I baked some chicken and a few things until 11:00 AM. Then I drove over to El Mago. Manuel has not started on my car yet. He seems unconcerned that it will take very long. I thought I’d help him if he wanted, but he says he does not need help. I had the impression he was working specially on Sunday, but I now know they are open seven days a week. I showed him the papers on the Sunbird and gave him the cash to get it towed over on Monday.
Do you remember that fancy restaurant on Biscayne, with that Canadian lady lawyer who lost a million in two months? Well, it has been taken over by the Latin Café 2000 people. It’s now another typically high-priced chain. I got Frank up for a long overdue meeting, and he likes the car idea. Maybe I am not making it clear that this idea is just an experiment. It is not possible that there are not other people doing the same thing in this town, for it is lucrative. I am merely reacting to the difficulty of getting a good used car in Miami, and that people who fix cars up tend to take their time. At any given point, they still have lots of work to do, so the interdependent car parts never get a chance to adjust optimally. I am taking that year of minor repairs, doing them all at once, and adjusting them to run together. Much closer to the way a newer car would operate.
The Canadian lawyer? Yea, she was hot to trot a few years back. That is the one Jaime and crowd could not understand why I didn’t jump her bones. I can answer that. She was not my type, she was not blonde, she was Canadian and she was a lawyer. I know men who married lady lawyers. They never get a moments rest, especially if she makes more money than he does. Every guy I know who married a lady lawyer reports she can spend his whole paycheck in thirty seconds. She was also far too old to be naturally single, so there was a horror story in there somewhere. Her version of the restaurant failure was that she had a specialty cook to make all the things on that rather large menu, “Foods of the World”, and he quit at the last minute. Also, she was resistant to even idle questions about where she got the million dollars. In all I had the impression she would be a good time that you would never hear the end of.
One time I took a look at shorthand. Even studied the first few chapters of the book, actually two books. One called (I think) Gregg and another called Pitman. Today I noticed Frank had such a book. Shorthand is a dead art, but it is a good idea if one can learn to write as fast as people speak. It also has code properties. What was most interesting is that Frank, who may not have even known I once tried it myself, drew the same conclusions and objections as I did.
Too much of the shorthand has to be derived from context and without a sample of the author’s handwriting, you cannot tell what some of the symbols mean. That is, you cannot take a comma shaped mark in isolation and tell me what the author meant by it, for several different sounds are all represented by the same mark, different size. Also, the way it is presented and designed, it is hard to learn. Things should not be designed to be hard to learn, an example is the Chinese written language. This hard learning would bother Frank even more, as I remember he told me about how they taught him chemistry – by making him memorize the periodic table of elements. (The only high school course I ever took by correspondence was chemistry, and I quickly learned that that table was for reference, not memorization.)
This all is what now constitutes a pretty full day for me. There are other signs of being fifty years old, like aches and pains. Just think, I am fifteen years older than life expectancy just 20 generations ago. There are cramps and sore muscles I am not complaining about, and these are the result of painting with JZ. Up and down that ladder eight hours a day is good exercise, and invigorating. It also loosens up tiny muscles here and there, mostly shoulder and leg areas, that just don’t get used sitting at a computer terminal. I was home early evening to cook and read. I tried to watch television but found myself reaching for a book because the programming was so gawdawful. Some spy show where everyone turns out to be related but separated at birth.
I also read some of the magazines I have kicking around, kind of like playing what I would shop at if I had any useless money. There was a magazine of boats, full of color pictures. Also full of works like “classic”, “family” and “elegant”. Not once in those 16 pages did it ever mention the word “boat” or the fact that they are expensive to own and park. I don’t know the price, but I do know it is so expensive that most places don’t even advertise. I have yet to see a billboard that says “One month free”. It also does not mention that you can be boarded and searched by the Coast Guard for any sign of affluence less than a million bucks.
And while here, I am against the Coast Guard anyway, except for warning against military invasion. Otherwise, it is like the fire department rescuing cats. Do it. Then send ‘em the bill. But why should someone who lives in Colorado pay taxes for the Coast Guard? There is no public good anymore. Some people might claim the tiny minority who own boats and get into difficulties are the public, but don’t even think that nonsense around here.
Once in a while you find a good product frozen for the microwave. I tried these ham stuffed chicken breasts. With the unlikely brand name of Barber Foods. Excellent.
Published 2014-05-01. Again, written for internal purposes. I have no recollection of the Canadian lawyer lady.
