Simply 60

Bugged

I believe I just had my first x-rated blog response. Broken English. An invitation to become Juicy SomebodyorOther's good friend by viewing his blog. I didn't. I'm too old for juicy. Probably in every sense of the phrase. This is an aspect of blogging that seems so predictable in hindsight but until this evening never occurred to me. I guess there isn't a good blog-spam blocker out there????

Today was ruled by bugs. Ants with wings. I discovered them a week or so ago in the basement when I embarked on throwing out the last (tax) records of the Map & Legend. I opened a file box and — a la a good horror flick — out scrambled several dozen of these ants, all running helter skelter, as hysterical to find themselves suddenly thrust into the light as I was to have them pop out when I striped the box lid off. Carpenter ants they turned out to be. Not as bad as termites but not a welcome guest either.

The bug-killer came this morning. A wiry little guy who looked...well...like he's breathed in too many poisonous fumes over a lengthy career as an exterminator. We had to be out of the house from 11 until 3. That's a long time to hang out in sweltering temps with a dog. No going to the (air-conditioned) movies for us, oh no. Instead we had a meeting with our might-be builder who wanted to encourage us not to give up our quest for approval to build next door. Listening to his earnest support, I have to confess I morphed from secretly wanting to continue to not trusting the process at all, slipping from fury to eroded resolve. As you might guess, this was contrary to his intent.

At 3:30, after running a series of concocted errands, we returned to Chez Funkhouser. I expected the house to smell. It didn't. But there were many carcasses, little bug feet thrust heavenward, on the basement floor. Clearly the stuff works. 

I believe I will sleep with a surgical mask in place tonight.

Truffle: Although neither was 'the best,' today's truffle is the first summer tomato/corn on the cob combo. The coveted meal we spend ten months awaiting. Today was the beginning. Let the basil lie down in mozzarella and the butter drip languidly off the cob for at least eight weeks to come.

Quote of the day: "Sex is good, but not as good as fresh, sweet corn." (Garrison Keillor)

Big red

I flew home today. Given what happened with Our Big Disappointment the night before I left, I felt rotten about leaving and everso glad to be home. Not that anything has changed. We did hear from the architect and will see her later this week (oh joy). We also got a wonderful letter from the man who might be our builder, who happened to be at that HDC meeting, cheering us on and offering his help — in one of the best written letters I've seen in a long time (which registers with me most high).

Because 'life' cannot be planned, not really, we were sitting on the porch, catching up, minding our own business when Pete levitated out the door. "There's a dog in the middle of Main Street!" he said, or words to that effect. (I was on the phone to my sister). He grabbed the leash, I put Cajun inside (anticipating possible mayhem) and signed off with my sister. Then there Pete was, being walked onto the porch by this massive red golden retriever. He was frantic, stank of the river and was a force to be reckoned with (I'd judge well over 100 lbs of nervous dog energy). Although he had a nice leather collar and behaved nobly when commanded (he knew sit, lie down and was ready to offer a paw to shake at any moment), he was one desperate dog. 

To backtrack, Pete heard people shouting out near Main Street and went to investigate. And there was Big Red, floundering in the middle of the road. When Pete called him, he simply lay down and rolled over on his back, so relieved was he to be rescued. And lucky he was. Pete called the police, who reported it to the Dog Officer, who called and then came by to pick him up. Which worried me. No way was I letting this dog be sacrificed to the needle. 

But Jennifer, the dog officer, showed up in an SUV, not a white truck with cage openings. She reassured us that they don't put dogs down anymore. They will keep him for 10 days and, if he is not claimed and he cannot be adopt out by them, they will turn him over to a rescue operation called Buddy Dog. She said she would call us one way or the other. And I said, OK, because I could find a good home for him, if they couldn't. So, Big Red may spend a few uncomfortable days but, if he is not rescued by his (obviously loving — this well trained, neutered, pure-bred) family, we will step in. 

It is good to be home. There's so much to recommend it. Beginning with Pete and moving along to such wonderful features of life in the Northeast as enlightened public dog recovery. OK so I'm quoting insipid Dorothy, so forgive me, but indeed: "There is no place like home." Munchkins aside.

