Monsoon's Weather Update for Tuesday, 20 May 2008
My friends,
I’d like to begin by saying Happy Birthday to our trusty companion Sasha, who was born on this day a number of years ago (a lady is never asked to reveal her age).
(And, so she doesn’t feel left out, hello to her younger sister Ruthie too.)
Below is the weather forecast; I will send an update if it appears this weekend’s weather will be substantively different from what I’ve indicated here.
Weather narrative: Rainy and cool today; there’s a chance of a shower or two tomorrow, but it shouldn’t be a washout. Then things really get nice for the long Memorial Day weekend: as of now, Friday through Monday look fantastic.
Next week looks to be rather pleasant as well for the most part, but rain will return by the end of the week. Next weekend is looking wet and dreary, unfortunately.
Beyond the forecast: Looking for a warm-up into early June. Specifically, June 2nd (Mifflin’s graduation) looks to be in the 80s with the chance of afternoon or evening thunderstorms. (At least there’s no need for lining up outside the Intermediate School prior to commencement this year, which will be held in the Sovereign Center.)
Monsoon's Weather Forecast and Imagine Day update for Wednesday, 14 May 2008
My friends,
Imagine Day is an annual event at Governor Mifflin undertaken by the Imagine Project, formed by students in the wake of the Columbine shootings in 1999. The culmination of a week’s worth of events, Imagine Day is an afternoon’s worth of activities involving the entire student body. In the athletic stadium, students can enjoy outdoor activities, watch the performances of student bands, and socialize with their peers in an informal (but supervised) environment. In previous years, Imagine Week has included workshops and other elaborate activities designed to have students interact across their typical peer groups and learn about other cultures and perspectives.
Imagine Day is scheduled for Friday afternoon; rain date is Monday afternoon. To try and help the members of the Imagine Project make a decision about whether or not to postpone the concert, I present the following detailed forecast, with updates to come as they are necessary.
Following the Imagine predictions are forecasts for the rest of the coming two-week period.
Friday, 5/16: breezy and cool with intermittent rain, heavy at times. High 60, low 47.
11am 56 degrees, rain or drizzle; chilly NNE winds 18-12 mph
12pm 58 degrees, showers; chilly NNE winds 8-12 mph
1pm 59 degrees, steady rain, chance of t-storm; chilly N winds 10-15 mph
2pm 60 degrees, steady rain, chance of t-storm; chilly NNW winds 10-15 mph
3pm 60 degrees, steady rain, chance of t-storm; chilly NNW winds 15-20 mph
Monday, 5/19: partly cloudy and breezy. High 66, low 47.
11am 59 degrees, mostly cloudy, light winds; a quick shower?
12pm 61 degrees, partly cloudy, light winds
1pm 63 degrees, partly cloudy, light winds
2pm 64 degrees, partly cloudy, light winds
3pm 66 degrees, partly to mostly cloudy, light winds
Other days…
Wednesday, 5/14: sunny and gorgeous; clouding up later with a thunderstorm possible late. High 82, low 54.
Thursday, 5/15: partly to mostly cloudy and less warm. High 75, low 52.
Friday, 5/16: see above.
Saturday, 5/17: breezy, pleasant, and partly cloudy. High 67, low 49.
Sunday, 5/18: partly to mostly cloudy and windy with a shower or two possible. High 66, low 47.
Monday, 5/19: see above.
Tuesday, 5/20: mostly cloudy. High 65, low 47.
Wednesday, 5/21: mostly sunny and somewhat warmer. High 72, low 51.
Thursday, 5/22: clouds and sun. High 71, low 53.
Friday, 5/23: partly cloudy and pleasant. High 70, low 52.
Next weekend: Memorial Day weekend looks to be rather cool with plenty of clouds but little chance of a shower until Monday. Highs will be in the upper 60s; lows in the mid to upper 40s.
Beyond: The last few days of May look wet and cool before an early-June warm-up.
