly say to a nervous English visitor.

The quip made by the young German actor is amusing. But the real joke is... Lee didn't get it. And then wrote about how he didn't get it, but now he gets it, in such a way that you know he still doesn't really get it, although he thinks he gets it. Because he's down with the brothers. Who are German.

That's funny.

Maybe Lee meant to do that.

Less wretched, more excess

I'm feeling better! Thank you, A New York City Math Teacher for the turkey stock and the beer-making equipment, and Leah for the wild blueberry muffins.

The plan is to make a summer lager, with maybe some elderflower and lemon or citron peel. (We've done this before.)

Also, a Trader Joe's has opened in Manhattan on Union Square, and it carries Usinger's bratwurst and knockwurst! Woo-hoo!

I may be the last person in Brooklyn to have heard Matisyahu. (I've seen the posters. I don't live under a rock.) Wow. Hasidic reggae, and let me tell you, that combination works. People -- all sorts of people -- in the mosh pits dancing to "Jerusalem, if I forget you". (Let my right hand forget what it's supposed to do.) Jamaican dialect and Hasidic nigunim scat.

My antibiotics can cure ulcer bacteria and chlamydia! I am set.

Fun links: Cannonball, Derby Day, Tractor Pull. Do you remember when she was nervous and shy? I do.

Sympathy for the devil, the Wisconsin edition

All the world knows about Joe McCarthy. But does all the world know what happened to Joe McCarthy?

I grew up maybe twenty miles from where he was born, lived, practiced law, and was buried in Wisconsin. I've seen the only bust I'm aware exists of the man (outside William Buckley's heathen shrine, of course). I'm pretty sure I touched it.

The famine Irish came to farm Wisconsin, and they did it very well. Outagamie County has long been the largest producer of cabbage in the United States. The fields quite literally stink of it. You used to see tractor-trailers marked "Flanagan Sauerkraut! Flanagan?" rolling down the highway from the Flanagan Bear Creek plant. (Mergers have since changed the name.) Joe McCarthy had three grandparents from Ireland and a grandmother from Bavaria. Interethnic marriage along confessional lines was a common Wisconsin pattern. He was born on the farm.

Joe was handsome, smart, a boxer, a good student. He went to Marquette University in Milwaukee, more Jesuit then than it is now. Wisconsin Catholics did not lack confidence. Why would they? He learned poker and sheepshead. He learned the law. As a prank, at his first salaried law practice, someone put a copy of Das Kapital and the Daily Worker in his briefcase. He was an FDR Democrat. It was 1936.

Nineteen years later, as Thomas Reeves recounts in The Life and Times of Joe McCarthy, "the press started to give Joe the 'silent treatment.'"

No doubt feeling guilty about their vital role in McCarthy's career, reporters now began to boycott news conferences and ignore press releases, while editors either refused to publish material on the senator or buried stories on back pages. [...] Joe was deeply hurt by this unspoken policy of the journalists. Willard Edwards of the Chicago Tribune thought that more than anything else it led to his death. Joe had thrived on publicity for years; media coverage had been part of his everyday life. Now, it seemed, no one was any longer interested in anything he had to say. [...]

Joe's infrequent trips to Wisconsin revealed a serious erosion of his local popularity and political power. A "McCarthy Day" celebration at Boscobel in June 1955 drew 1,500 people, only a fraction of the 50,000 who were anticipated. [...]

By the summer of 1956, Joe's alcoholism had become so severe that he began to be hospitalized periodically for detoxification. Jean [his wife of three years -- CY] told reporters in early September that he was in Bethesda Naval Hospital for treatment of a knee injury suffered on Guadalcanal while helping to repair a plane. [...] Privately, Jean pled with friends to help her save Joe's life.

Later that month, Joe and Jean flew to Appleton for a visit. One evening, after a full day of drinking, Joe began to experience delirium tremens in front of his wife and friends, crying out that snakes were leaping at him. Jean, in great anguish, soon confided to Urban Van Susteren that Joe's alcohol consumption had damaged his liver. Van Susteren telephoned the senator's physician in Washington and learned that the liver condition was such that Joe would die in a short time unless he abstained from liquor completely. When Van Susteren confronted Joe about the matter the next morning, Joe flew into a rage. "Kiss my ass," he shouted. After a time, Van Susteren angrily shoved a bottle of whiskey in front of his old friend and told him to drink it and end things without further disgracing himself and his family.

Yikes. Did this take place at the Van Susteren home? Fox broadcaster Greta Van Susteren would have been two at the time.

For months the McCarthys had been trying to adopt a child. This was undoubtedly another effort by Jean to bring sunlight into Joe's ever-darkening world. [Before his breakdown, McCarthy was great with kids. Honest. -- CY] With the personal assistance of Cardinal Spellman, they were able to bring home a five-week-old girl from the New York Foundling Home in January 1957. A friendly executive loaned them an entire railroad car for the happy journey. The infant was named Tierney Elizabeth, after each of her new grandmothers. Joe doted on the child and at times seemed something of his former self. The exhilaration was temporary, however, and Joe soon found himself again in the grip of the despair that was leading him toward death.

[In March he went] to Racine, where he was to give a speech on behalf of Lowell McNeill, a friend and avid partisan. McNeill went to the senator's hotel room at 4:00 PM to extend his greetings. Joe answered the door wearing nothing but jockey shorts. Throughout the 45-minute conversation, he drank from a bottle of cheap brandy. At dinner he ate nothing. Afterward, he returned to the brandy. [...]

The chief librarian of the Milwaukee Journal was shocked to observe McCarthy at a meeting of the Wauwatosa school board. A friend had brought the senator to the meeting unannounced to give a speech. Joe stumbled in a cloak room, became hopelessly entangled in coats, and had to be rescued. He was so drunk and sick he could barely speak. The librarian described the incident to Journal editors, who immediately assigned reporter Ed Bayley the task of writing McCarthy's obituary.