Truffle: Seeing my spice girl waiting on the lawn for me this afternoon. She's not very good at giving greetings yet, but she is improving. I got the impression (for the first time) she was both amazed and glad to see me again.

Quote of the day: "Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man himself will not find peace." (Albert Schweitzer)

Waddy

Apologies up front to Katharine, Beverly, Georgia and Patti — my friends who came by their collars honestly. Today I was 'ordained' — for $29.95 — by The Ministries Seminary of America. That is to say, I ordered my certificate of authenticity, complete with official seal, off the internet. After a visit to the Shelby County Clerk's Office, we learned that indeed to officiant at Lauren's wedding I need to represent a 'church, religion or civil authority,' although they quickly added that they don't check one's credentials. Still, we want this wedding to be legal, so we got me 'ordained.' I don't even think its temporary. So I may have a retirement career (although Kentucky law plainly states it's illegal to solicit marriages — an arcane but charming touch).

It was a slow day in Waddy. But then that's pretty much the pace out here. This morning the hottest (legal) activity for miles, not counting the rising thermometer, were the hummingbirds going after the nectar Nancy prepared last night. Sitting on the deck this morning, sipping tea and reading The Confessions of Nat Turner, I was periodically buzzed by them as they soared into the feeder just over my head. It's amazing how loud their wings are. As for illegal activity, just down the road is a farmer who breeds cocks for fighting. It's against the law in Kentucky to participate in cock fights. But it is not illegal to raise them. Hmmm?

Waddy is nothing more than a convenience store — Truckside — at a railroad crossing. The trains carrying cars from the Ford Motor plant in Louisville stop here every day so the conductor can step down and get a bite to eat. Waddy claims a population of 3300± but Nancy scoffs and says that's the count for 'metropolitan Waddy.' According to her, the truth is closer to this: there are more cows than people.

And then there are the dogs. Frequently in this house the dogs out number the humans two to one. Or more. Nancy and Brian have three, all rescues — one-eyed Dexter (a lab/Great Pyrenees mix; age about 12); Zack (a mongrel of terrier derivation who is a little light in his loafers); and toothless Emma, a pit bull, discriminated against for her bred when she is the biggest wad of cotton candy on four paws. Nancy volunteers for the Shelby County Animal Rescue, so she is proprietor of the Last Chance Ranch. Brian's son and daughter live on the property too; one has three dogs, the other two. They all come down here to hang out and eat. Sallie, the smiling hound. Oak Tree, formerly Amos, who is 13. Layla, a black lab mix who parents are going through a divorce and so she is often forgotten. And three others whose names I did not get. Yesterday — Family Night in the Guilliom household, where all assemble for the evening meal, there were seven dogs making themselves at home. The chow bowl is always out here. So it can be hard to negotiate a path to the kitchen. But there's a lot of drooling gratitude going around, too.

The sky is going green. Another summer storm approaches. So I will end here before the power is interrupted for the second time today. Another piece of exotica from life in Waddy.

Truffle: A cup of tea, a good book and a quiet morning overlooking the two lakes at Maple Lane Farm.

Quote of the day: "Eating with the fullest pleasure — pleasure, that is, that does not depend on ignorance — is perhaps the profoundest enactment of our connection with the world. In this pleasure we experience our dependence and our gratitude, for we are living in a mystery, from creatures we did not make and powers we cannot comprehend." (Wendell Berry)

Showers

Kentucky is thunder-boomer land. And I love it. There is nothing weeny about Kentucky showers. Here, when it rains, it pours. When I was a kid, a great pleasure was playing in the rain. The gutters throwing torrents down toward the big street. Put a foot cross-wise and you made a dam. Throw in a feather or a leaf and you learned about the power of gravity as illustrated in water. I am reminded of e.e. cummings. Grow up here and you know without having to read the poem that the world is, indeed, mud-lucious and puddle-wonderful.

Every night since I've been here there has been a downpour. Since I am upstairs in a post-and-beam house deep in the center of the state (Waddy, to be exact), the rafters roar with rainfall. It is a spectacular sound extravaganza, matched only by the din of locust song at dusk. Nancy says some people feel the need of earplugs at night. Odd, but to me, the louder the better. But then for me, it is the sound of childhood, of security, of home, of summer nights when all was right with the world. Or if all wasn't, there was at least this constancy of bugs and bangs in the night to lull me to sleep. 

