From Trojan Women to Western Longshoremen in Everyday Ramblings

Apparently, the longshoremen here on the West Coast used to get a case of whisky for each big job as part of their compensation. One of the guys in our group’s father was the attorney for their Union back in the 40’s and 50’s. It was a wide-ranging discussion yesterday back at the coffee group.

Mr. Pedantic was subdued and so I didn’t have any issues with him. Well, he did say at the end that he appreciated all I was doing in particular with the League of Women Voters. I will take that.

We had a board meeting at his house on Wednesday and I was determined to find out what his cat’s name was. I have seen him weekly for over a year. You would think a person’s cat’s name would have come up in that time. His name is Theo. He was a lump under the bed clothes when I went to the bathroom, but I did introduce myself.

Walt is back from Mexico, and we are on to our next projects with The Open Road. Walt got the first copy of his book from the printer. He is totally chuffed. At 72 he is now officially an author. The preorder link is here if you want to see the cover and the write up.

We are having a book release party for him in a couple of weeks. I call him Walt because he loves Walt Whitman.

We are getting the press set-up, and still getting the film distributed and thinking about what else we would like to do.

He wanted the next Meditation and Mindfulness Dialogue to feature pieces on yoga. He has a close friend that visited him from New York in Mexico that is a long-time yogi that runs a big Buddhist center there. I am most interested in what he has to say about yoga.

Even though I teach yoga and have been practicing it since 1999 I don’t talk about it all that much so writing about it was a challenge. He asked specific questions, which helped structure the essay I wrote this week. His book has some earlier writings but a lot of it are things he has written for the dialogues over the last five years. I can do that with my manuscript as well. Bring in the pieces I have written for him.

I was chuffed when he said what I wrote was beautiful. I feel uneasy about these things because I am, um, no surprise, a bit of a perfectionist and there is no editor. A person needs an editor. I will hire one for my manuscript as he did for his. The whole thing is feeling a tad less abstract.

We had 12 people in the group yesterday and folks wanted to talk about the Presidential election contest. In the group you get fined a quarter if the name of the previous president gets mentioned. Nobody collects but it makes a point that of all the things, national politics is not on the table.

We talked about the book, about mentoring remedial math to 5th graders, as one of the guys is doing, hospice care, can a baby be influenced in the womb by what it hears from the outside, is masturbation a crime that should be punishable by jail time if destroying a fertilized egg is enough to bring a civil case, and would that mean that all the men in the country would be in jail. We paused a beat on that. A whole lot of writers were mentioned, and books from Tracy Kidder to Euripides.

That is how we got to The Trojan Women. Walt described a production of the play he went to that was incredibly powerful as there were no seats. The audience mingled with the actors and the scene was a slave market. The most powerful anti-war play you can imagine. Ugh.

I am going to the periodontist in a few hours for an extraction. At least I hope he is able to do it today. I have a small infection that looks like impetigo on the corner of my mouth from the stress of the crown prep I had done last week, and I hope he can give me antibiotics and does the work.

The ice pack is ready. There is pudding and yogurt in the refrigerator. I have the new Tana French book on my Kindle. I think I am ready.

Tomorrow the plan is to go to a local Garden Discovery Day with Mrs. Sherlock. I am going to get the PH tested of soil from my plot. The garden tables are out at the local hardware garden store. I am excited to see the growing season begin.

p.s. No dental surgery after all. He came up with an elaborate plan that will start between now and June, and cost a small fortune. (He is a professor at the dental school and does not profit from this, other than sharing it with his students. He takes a lot of pictures.) I am on a wait list for the surgery. I suspect I will have finished the tapioca and yogurt by then…

Last updated March 09, 2024