Back in Washington, Joe ambled into the office of the Secretary of the Senate where two colleagues were having a drink. He filled a drinking glass to the brim with liquor and downed the contents in several uninterrupted gulps. He told his astonished observers that he had been to Bethesda Naval Hospital several times to "dry out" and that on the last occasion his doctor had said he would die if he had one more drop. He then proceeded to refill the glass and drink it dry.

Joe was admitted to Bethesda Naval Hospital on April 28. Jean told reporters that his knee had been acting up again. The following day she said he had suffered a virus attack about ten days earlier and had a bad cold. In fact, Joe was hospitalized for a severe liver ailment. At 5:02 PM on Thursday, May 2, 1957, having received the last rites from a priest, he passed away. Jean was at his side.

He was 48. I don't know what happened to Tierney McCarthy. I hope she's all right.

Ow, ow, ow. Also, weird stuff.

There used to be a set of long staircases going from the World Trade Center's lower level down to the PATH train to New Jersey. I once managed to trip and fall down about a third of their length. This hurt much less than you might think, and I got up and went down the rest of the steps (more slowly) to work.

Today, I know where the pain from that day went. Gah. Some sort of viral muscle joint throat horror.

Despite having glowing reviews from Gordy Doctorow and Emma Bull, Stephan Zielinski's Bad Magic is actually good. C/D, Yerevan (y/n)?

My friend Alexandra gave me this behemoth jerrycan of official State of Vermont Pure Maple Syrup. A gallon's worth, about four liters, five and a half kilos. It looks like this, but even more so. Z gave me a bag of Vietnamese coffee beans from her recent trip (we're pretty sure it's not this kind). And Onion John recorded some Killdozer for me. Perhaps I will sing some for you. Yes.

On the television, a ship was sinking
it seemed so real, but it was just a movie
made by Irwin Allen (my, what a relief)
and on this ship was Ernest Borgnine,
brave in the face of certain death
he played a cop on a pleasure cruise
along with his wife, an ex-prostitute
of course, Shelley Winters, she was on the ship
she was good, too -- but she died
as did Gene Hackman, a preacher,
who gave his life so that others could live
he died shouting "how many more lives?!"

On the screen, the city crumbled
so realistic, but yet another film
by the master of realism, mr. Irwin Allen
no less a man than Lorne Greene, and mr. George Kennedy,
risked their lives to save the lives of strangers
their selflessness was moving
Chuck Heston was in the movie too -- but he was just a ham.

On the tv, a building in flames
it was "Towering Inferno" by Irwin Allen
O.J. Simpson led the cast
in a man-against-nature fight-for-survival
it was awesome!
yeah, man, it blew me away.

Killdozer, "Man vs. Nature", Twelve-Point Buck

UPDATE: I was curious what became of Killdozer. The Oscar Mayer plant? The Huber brewery? Waupun? Nope.

I love sushi

In case you didn't know, I really love a good sushi. My best friend Natalie introduced me to the money-devouring world of raw fish and I'm a lost case ever since. Our sushi outings are infamous. "We can always order more" is our credo.

Anyway, she gave me a sushi baby outfit for Jacob's birth. And I think he looks incredibly edible in it - but maybe that's just me.

See for yourself under the fold.

Dare me, stare at me!

We're still driving a rental. Our car sits uselessly in the garage, waiting for some committee or other to make up its collective mind about our sinister plans with a family van. Surely, we intend to undermine the local economy, at least.

In any case, we have a very! expensive! rental. It also has a DVD system which the boys love. We play a DVD on the way to school, and on the way back. Since I haul all three kids along, this has proven to be a rather good distraction. [The car also came without rear seat belts. The rental company installed a (one) seat belt when I remarked on that, and then, when I remarked on that, another one. Such is life here.]

So I'm driving this car and I'm getting a lot of looks. Men and women alike stare at the car. First, I thought something was wrong with it. Did it have things hanging off it? Did the license plate flash a dirty pun I wasn't aware of? Was the color offensive? (Dark blue, surely not!) Ah! Were people staring because of the DVD screens? I could imagine that and logged this explanation in place and didn't think anymore about it.

Until I went to clear our car at the customs house. I had to wait in the car for about, oh, four or five hours. It was hot, I didn't have anything to drink, and I hadn't brought a book. The battery had died in the container and had to be replaced, and the radio wouldn't play without the security code (and who knows their security code by heart?)

So, I read the car manual. What else could I do? I found out a lot of neat things about the car. The rear seat belts could be adjusted in height? Who knew? You can program the windows? How cool, let's try that! So I tinkered around in the car. I cleaned up. I unpacked the tools and repacked them nicely. I rearranged the seats. I checked the oil, I checked the water, I checked the tires. You know. Anything to make time pass.

And I got looks. All those people were just staring at me. And again, the old chain of thoughts. Was there something wrong with the car? A giant hole that I hadn't spotted? Was it on fire? Something? Or - maybe they stared because there wasn't a single other woman on the entire compound?

What does it say about me that it took me eight weeks in this country to figure this out? Surely it must mean I'm very secure in my identity as a woman.

I got out of the customs and I saw it, quite clearly. Armenian women don't drive. There is hardly a woman driver on the street, and most of those are Expats. Once you start looking, it's eery to see only men driving. While they stare at you.

What can I say? Get used to it, buddy. It's the future.

I salute you, Finland!

Finland completes part 3e of its plan for world domination. And I for one welcome our new Suomic overlords.

Travel! See the world! And behave.

For years, many people in the world have had a great fondness for America. They have admired our culture, our products and our cheerful, fun-loving nature. In recent years, however, there has been a significant shift in those feelings. Research studies show that, for a number of reasons, "favorablility" ratings for America are declining around the world.
While it is true that the rise in negative feelings toward us may result from perceptions more than reality, it is also true that perceptions are powerful opinion makers. You, and the 55-60 million
other Americans who travel abroad each year, have a unique opportunity to change at least some impressions of us from negative to positive. By following the few simple suggestions in this guide, you can have a better travel experience while showing America’s best face to those you visit.

The World Citizens Guide

Some of the advice is pretty straight forward and always appropriate, not only for Americans, like "Smile. Genuinely." or "Think big. Act small. Be humble.", and "Refrain from lecturing." A little bewildering is the advice not to talk about the bible so much - surely there are Americans who are not Christians?