But speaking of showers: today was Lauren's wedding shower, hosted by Nancy and me at Lauren's stepmother's home. The shower itself was a test of my resolve and maturity since said stepmother broke up Nancy's first marriage. I will take whatever abuse comes my way but hurt the people I love and, well, let's say it speaks to my Mr. Hyde side. This nod to my mother and Nancy's mother, both of whom did considerable work to harness my wild side and make a 'lady' of me — I attempted gracious. It was awkward, and my nose grew, but the affair came off with much laughter and good cheer. It amuses me that I was on my best behavior not because my mother was lording it over me (which used to be the sole motivation) but because my godchild was so deserving. 

Truffle: After a full day, cleaning up after dinner with my best friend since time, singing and dancing in place to Martha and the Vandellas, the Four Tops, the Temptations and Marvin Gaye. No matter that we sing out of tune or move with the fluidity of glued parts. We are happy, we are together and, in this moment by the sink, young again.

Quote of the day: "You can always tell a real friend; when you've made a fool of yourself, (s)he doesn't feel you've done a permanent job." (Laurence Sterne)

What goes around

Beware the power of the past.

A flurry of deja vu moments in and around Louisville. Driving past the old house where I grew up, seeing Daddy's beloved yard and garden overgrown to the point of tributes to the God of Weeds. Checking the pink and white dogwood trees we planted at Highland Presbyterian Church, each in its own time, in memory of our parents — one now dead. Tree, that is. Toolin' up Ransdell Avenue, scoping out Jim Thompson's house, famous in our memories as the place we hung out through junior and senior high and got into, or at least planned, some serious mischief; more famous these days as the home of Hunter S. Thompson, Jim's older and derelict brother. Driving through Cherokee Park, eerily unchanged — from Daniel Boone's statue to the statuesque houses lining the park roads. Going to Nancy's old house, which was her parents' house and before that her great aunt's and which is now her daughter Lauren's, to discover that the tree I planted in the side yard there in Nancy's father's memory has also expired. (I might add: this is not supposed to happen. But of course trees, being living things, have it within them to croak. Why did I not think of that? Then? Next time I think I need a memorial, I am going to plant a rock.) 

And then there's the feeling of summer in Kentucky: walking from A/C into the natural environs is like walking into a hot washcloth. Try breathing through one of those! And the sky this afternoon? Zowie. Roiling thunderheads — then torrential rains, winds that tore off branches and stripped away leaves and the consequent dramatic (20 degree) drop in temps. 

Most dramatic of all was spending the afternoon with Lauren, now 31. I remember when she was an illustration in a book on human pregnancy — at that point, in utero, she resembled, according to this book, a tiny reptile. Then, time passed. Fast forward to a July afternoon in 2010. She is a willowy beauty now. Poised and funny and talented in ways predictable — she has her grandmother's gift for teaching small children — and amazingly new: she is hand-making all her wedding invitations. Mother, daughter and godmother convened in a barnyard planning a wedding as surprisingly original as the young woman herself. 

Departing from Blackacre Nature Preserve, aka the barnyard & 170 acre homestead, I catch a glimpse of a sign at the entrance thanking Judge Macauley Smith and his wife Emilie for the donation of the property to the state nature conservancy commission. I note the names because, in the past, Macauley Smith was a family friend and fellow Fincastle Beagle Club member. The world is not so small as it is circular. If one lives long enough, that is.

Truffle: Ice cream before lunch.

Quote of the day: "When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Kentucky, because everything there happens 20 years after it happens anywhere else." (Mark Twain)

My old Kentucky home

Where else but in Kentucky could I be nostalgic about a 105° heat index? It was a timely change of venue. For me at least. After last night's bitter outcome in Concord, it was a gift to rise with first light and hightail it to New Hampshire to catch a plane to Louisville. That would be Lu-vul, if you have the proper come froms.