A Monsoon Weather Alert for Sunday, 27 April 2008
A strong cold front is moving through, bringing with it moderate to strong winds and some potentially significant precipitation. Rain will begin overnight Sunday and intensify Monday morning and afternoon. Total rainfall amounts could reach an inch or an inch and a quarter. Precipitation may include strong to severe thunderstorms—which would include hail and damaging winds—anytime from late morning through the late afternoon. It all tapers off by the early evening, but clouds will persist into early Tuesday. Monday’s high will reach only the low 60s; overnight low will be in the mid to upper 40s. Tuesday will be markedly cooler with the high reaching only 56; the low Tuesday night will plummet all the way down near freezing.
(Happy Birthday Monday to Harper Lee; Tuesday to Duke Ellington and Eve Plumb!)
The last day of April will be sunny and cool with the slight possibility of showers late. High 58, low 38. (Happy Birthday to Willie Nelson and Kirsten Dunst!)
Thursday and Friday, the first two days of May, look partly to mostly cloudy and a bit warmer with highs in the mid to upper 60s and lows in the mid to upper 40s. (Happy Birthday Thursday to Chuck Bednarik and Joseph Heller; Friday to Christine Baranski and The Rock!)
Next weekend will be warmer still with highs reaching into the low 70s, but there is the potential for some showers and thunderstorms on Sunday.
Next week cools off a bit and will hover around seasonal averages, with highs mainly in the mid 60s and lows in the mid to upper 40s.
MonsoonMonsoon Martin's Weather Update for Friday, 18 April 2008
My friends,
If you’ll permit me, I have a couple of odds and ends before I bring you the weather.
First, I have an exciting announcement: After six long, pointless seasons, I have officially kicked my “American Idol” habit! I wasn’t “feelin’ it” (as Randy might say) as the season began, but typically became more interested when the field was narrowed down to 12 in previous seasons. But this year, I haven’t watched more than an hour of the show altogether, and the feeling is wonderful. I have missed some truly awful guest stars and song styles: the Dolly Parton songbook, “inspirational” music, and Mariah Carey’s oeuvre come to mind most readily. At long last, I can honestly say that I have absolutely no stake in who wins this thing, no simmering hatreds of overly perky contestants, no hotly contested, cheating-wracked Idol pool with my (current or former) colleagues. I am free!
And yet, I have not quite emerged unscathed from the morass of televised “reality” show competitions. No, I haven’t become hooked on the gleefully vile, gyrating humpanalia “A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila 2” or the cloying ego-fest “Oprah’s Big Give.”
It’s almost worse.
Back in February I heard that a man who substitute teaches in our building once in a while was going to be on a reality show called “Your Mama Don’t Dance.” The premise of the show is that young, professional dancers must partner up with their parents (female dancers with their fathers, male dancers with their moms) and perform a series of routines, week after week. Doug Croner of Gilbertsville—the aforementioned substitute teacher—would be paired up with his daughter, Noelle.
Let me try to state in the briefest terms what this insipid Lifetime network show, airing Friday nights at 9pm, is all about.
First, it is hosted by the almost unbelievably smarmy and cheesy Ian Ziering (pretentiously pronounced EYE-in ZHEER-ing) of “Beverly Hills 90210” “fame.”
Each pair prepares a dance based on the week’s theme—it might be cowboy music, it might be hip-hop dance, it might be showtunes; it will be ridiculous—and is shown in a short taped package rehearsing the routine. Then the pair perform the routine and are rated on a scale of 100 by three judges—choreographer (and former J-Lo beau) Cris Judd, the inexplicably well-known Vitamin C, and the wildly eccentric and inscrutable dancer extraordinaire, Ben Vereen. The scores are invariably inflated, the feedback stunningly incoherent. The two pairs with the lowest scores at the end of each show land in the bottom two; call-in votes determine which pair will survive to next week and which will go home.
On the first episode, Noelle and Doug, horrifically clad in sequined costumes, danced the most cringe-inducing, inappropriately seductive routine (remember, they’re father and daughter) to Britney Spears’ “Toxic,” which was highlighted on the snarky weekend wrap-ups “Talk Soup” (on E!) and “Best Week Ever” (on VH1). We were hooked. (I say “we” because I have involved Wendi in my sickness, and I am not sorry.)
[A note here: I tried and tried to find a clip online of this performance, but could not. For this I am sorry. It really defies description, so if you can ever find it, you won’t soon forget it.]