The guide has some amusing factoids about the world's population and all that but I am afraid that in itself, it's a vain effort. I just can't see the average American tourist reading this before he goes off on a 6-day-tour of Europe.

Oh, and then there is the Germany Survival Bible. I can't describe it. You've got to read it for yourself. I was howling. Howling. But it's true, it's all true.

An inconvenient truth

I think the trailer is a bit lurid but the facts seem to be scientifically correct. And a shock may be in order to rip people out of their safe little worlds and make them wake up, before it is too late.

Watch the movie. Then do something. Anything. Please.

What is the best work of American fiction of the last 25 years? No, really!

I spotted this on John Crowley's LiveJournal, because who reads the New York Times anymore? (John Crowley has a LiveJournal?? Yes he does.)

Early this year, the Book Review's editor, Sam Tanenhaus, sent out a short letter to a couple of hundred prominent writers, critics, editors and other literary sages, asking them to please identify "the single best work of American fiction published in the last 25 years." Following are the results.

THE WINNER:

Beloved, Toni Morrison (1987)

Okay, a legitimate choice. Sometimes, as with Tar Baby, I've wondered if Morrison wasn't an accomplished writer of beach romance who got very lucky indeed. But Beloved is a strong ghost story and a strong race story. ('Race story'? Yes. I'm reclaiming the adjective. Why not? Race is the not-so-secret engine which drives American culture.)

THE RUNNERS-UP:

Underworld, Don DeLillo (1997)

So you're twelve years old, and you're watching Raiders of the Lost Ark for the very first time. That opening sequence in the Amazon, wow! You're blown away. And then, for no good reason at all, Spielberg hands over direction to Robert Altman, who shifts forwards thirty years, exploring Professor Jones' life in academia among the hippies. Every once in a while there's a cool Nazi-stomping flashback, but then the movie switches back to pointless character motion, what they call 'churning' on Wall Street. And it's four hours long.

Underworld is like that.

Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy (1985)

A good psycho Faulkner Jonah Hex-style Western, and maybe the best Western since Oakley Hall's Warlock. It also has the best guest appearance by the Devil I've seen in recent years.

Rabbit Angstrom: The Four Novels, John Updike (1995)
'Rabbit at Rest' (1990)
'Rabbit Is Rich' (1981)
'Rabbit Redux' (1971)
'Rabbit, Run' (1960)

Disqualified. Also, just not that interesting.

American Pastoral, Philip Roth (1997)

I skipped this Roth. Any compelling reason for me to have read it?

THE FOLLOWING BOOKS ALSO RECEIVED MULTIPLE VOTES:

A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole (1980)

A surprise! A fun New Orleans burlesque. (A sympathy vote? It doesn't need one.)

Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson (1980)

John Krewson, now sports editor of The Onion, recommended this to me in college. And I thanked him. A smooth, sly, liquid novel about sisters raised by a transient aunt near a lake in the middle of nowhere, Idaho. (C & D, there's a copy in the last box I sent to Yerevan.)

Winter's Tale, Mark Helprin (1983)

I remember nothing about this doorstop fantasy novel. I think that says it all.

White Noise, Don DeLillo (1985)
Libra, Don DeLillo (1988)

If you like obsessing about the Cold War through extended metaphor, this is the sort of thing you'll like. Also, Libra has some nice Lee Harvey Oswald bits.

The Counterlife, Philip Roth (1986)
Operation Shylock, Philip Roth (1993)
Sabbath's Theater, Philip Roth (1995)
The Human Stain, Philip Roth (2000)
The Plot Against America, Philip Roth (2004)

Wow, I've skipped a lot of Roth. Is he, um, near death and this reflects a sympathy vote? I miss the old 'obsessed with shiksas who will do anything' Roth, because I'm kind of that way myself.

Where I'm Calling From, Raymond Carver (1988)

I predict that, in the near future, the critical apparatus required to read Carver sympathetically will exceed the actual length of his stories. Important, for a moment.

The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien (1990)

Already taught in the high schools. A stereoscopic pair with Haldeman's The Forever War.

Mating, Norman Rush (1991)

John Krewson also recommended this to me in college, but I had already read it. So should you. Bad relationships among expats in a Botswanan commune, from a solidly realized female raconteuse's point of view. (Accurate? I dunno. But solidly realized.)

Jesus' Son, Denis Johnson (1992)

Eh. Still, better than Infinite Jest or Generation X. "How low can you go?"

Independence Day, Richard Ford (1995)

Missed this one. I respect Ford, but I am not taken with Ford.

The Border Trilogy, Cormac McCarthy (1999)
'Cities of the Plain' (1998)
'The Crossing' (1994)
'All the Pretty Horses' (1992)

After All the Pretty Horses, I had no desire to read the sequels. Might be me.

The Known World, Edward P. Jones (2003)

Missed this one completely. Argh. Added to the list.

Now to open up the discussion: what do you think is the best book of American fiction in the last 25 years? (No books where you're personally tuckerized.)

For the mothers amongst our readers

The darkest moment

Jacob has been a blessing from the day he was born. He's generally very happy, cries very little, eats well, enjoys his brothers, loves nursing, and is just all around a joy to have. I've always felt he was my reward, extra easy, to make up for all the pain we went through with Benjamin.

He's also sleeping through the night. At seven months, I put him to bed at 7 pm and he goes to sleep within minutes, without any fussing. He usually sleeps until around 6 am. It's pretty much perfect timing - we can enjoy that morning cuddle and it leaves enough time to get everybody else up, dressed, fed and out of the door by 8:15.

This morning was different, though. He didn't wake up and call out for his morning snack as usual. I was actually okay with that - David had been up since 4:30 and every additional moment of rest was welcome. But it was getting late and I had to wake him. So I went over to the boys' room (they all sleep in one very big room). It was very quiet. The sun had just risen and the window was open - a slight breeze moved the curtains gently. It seemed very peaceful.