It is hot here. Hot. But the people are so in-your-face friendly, telling you, a complete stranger, their life histories in exchange for your business at the check-out counter or the transmission shop, that the weather pales beside the warmth coming off the locals. It is odd. I can remember coming back to Kentucky, where I grew up, when my parents still lived here and I considered myself a transplanted Easterner. Living in New York City you quickly learn that eye contact is a personal affront, sometimes worse, a threat punishable by spit or curse or crossing the street in avoidance. But here in Kentucky and, really, in the South generally, everyone's you best bud, even if you've never laid eyes on them before. And will never set orbs on them again. It is unnerving to a Yank to find all the barriers that protect one from direction social interaction torn down, obliterated by cheerfulness.

Perhaps I should explain what I'm doing here. No, I did not run away from home. Indeed I hated abandoning Pete the day after our shattering disappointment. But a date is a date. And I have a date with a godchild. My good ole friend Nancy's daughter Lauren, who is getting married this fall. Which calls for a bridal shower. That's what godmother's do, right? Nancy and I were also going to sneak in a Four Tops concert as a nod to our misspent youth (the time I sang with them at Centre College, by way of example) but it was cancelled probably, we figure, because we accounted for the entire advanced sales.

Tonight we dined at Claudia Sanders, daughter of the colonel, in Simpsonville. Fried chicken, greasy beans, corn pudding, mock oysters (see recipe — a specialty at Claudia's).

Here's the recipe for Mock Oysters

2 med. sized eggplants, peeled and cut into 1/2" cubes

1 lb. box Saltines, broken into course crumbs

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1/2 C butter

1 pint Half & Half

Soak the eggplant about 8 hours in salted water. Remove eggplant pieces from the water. In cooking pot cover eggplant with fresh, slightly salted water. Cook over med. heat for about 20 min. or until tender. Drain. Pre-heat oven to 350°. Line bottom of 2 qt. casserole with 1/3 Saltine cracker crumbs. Cover with 2 C eggplant. Season with half the salt and half the pepper. Cut half the butter in to small pieces and dot on top. Cover this with 1/2 of the remaining cracker crumbs. Add remaining 2 C eggplant. Season with remaining S&P. Cover with remaining crumbs. Cut remaining butter in pieces and sprinkle on top. Pour in enough Half & Half to cover (it may not require the entire pint). Back 1 hr. or until top layer is brown. Serves 8. (1 serving = 455 calories & 42% of sodium RDA).

Reputed to be the best thing that every happened to eggplant. Eat it if you dare. I didn't.

Note: Seventeen years ago today I was med-EVac'ed off Nantucket, paralyzed from the rib cage down on my right side. Every year I note the anniversary of the day my life was rearranged.

Truffle: Nancy. Best friend since the 9th grade. We swooned together over 'Moon River'; held a memorial service for Chirpy the canary; and sold handmade (by her mother) cummerbunds and pound cakes (baked by her mother) at school to raise money so she could come to Sanibel with me and my parents. And so many more memories shared.

Quote of the day: "The antidote for fifty enemies is one friend." (Aristotle)

Bang bang, we're dead

Shot down by the Historic Districts Commission. House plan denied by vote. 3-1. With one abstention.

I won't say how many tens of thousands of our dollars in design fees were flushed down the proverbial toilet this night. Nor will I mention the blow to the heart, especially for Pete, whose town this is, who has been so conscientious in his efforts to be: a) a responsible citizen and b) design a house that fits like hand to glove in this historic town.

Both of us emerged from this whipping saying we were done. Finished. We will sell the house and the lot next door. And move. 

And then. And then I got really pissed off. I don't want to capitulate to a bunch of mealy morons with too much power and no sense of reality. I don't want to concede without a fight. If we give up our plan to build next door, I want it to be because that is our choice not because it is something imposed on us but a group that operates (necessarily) on subjectivity and which will, in time, change in its membership, opening up the sure possibility that the next people to petition this commission for the same lot will succeed - with an even bigger house than we proposed. If we choose to sell it must be because that is what we want to do. Otherwise, we risk making a move we will regret. Or not making a move (appealing? redesigning?) that we might equally regret.

Can they really say, in 2010, that an attached garage is inappropriate? When we supplied them with 17 examples of same, all visible along Concord's historic streets? That a house of 3600 square feet of living (read: heated) space, surrounded on either side by houses exceeding 5000 square feet, is too big? 

We are sick at heart. Pete is sick at heart. I need him to get mad. And it's not just because I want company. Anger is energy — make no doubt about it. Defeat is inertia by definition.  I am mad. So you can call me now the Energizer Bunny. I am motivated to beat the Commission at its own game. You heard it here first.

Truffle: Watching Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were Rabbit at 9 a.m. this morning with William. And Pete. And his brother Dave, who dropped in. And Hana. And Cajun (though she kept her paws over her eyes most of the time). A truly well made children's film has elements of humor explicitly directed at adults (how else to persuade them to willingly take kids to the movies? Let me tell you Alvin and the Chipmunks is painful if you're over nine).

Quote of the day: "Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time." (Thomas Alva Edison)

Explorations, diurnal and nocturnal

Sometimes you just get it right. All the wishing, all the trying can't make it happen. It just happens all by itself.

We have these kids with us for one full day. It has not rained in weeks. It rained today. As is the way of these things, it turned out to be a blessing as we filled our/their day with memories unintended.

The Museum of Science is many things. One thing it is not is Imax and 3-D combined. I booked the 3-D shark experience thinking that it was also a huge, surround-sound event. I envisioned hammerheads schooling not only in our laps but overhead. Not so. A bore, really. Basically just a polemic to SOS (save our sharks — even this is lame). But the fringe benefit was that it got Hana and William into the belly of a blue whale and provided Will the opportunity to touch a real sheep lung. Not related events, just the high points. Parking aside, the Museum of Science is a gift to any child lucky enough to get there. Who knew?

The plan to spend the afternoon at the country club pool morphed into spending it at the Beede Center, the swim and fitness center Pete built for the town. Kids must pass a swim test including a full lap swimming the crawl and a full lap of backstroke. Hana passed last year. Seven-year-old William dazzled us all, especially with his backstroke — a clean fine rotation of arms fully extended above his head (where did he learn that??), earning him the coveted green bracelet — carte blanche in any of the Center's four pools, including the diving well. By the end of the afternoon, all of us — all of us — Pete and me included, had been off not just the one meter board but the three meter board as well.

And just now we've returned from a night-time canoe trip in search of the elusive slapping beaver. The weather had cleared. A thumbnail of moon lay low in the sky. Three heron, a score of geese, several ducks, a bat, two muskrats and several beavers obliged. But the cynosure was a mid-river encounter. Well ahead of us, a beaver — the promised beaver, doncha know — swam vigorously from south to north. We gave chase. Amazingly we drew the bow of the canoe just over his wake, his eye white in the beam of the spotlight when — BAM! — he slapped his tail, splashed us all and dove. 

If we'd have written the script and paid the beaver actors, we could not have had a more successful encounter as advertised in advance by the adults. This never happens. Except tonight.

We finished off our evening with the kids in grand, illegal style — setting off fireworks brought back from Georgia. Not those little wimpy nests of firecracks, nor common-garden Roman candles. No, these were the real McCoy. Bombs bursting in air, all right. 

But then we've had much to celebrate this past twenty-four hours.

Truffle: Getting up the gumption, gimpy leg and all, to jump off the three meter board. Once I dove competitively, with two good legs to my credit along with the supple, unbreakable body of a young teen. That is not my body description these days.

Quote of the day: "Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot." (Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn)

The grands

Although I only qualify as a grandmother by default — I acquired five when I married Pete — grand is the pleasure of having this big old house ring with the laughter, thundering feet and banter of a couple of kids. These are particularly nice kids, too — smart, funny, comfortable in their own skins. Hana is 11 and William 7. Their older sister Bella, whom I adore, did not come to visit this year. I miss her. She's bookie and that is a pleasing thing for me to share with a squirt. Besides, she makes a great banker in Monopoly.

I've been told that having these children descend on us is disruptive to our lives. When I replied, "Au contraire," these same folks told me of course they are. Which is interesting. What possesses anyone to presume the sure knowledge of another's heart? Perhaps they were merely transferring their own discomfort to me. Who knows?

What I do know: 

I love having these kids around. Their arrival here is much anticipated, occasioning as much joy and excitement in the planning as in the execution of games, outings, movies, jokes, and general horsing around with them when they actually get here. 