I walked over to his crib and was surprised to see him lie with his eyes wide open. I bent over the bed and said, "good morning, sweetie".

There was no reaction.

He stared off into the faraways, unblinking, utterly still. I touched him. His hands were ice cold.

Between this and the next moment, there wasn't much time for coherence. I remember only one distinct thought and that was "NO!".

I whipped him out of his crib, and shook him, hard. He gasped, blinked, and started fussing. Within seconds, the world was back in its place.

I think this was the single scariest moment in my life. It's as if the bottom drops out under you. Your whole life is changed in an instant and there is nothing you can do. Everything will be wrong from now on. And then, all is well again. "Roller coaster" doesn't begin to describe it.

I don't know what happened. Maybe he had slept with his eyes open, although I've never seen him do that before. Maybe he was just cold from the breeze. It probably was nothing at all.

I'm still shaken.

The missing post on Filipino food

Our occasional guest-blogger, Noel Maurer, has been a little busy lately, but through the magic of the Internet we have a replacement for his post on the glamorous food of the Philippines! The great cartoonist Lynda Barry was once asked:

pork versus chicken adobo, which camp do you belong to? and will you share your adobo recipe with us? also bryan wants to know your opinion on the other filipino debate, "long grain vs. calrose"?

Her answers begin here. Remember: chicken adobo will sterilize the problem.

(Shameless name-dropping: Lynda Barry did the cover art for my friends Joe and Anita's wedding album. Eleventeen remixed renditions of the Chicken Dance on CD. It's terrifying. I say this with admiration. Like Ms. Barry, Joe is a product of Richland Center, Wisconsin.)

Also, the Wily Filipino (narrow it down) has blogged about the mystery of adobo here and here, among other places.

PS I'm sending a copy of Cruddy in the next box to Yerevan, so probably in July. C and D, you'll like.

Update: there are also more of Belle Waring's thoughts on the Philippines here. (I should warn our gentle readers that there are some unpleasant and disturbed people in the comments which follow Belle's remarks. And Doug!)

Typhoon Max, Part II

...So I seduced him.

Two weeks after the typhoon, the whole thing was just getting totally intolerable. I mean, he just kept looking right THROUGH me. Wouldn't let me near him, wouldn't let me touch him. Wouldn't sleep with me anymore... he'd still sleep on my bed, but only during the day when I was out. Spent his nights in the guest bedroom. Spent a lot more time than usual wandering the neighborhood, too... he actually got into a fight, his first in months (probably with his archenemy, The Evil Orange Cat). And now and then, if I tried particularly hard to attract his attention, he'd shoot me these brief looks of utter contempt... you know, like "I KNOW I'm compelled to share my living space with you, but MUST you be such a loud, tacky, vulgar, uncouth... human?"

Well.

In a proper seduction, timing is everything. Timing, and patience, and careful preparation. And knowing the weak spots of the object of your seduction.

Max has three. One is obvious as soon as you look at him: good food. He didn't reach 18 pounds plus by being finicky. Max likes eating. The second is catnip.

The third is the sweet spot where his spine makes a right angle at the base of his tail. Short-circuits his brain somehow, that does -- scratch him there for ten seconds, and he trembles, his mouth hangs open, his eyes glaze over, he starts to drool uncontrollably and make strange little percolator noises, and then, more often than not, he'll just collapse on his side, feet sticking straight out, gasping for a belly rub.

But this trick would only work after a good ten seconds of scratching -- not possible while he kept running away from me.

And he had ignored catnip and open cans of Friskies Gourmet, and was still ignoring them. But then, perhaps these were too... obvious. Perhaps some subtlety was called for. And combining the various weak spots together. So...

The first thing I did was shift cat foods. Normally I feed them three or four different kinds -- cheap dry, good dry, fancy-schmansy dry, wet -- more or less at random from day to day, to add a little variety to their lives. But now I shifted to the cheap dry and stayed with it for several days. This brought complaints at first, then an increasing tendency to leave the bowl full while either coming to head-butt and beg for something better (Momo) or becoming ever frostier and more aloof (Max). After a couple of days of this, they were both becoming distinctly peckish.

Then I went and bought some ice cream.

Step two required some patience, waiting for the right moment. It came on Friday afternoon. I got home from work and both Max and Momo were in the living room -- he in his favorite spot, sprawled magnificently across the back of the couch, she on the table curled around the CPU of the Macintosh. Perfect. I went to the fridge and made myself a bowl of ice cream. Momo came in and poured herself around my legs -- ice cream? Is that *ice* cream? Have I told you lately how much I love you, Doug? How much I love, love, love you? Well, I do love you, Doug, yes I do...

Strolling into the living room, I leaned nonchalantly against the bookshelf and began scooping Dreyers Cookies and Cream into my mouth. Momo went into a frenzy of head-butting, shoulder-rubbing, and lascivious purring. Max simply sat there. But -- I know my cat. I could see the hint of tension in his posture. He wanted to step down from his perch and walk away, slowly, ponderously, belly swaying back and forth with dignity... but he couldn't quite bring himself to do it.

"Mmmm," I said. "Good ice cream. Yes, sir." Purring and rubbing. Frosty silences. "Oh -- guess I can't quite finish it. Hmm. Momo-chan, you want some? Yes?" I carefully set the bowl down on the floor. "Oh, do you like that? Yes? Oh we LIKE that, don't we. Iiiiiice creeeeeeeam. Mmmmmmm. Goooooooood."

At this point, of course, Max DID hop down from the couch and waddle, just a little stiff-legged, towards the door. He stopped at the cat door and gave me a swift glance of utter and absolute contempt -- why *ever* did God, Who is a very large cat, create creatures as crass, boorish and generally repulsive as humans, what was He thinking -- and then squeezed himself out, tail twitching with annoyance.

Step two complete, I thought. Now for step three...

Saturday I bought some Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey, and some fresh catnip. Saturday night, no opportunities. Sunday morning, busy. But Sunday afternoon... yes. There they were again, one on the couch, the other on the CPU.

"Sorry, darling," I said to Momo as I scooped her up. "Need you to go outside for a bit," tossing her out and locking the cat door behind her. Ignoring the faint confused mewl, I went back to the freezer and took the whole pint of B&J out.

I tucked myself into the sofa chair, flicked on the TV, and began to slowly scoop spoonfuls out of the carton. History Channel... CNN... VH1... "Mmm. This is good ice cream," Fox Network... ABC... "Baywatch". "Mmm... yeah..." NBC... MTV... "Oh, look, Cheryl Crow is making a video in her underwear. And everyone else in the video is really ugly. Mmm... grunt... um... smack," Discovery channel, CBS, oh heck "Baywatch" again... "Mmmm... sluuurp..."

Across the room, Max was totally engrossed in looking out the window. Ice cream? What ice cream? I'm not interested in any ice cream. I'm so far from being interested in ice cream, that the light from it will take several hours to reach me. Really. MTV? "Baywatch"? Humans are so strange. And boring. This window, now... what an interesting view.

After ten minutes or so of slow spooning and carefully calculated slurps, grunts, and moans of pleasure, there was nothing left of the pint but a golf-ball sized lump of banana ice cream, floating in about two inches of melt at the bottom of the carton. I was ready... it was time to make my move.

Reaching into my pocket, I removed the Baggie full of fresh catnip and, turning slightly away from Max, dumped it into the carton. Three quick stirs with my finger, then I set the carton down on the table, ostentatiously stretched, and said to nobody in particular, "Go pee." Then I walked out the door into the corridor to the bedroom, hands in pockets and singing softly to myself ("This is no social crisis, this is just you having fun, noooo crisis,"), proceeded down the hall to the bathroom, where I opened the door, shut it loudly without going in, stopped singing and began to count very very quietly to myself. "Thirty. Twenty-nine... twenty-eight..."

"...two... one." I had slipped out of my flip-flops, and now I went back up the hall barefoot and on tiptoe, to peer around the door into the living room.

Don't ever let anyone tell you that you can't sneak up on a cat. Sure, their ears and noses are a hundred times better than ours. Sure, they can sense vibrations through the floor and subtle movements of the air. But it doesn't matter how good your senses are if the brain behind them is distracted. And Max had his head shoved so far into the ice cream carton that he was more or less wearing it like a helmet.

And so I was able to come right up behind him and... gently, very gently... lay my hand on his back and begin to stroke.

He twitched. No, he flinched. And he thought about running, I know. But catnip works quickly, and his little brain was already beginning to effervesce. And he was just snorkeling the Ben & Jerry's, lap lap lapping up tonguefuls of melted creamy extra-rich banana ice cream. Just a few seconds, he thought. Just let me finish this off, and then I'll just... Slowly I moved my hand down his back to the spot at the base of his tail, and began to scratch.

It was close. He knew the danger. He quickly slurped up the last of the ice cream, shook the carton off his head (leaving a very fetching crown of liquid Chunky Monkey mixed with scraps of catnip all around the top of it) and took a faltering step or two away. But the catnip had weakened his will, and then the wave from the sweet spot hit his brain.

He trembled. His claws flexed and his eyes glazed over. His mouth dropped open and he began to make strange little percolator noises. He made one last shuddering attempt to gather himself and run away... and then, slowly, with immense dignity, he toppled to one side and collapsed: THUD.

"Awww, Maaax," I said softly, still scratching. I brought my other hand around, and up, and in for the kill, plunging it into the soft fur of his immense belly. "Belly rub, Max... bellllllly ruuuuuuuuub..."

Sunday night Max took the middle of the bed. And instead of wrestling him for it as I normally would, pulling the sheets from under him and shoving him to the edge, I just let him lie there, purring, and I curled myself around him like a comma, and slept peacefully and happily while my great fat cat just purred and purred, rumbling like a hidden engine of happiness through the long quiet tropical night.

Since you asked...

Alan at the Bakery

Alan has been going to the bakery to buy bread.

Alone.

-- Oh, the bakery is just down the street. I mean, if you stand at the end of our driveway, you could hit the bakery with a rock.

And the street is not a busy street, at all. Yerevan may be a city of a million people, but our neighborhood has the look and feel of a village. There's not a lot of traffic. Kids play ball in the street, and people stroll slowly down the middle of it.

Still: four years old, barely.

We give him a hundred-dram coin (about a quarter) and he goes out the door and down the street. The bakery sends most of its product to stores, but there's a small window for local sales. If he stands on his toes, he can just barely reach the buzzer to summon the bakery lady.

The loaf is oval and flat and usually still warm from the oven. He needs both hands to carry it.

And that's all.

Typhoon Max

This was my first published story.

Okay: so far, this has been pretty much my *only* published story. But let that bide.

It's a true story, mostly. Happened when I lived on Saipan, in the Marianas Islands. That was from 1991 to 1998. The typhoon was in, hmm, must have been early '97. I posted the story on the Lois Bujold mailing list, and someone passed it along to a woman who edited a magazine, and I ended up getting some money for it.

The money was very nice, but the main thing is... I miss Max. Still.

Anyway. Someone just asked about it. I didn't keep a copy, but now that we have internet, I was able to find it quickly enough. So here it is.

I think I've mentioned that I have a couple of cats. Momo, the female, is small, calico, and very clever. Max, who used to be male, is fat, affectionate, lazy, cowardly, and -- there is no polite way to put this -- somewhat less than brilliant. Amiable dimwit is how I usually describe him. Feline moron if I'm feeling cranky.

When Max was a kitten, it took him a long, long time to get housebroken. He couldn't figure out litter boxes, and couldn't distinguish between indoors and out... well, I *said* he was stupid. In order to get the idea across, I eventually had to be kind of severe with him (and no, I don't like being severe with animals, especially with cats, upon whom it's usually wasted). He never did figure out litter boxes, but one day the light bulb went on over his little brain -- ping! -- that's what OUTSIDE is for. Ohhh.

When he finally did get it right, though, he became very diligent about it. He'd go outside and make a huge production of digging a DEEP hole, throwing dirt for yards in every direction. Then he'd dig a second hole, more slowly and carefully, to get dirt to fill the first one... yes, really. Not so bright, remember?