This afternoon I took them to the toy store with a little mad money in their pockets, supplied by Pete. It is interesting to watch children shop for themselves. William, deliberate and focused, knew the categories he wanted to explore — Legos and Star Wars. His $20 wouldn't quite cover the $119 Star Wars Lego kit he really wanted — it was the biggest one in the store and might have posed a problem getting it back to Mexico where these kids live. So he picked an air gun that shoots multiple small green foam balls, the kind you wouldn't point at anyone's face but can without fear of harm or reprimand fire at any passing butt. Hana began by  being overwhelmed by choice. Eventually she settled into shopping small. Small items travel best. She did the math (being able to) and spent $19, not counting the tax. 

Afterwards Cajun proved before two capable judges (Pete and Hana) that she could jump higher than William stands. William doubted her ability. But not any longer. Hana threw the ball for Cajun in the river; William climbed up the beech tree, in between firing off rounds of green balls everywhere. All were content.

Then we took them to Dairy Joy. The name itself is a give-away. It's one of those seasonal soft-serve/hamburger joints that I remember from the 50's. Picnic tables, paper boats for the french fries, paper bags for the burgers, paper cups for the chicken fingers and fried (fresh belly) clams. William shot ketsup up his nose. Hana fumbled her cone and lost it to the ground. I ate too much and loved it. Pete was happy that everyone was happy.

We must tiptoe down the hall tonight. That's about as disruptive as our lives and routines get hosting our grands.

Truffle: Gardening at Sissnghurst by Tony Lord. I discovered it in the Lake District and my very own copy arrived today in the mail. Owning it involves a bit of reliving a wonderful period in my past (living at Sissinghurst over the summer of 1979 and working on volume six of the Virginia Woolf letters) but also anticipating one in the future, namely our new home and my idea to recreate a bit of Vita in Concord.

Quote of the day: "For nothing is flixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out." (James Baldwin)

743 pages...

... in under two weeks. You have to understand, I read at a pace with the tortoise. No hare am I! But today, in a race against eyeball fatigue and double vision, I finished The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest (note position of the apostrophe!). What a rare gift (from my POV) to counter the Heat Wave of the Century (okay okay so this century is kind of young) with a book I couldn't put down. I have many reflections about this book — and the sensation its publication and premature death of its author occasioned — but will spare you here. In case you are not as caught up as I am. But you'd better readreadread (even if you have to buy the hardback version) fast. I heard today that the Swedish movie version of Millennium III will be released in the U.S. this October.

Which brings me to another dilemma. Next to me is a pile of books. Well, I'd have to admit that pile has now grown to three piles. All over a foot high. This is my to-be-read stack. Now I know why in libraries the rows of books are called 'stacks'. Ha. As part of this blog I'm supposed to be keeping an up-to-date list of the books by my bedside. OK. Confession time: I can't keep up. Maybe tonight I will go back into that post and update it. But in the meantime, I am faced with a decision more appealing, more revealing that any other single human pleasure (fill in the gap here according to your own standards) — what to read next?

When I've read a truly engaging book, be it fluff (Larsson) or 'litra-ture,' I generally suffer from a kind of post-partum letdown. Nothing, immediately thereafter, satisfies. It's like the first date after being jilted — the newcomer doesn't stand a chance. It's all about rebound romance. So? What to pick? A book I know I should read? Or one of the books on my personal summer list — The Confessions of Nat Turner  or Gone With the Wind, filling in gaps in a Civil War reading list I'd like to be thorough? Or the book Pete just finished and loved (Cutting For Stone)? Or some opus I'd like to have under my belt so I can recommend it for book club?

Such a conundrum! And perfect for a summer night that is full of cicadas, Lisbeth Salander and humidity. I believe I will take off my clothes and open a random page, in hopes of a breathe of fresh air.

Truffle: A long walk in the woods early this morning, beating out, or almost beating out, the deer flies and mosquitos, which only became bothersome as the sun broke through the haze and the temps began to rise.

Quote of the day: "Fiction was invented the day Jonah arrived home and told his wife that he was three days late because he had been swallowed by a whale." (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)