This raised some additional problems, of course. Visitors began saying things like, "Doug, what the hell happened to your lawn?" But after another year or two of mostly gentle persuasion, I was able to convince him to restrict his sanitary functions to a few select areas outside the public view -- behind the flower bed, up in the little patch of jungle north of the house, and across the street in the junk yard, where he could dig and bury to his heart's content.

Now, Max and Momo are boonie cats, distant descendants of sailor's felines brought by the Spanish galleons. For a hundred generations, their ancestors ran feral in Saipan's forests, living on rats and lizards and native birds, before people got around to re-domesticating them. So they've got the instincts of tropical animals, and they know all about typhoons.

The falling barometer affected their behavior pretty obviously. Momo, normally the most independent of creatures, began hovering ever closer to me, drifting along at my heels as I moved from room to room. Max, on the other hand, went into the laundry hamper. As the storm moved closer, he dug himself ever deeper down into the sheets and towels and dirty underwear. By the time the first big winds hit, he had been down there for twelve hours or so.

So. Fast forward to ten or so on Saturday morning. The eye of the storm was an hour away from its closest passage. Winds outside were sustained at something over a hundred miles per hour, with gusts up to one-forty or so. W ind noise so loud that conversation had to be shouted. Rain intermittent, blindingly thick one moment, clear the next. Boiling sky above, split by lightning every few seconds, and the occasional piece of random debris flying past -- branches, coconuts, pieces of corrugated tin, the hard plastic liner from the back of someone's pickup truck.

I had all the windows boarded on two sides of the house, but not on the lee side -- we knew that the winds would come mostly from the south and west, and I wanted to be able to see out. So I was standing on the east side of my living room, ankle deep in warm water (leaky house, tile floor), and looking out over the small lake that had taken over my side yard, when I heard a plaintive little yowl. A familiar plaintive little yowl. It was the sound that Max used to make before I installed the cat door, when he desperately needed to go outside.

"Max?"

"Mrrowl." I have to go outside.

"Max, you must be kidding me. We're having a typhoon."

"Mrrowl!"

"Max, we're in the MIDDLE of a typhoon. It's a hundred miles an hour out there."

"Mrrooooooowl!!" I REALLY have to go outside. I've been in that laundry basket since yesterday.

"Max... uh, oh shit."

"Mrwl." Yes, exactly.

"Oh, oh gosh. Well... let's take a look."

I probably should describe the layout of my house at this point. It's one story, long and skinny from north to south. The south end faces the road across a small front yard. On the west there's a long skinny patch of lawn and then a very overgrown and scruffly flower garden. The north end has no windows, and there's a little patch of jungle behind it, presided over by a hundred-year-old breadfruit tree. To the east there's a big, low yard, which at this point was now a small lake, maybe two hundred feet by fifty, and nearly a foot deep. The front door opens out of the kitchen onto the driveway, to the south. There's a door to the west that opens on nothing in particular.

So anyway, Max waddled over to the western door, picking his way across the wet tile floor, and looked up at me and mrowled again. I shook my head, but he just kept looking at me, so I grabbed the knob and shoved *hard* against the door. It wouldn't budge at first -- the wind was coming out of the southwest, hitting it almost square on -- but I waited until it subsided for a moment, then slammed my shoulder against it and jammed my foot in before the wind could knock it shut.

Outside, the storm had laid the grass flat. The palm trees were bent into U-shapes, heads touching the ground. The rain had almost stopped for the moment, but the few stray drops were like BB pellets. And the force of the wind was such that I, 190 pound human, had to put my head down and lean far forward and brace myself just to look out the door.

"No, Max, I really don't think --" But he was already hopping over my foot and out the open door. "Hey, what? Max!" He made a beeline for his favorite spot, the scruffy weedy little garden to the west of my house, across the little lawn.

That western strip of lawn slopes a little upwards. I had never really noticed this before, but now I could see it clearly. Because, you see, the slope meant that the lawn immediately adjacent to the house was sheltered, just a little, at least down at cat-level, a foot or so off the ground. So Max got out the door okay. But once he moved a few feet away from the house, and started to ascend that little slope, the full force of the wind caught him head on.

He slowed. He slowed to a crawl, and then to a creep. But he didn't stop. He flattened himself against the ground and, as I watched in amazement and growing awe, began to *squirm* forward across the wet grass.

The wind was solid, smooth and glassy, palpable. The farther he moved from the house, the worse it got. From the door I could see the fat on his flanks and buttocks begin to ripple, and then to flutter. When he turned his head, I could see his jowls were pushed back against his shoulders, and his lips were flared into a rictus, like the face of an astronaut in a jet-sled.

But he kept going. His claws were out and he was pulling himself forward like a mountaineer using pitons to traverse a wall of ice. Bit by bit, inch by inch, he crept forward to within a couple of feet of the far edge of the lawn.

And there he stopped. The ground rose to a little ridge there. It was only a foot or two in elevation, but it concentrated the air flowing over it, and the wind speed was at its very highest just there. And no matter how hard Max tried, pulling with his front legs, kicking with his back, he couldn't cross those last few feet. His claws just could not get enough purchase on the slick wet grass. Again and again, he stormed that little ridge in slow motion, squirming forward into the howling river of air, clawing and kicking against the invisible power of the gale. And again and again, he would just reach the top, only to lose his grip and be forced backwards by the wind, claws digging furrows in the wet dirt.

He tried tacking, zigzagging against the wind's direct path, but that was even worse: it turned his fat flanks broadside to the storm, and he lost ground even faster.

At last, in frustration, he pushed himself as close to the top as he could and then gathered his back legs under him and leaped. The result was utterly predictable: the instant he left the ground, the wind just grabbed him and threw him back across the lawn, costing him all the ground that he had so laboriously gained.

"Oh, Max!" He was back inside, wet, muddy, battered. "Max, guy, are you okay? Let me get a towel," But he was shaking himself and growling (growling? Max?) with frustration. "Max?"

He looked at me. "Mrowl! Mrrrooooooowwl!"

"Max, I know, but no way! Forget it, guy! Listen -- I'll make you a litter box, okay? Yeah, I threw the old one away years ago, but we can rig something up -- uh, I'll get a cardboard box, shred some paper towels, that Robert Jordan novel that somebody gave me -- listen, guy, you're not going to --"

He gave me a look that stopped me cold. It was a look that I had never seen before, a look that was cool and stern and righteous. It was a look that said, as clearly as words: I know what is right even if you do not. A proper cat does not go in the house. Ever.

"Yeah, but Max, it's okay, I never meant -- Max! Hey, Max!" H e was off across the room, splashing across the wet floor, and climbing up onto the back of the couch to peer out the (un-boarded) eastern window. This was a Max I had never imagined. This was a cat who was alert, intent, focused. This was a cat filled with grim resolution. This was a cat possessed. He stared out the window for a long moment, thinking (thinking? Max?) and then, in a flash, he was down on the floor again and zipping into the kitchen.

"Max!" I splashed after him, just in time to see his tail disappearing into the dryer hole.

Now, the dryer hole is set several feet off the ground, in the southern front of the house, facing the driveway. The cats can use it to get outside by climbing up on the washing machine, but normally they don't, because the drop is inconvenient. It's got a little tin shutter, which the wind had blown shut (some water got in, but that hardly mattered, water was getting in everywhere). I would have nailed it shut, but who could imagine that I would need to?

How Max managed to push it open against the force of the storm will forever remain a mystery. But he did, and squeezed himself through. The wind slammed the shutter on his tail as he dropped down, and it scraped off a big tuft of hair and some skin, but he got outside. And now he was on the driveway at the south face of the house, with the wind coming straight at him.

Opening the front door was even worse then the side door had been, because the front door opened inwards. Once unlatched, it wanted to fly open for good, letting the wind inside the house. I braced my feet, leaned my whole body against it, and cautiously poked my head out.

The rain had started again, fat drops coming at us like bullets. Max was a few feet to my left, squashed against the bottom of the outside wall, the wind shoving him flat against the concrete like a cop arresting a criminal. I could see him shuddering as the rain hit him. A few feet beyond him, at the corner of the house, the drain from the roof was coming down like a firehose.

"Oh, Max," I said. " Dumb idea. Dumb, dumb. Come on guy," I reached around the edge of the door. "Come on back inside. Come on. Psss, pss, pss --"

But now he was moving, and not towards me, but away, towards the water spout. The water was coming down with tremendous force, the rain from thousands of square feet of roof collecting into this one spot, a gallon per second or more blasting down onto the driveway in a solid mass. Pressed flat, Max slid along the wall, closer to it, closer... and then he simply disappeared into the waterfall.

"I didn't see that." I said it out loud. Max, my cowardly eunuch, walking into a firehose spray of water without an instant's hesitation? Max, who screamed like a skewered baby when I gave him his quarterly bath? Max? I put my back against the front door, braced my legs, and shoved it shut. Then I skidded through the kitchen, back into the living room, and flattened my face against the eastern window.

The rain was coming down in diagonal curtains, and for long moments I simply could not see anything. But then it paused, and I saw Max. He was crossing the eastern yard... which was under nearly a foot of water.

The east side was the lee of the house, partially sheltered, so the wind was not so bad. Still, it was whipping the miniature lake into whitecaps as it gusted around the corners of the house. Max wasn't quite swimming -- his feet could just touch the ground beneath the water -- but only his head, rump, and tail were above the surface, and the waves would go right over him.

Still, he forged steadily onwards, chugging along like a little ironclad. When waves broke over his head he simply closed his eyes and ducked and kept going. Fifty feet, a hundred. He was heading north, crossing the yard the long way, moving almost parallel to the house but slightly away from it in shallow diagonal. He took a detour at one point to circle around something -- a deeper spot, or maybe some debris beneath the water -- but he never stopped moving.

At the far northern end, the water got over his head, and he had to swim. He swam.

"I'm not seeing this," I said. "I am NOT seeing this." Swimming? Max? I could not have been more dumbfounded if he had demonstrated the ability to levitate. And where was he going? A few more yards, and he'd be out of the lee of the house, exposed to the storm again.

And then I saw it. Beyond the north end of the yard, set up on a little bank, was the patch of jungle. Most of it was exposed to the storm, and that part was a death trap, branches whipping wildly back and forth with terrible, maiming force. But there was one calm spot: the lee of the ancient breadfruit tree.

Max never hesitated. He hit the shore, scrambled up the muddy bank, clawed his way across the stretch where the wind was angling in at full strength, and then gave a single enormous leap with the wind behind him to reach the trunk of the breadfruit tree. He hit it, clung, scrambled around it like a squirrel and he was home free, in the lee, sheltered. He backed down to the ground and slowly, methodically he began to dig.

I watched with absolute fascination. Minutes passed as he dug deeper, careful, thorough. The wind got stronger, gustier, and more random, switching direction suddenly around a quarter of the compass, southwest west southeast. The lightning flashed and the thunder boomed. Max never looked up from his digging.

More minutes passed. The wind got even stronger. Somewhere around this point, my neighbor's car port abruptly parted company with his house and took off for Taipei like a big corrugated tin pterodactyl, dropping pieces of nail-studded two-by-fours all across my lawn and roof as it headed up into the cauldron of the sky. I never noticed. I was watching my cat. And then he was ready. With an unmistakable air of triumph, he turned away from his deep, deep hole, backed up, raised his tail, assumed the position --

-- and the wind shifted ten points around the compass, from southwest to north, and gusted, hard, hitting him broadside and blowing him away, ass over teakettle across the flooded lawn. He went flying over it like a stone skipped across a pond, and then the wind picked him *up*, 140 mph gale lifting him like a scrap of paper, and flung him into the plumeria tree at the front of my house, ten feet off the ground.

"MAAAAAX!!" I was out the front door without a second's thought, screaming across my lawn. Of course the wind hit me like a nose tackle me once I was out on my driveway, pow, and whoof suddenly I'm on the ground looking up at the clouds going by overhead much too fast. Pick myself up and, whoosh, suddenly the wind swings back into the southwest, and my writhing, squalling cat flies out of the tree and hits the driveway, bounces once, and throws himself on me and *clings*. I scream, grab him, let the wind push me back across the driveway, lurching like a drunken man, in through the front door, slip and skid, the wind is coming in through the open door and I fall again and the cat flies off, slides across the wet floor, and comes to a stop in the middle of the living room floor, totally drenched, flattened, with all four limbs outstretched like a cartoon character that's been hit by a steamroller.

"M-M-M-Max," I said, wiping bloody claw scratches and rain, "you, uh, you, ah huh, ah hah, ah ha ha ha ha, ahh, hahahahahaha ---" I couldn't help it. Shock, reaction, and, dammit, he did look pretty funny. Flat, wet, fat cat, floored, looking back at me with big wild eyes. "Oh, Max, I, you, ah huh, oh ha ha ha," and now he was looking at me with dawning horror, cats hate nothing worse than being laughed at, "oh hoo hoo hoo, no, Max, haha, listen, hoo hoo, no, I'm sorry," but it was too late. He gave me a look of absolute and utter outrage -- he had just very nearly died, trying to do the right and righteous thing, and I was LAUGHING at him -- and then slunk off, wet, bruised, and trembling with shock and humiliation.

He did his business behind the hot water heater in the back of the utility closet, and then he went under the bed in the spare bedroom and stayed there for the next two days. Didn't make a sound, didn't eat, didn't respond to my blandishments and apologies or to catnip or the open can of Friskies that I left there. Just stayed back by the wall, eyes wide open and gleaming back at me when I kneeled down to beg his forgiveness and ask him to come out again.

He finally came out this morning, but he's not talking to me. When I called him, he ignored me. When I tried to get near him, he gave me one of those cat looks -- you know, the ones that say, "Excuse me, sir, but I don't believe I know you. Kindly do not be so familiar." -- and then ran away without letting me touch him.

And he's right. He was so brave, and I laughed at him...

I feel horrible.

How do you apologize to a cat? Anyone?

Here we are again!

You know, considering that this line connects us to the world, to newspapers, blogs, email, to friends and relatives, to facts and trivial stuff, to music, videos and online kids' games -- for all that, it's a remarkably unremarkable cable. It's thin. It sneaks in over the roof and through the window into the study. Thin, black, a little twisted. But it's a DSL line and the force is great with that one! Yohoo!

Well. Excuse me. It's important to us.

When I was born, the internet didn't exist. I know this will come as a shock to you, youthful looking that I am and so forth. But really, I wasn't introduced to email until my late twenties (stop calculating right now!) It did change my life, literally so. I met my husband online. In real life, we'd probably never have met by chance - he lived on the other side of the globe by then. That's one good reason to be addicted to the Internet.

There used to be a time when I looked facts up in encyclopedias. Now, I google whatever I want to know. Basic pie crust recipe with clear descriptions and pictures? Martha Stewart. Death rate of infants after DTP shot? ... Weather Forecast for the weekend? ... The latest pictures of my goddaughter? (Sorry, that site requires a password and you cannot have it.) A video of a snail devouring an earthworm? It's right there, at the tip of a finger.

Or not.

And then it hurts. It's amazing how much you miss it. How cut off from the world you feel. How you have this sense of urgency - there could be an important email waiting on the server, waiting for you to reply! And how amazing that there almost never actually is such an email. But there could be, right? It's possible. The world doesn't miss you nearly as much as you miss it, that's the sad fact.

But we're back online and because it's my blog, I can yell now:

Hello World! We are back!

[cough] Thank you. We now return to our usual mix of trivia, history and kids' pictures.

Flowers in the front yard

My little school of seeds...

Alan and nanny Karine in the back yard, weeding

Rainy Season

It's the rainy season here.

Understand that this is relative. When I lived in the Marianas Islands, "rainy season" meant that, several times a day, it would just pour down rain, in curtains and sheets so thick that you couldn't see across your yard. Brown torrents would run down the roads. Toads would move into your house to get out of the wet. Then the sun would come out and the world would turn to steam.

This isn't like that. More like, it rains most days, and sometimes two or three times a day. On the wet side of a normal April in, say, New York.

But in New York, it rains year round. In Yerevan, this is about it.

I noodled around for meteorological data. Yerevan has a dry continental climate; it gets about 550 mm or 21 inches of rain per year. (For reference, 500 mm or 20 inches is the point where ordinary agriculture, without irrigation, starts getting a bit challenging. Go under 20 inches, and the word "arid" enters the conversation.)

In April and May, Yerevan can expect to get between 80 and 90 mm of rain. Not too different from New York or Germany.

But in July, August, and September -- combined -- we can expect about 25 mm of rain. Less than one inch. In Europe or the eastern US, that's a rounding error. Basically, all summer long, it doesn't rain.

You can see it, too, if you look. The vegetation has that shaggy, manic look that dry country plants get when the rain comes. You can see that they're sponging it up for the long drought, and leafing and flowering like crazy while they can. Our back yard (despite Claudia's best efforts with the weed whacker) has gotten very jungly. You just know that by September, everything will be shriveled and dry and yellow.

Anyway. One interesting side effect is that we all have colds.

Another is that it hailed yesterday. That was way cool. I was out on the back porch with the boys, and it was thundering. They liked that. Then we heard this sound -- hssssss -- and I thought, ah hah, here comes the rain, walking across the city towards us. But after a few seconds I thought, no, that's too loud. And as it came closer, it was more of a staccato sound: tik tik pop whack boom.

Yerevan has a lot of corrugated tin roofs, do you know? And there's nothing like the sound a curtain of hail makes as it falls towards you, miles wide and high as the sky, ticking and banging on a thousand acres of tin. Staccato becoming a growl becoming a ROAR, as suddenly the little pieces of hard whiteness began falling all around us.

"It's from the North Pole!" yelled Alan. And he's remained convinced of that since.

Anyway: rain. We should enjoy it while we can.