In subsequent weeks, the performances have only become more disturbing, and somehow Noelle and Doug have made it through week after week. Two weeks ago they performed a hip-hop routine (go to the video entitled “Bottom Pair – Episode 6” if you dare) that surely made Jam-Master Jay spin like a top in his grave—and it wasn’t even the most offensive or “urban” stereotype-laden performance of the night.
In my defense, I typically only watch until Noelle and Doug are on—which, for some reason, happens to be very near the end of each episode. I watch with a mixture of revulsion and bemusement, schadenfreude and an unshakable sense of the coming apocalypse, ultimately rooting against them so I could stop watching this infernal show.
And yet, that strategy has never paid off, as they’ve now made it to the last show, and I’m still tethered to it.
Anywho, this deeply sucky show mercifully has its finale tonight at 9pm, during which the final three pairs (including Noelle and Doug) will perform, and the several hundred people watching live on TV will vote for the winner.
Thanks for allowing me that confession. And now…
Weather narrative: The temperature got into the low 80s in most places within the forecast area (Reading, central and southern Berks County, central and northern Lancaster County) yesterday, and I think we’ll get at least that warm again today and perhaps even again on Saturday.
On Sunday, a front comes through that will cool things off and kick up some breezes; it may bring a few showers, but I don’t think we’ll have significant rainfall. Behind that, we’ll start next week with temperatures that are still higher than normal, but more moderate and pleasant than the highs we’re seeing right now. (“Normal” conditions in our region for this time of year are highs in the low 60s and lows in the low 40s.)
Things get somewhat cooler by the end of next week, with highs only getting into the low 60s and windy conditions making it feel like the 40s or 50s. High temperatures will dip into the 50s in the last several days of April, with the chance of significant rainfall on those days.
Beyond the forecast: As we head into May, things will cool off a bit, as the WeatherTable trend bears out. By the second week in May, though, highs should perk back up into the 60s and perhaps even 70s, for those of you who like that sort of thing.
Monsoon
Flashback Friday: What I Did On My Summer Vacation from 8/29/05
It's FLASHBACK FRIDAY again, kids! I'd like to take you back to the beginning of the 2005-06 school year, when I opened with a story about my wife, me, a turtle, and the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Enjoy! --Monsoon
What I Did On My Summer Vacation by Monsoon Martin
Monday, 29 August 2005
“I have a question for you, Glen. Think back to July 18th. Were you…walking on the Pennsylvania Turnpike?” This seemingly off-the-wall question posed by a colleague last week took me back to one of the most exhilarating, strange, well-intentioned, but ill-advised memories of my summer vacation. “Yes, that was me,” I replied sheepishly, and was quite understandably called upon to explain why.
First, let me inaugurate the 2005-06 school year with the forecast for the next few days. I wish I could say it’s going to be sunny and pleasant with low humidity as we begin the school year. But alas, I cannot. That kind of weather will have to wait until next week…
Monday night : Scattered showers and thunderstorms may develop in the evening. Due to the influx of tropical moisture, it will be quite humid. Low 68.
Tuesday : The first day of school for Muhlenberg. Mostly cloudy in the morning, with showers and thunderstorms developing in the afternoon. Rain could be heavy at times as the moisture from Katrina begins to be drawn into our area. Humid. High 83, low 70.
Wednesday : The first day of school for Mifflin. The remnants of Hurricane Katrina will come through midday Wednesday into Thursday. As of now, it appears this system will track a bit west of our area, but will still produce moderate winds and some heavy downpours. An inch to two inches of rain may fall Tuesday into Wednesday; more could fall in some locations. We need the rain, but this heavy rainfall could produce localized flooding. Watch for gusty thunderstorms. Still humid. High 83, low 66.
On July 18th, in the late afternoon, [name redacted] and I were motoring peacefully westbound on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, when suddenly my sweet wife exclaimed, “A turtle! Did you see that?” Since I was focused on the safe operation of our motor vehicle, I had not. Before I could answer, this reasonable woman said, “Pull over!” As luck would have it, there was a “pull-off” just ahead on the right. We pulled off and had barely come to a complete stop when this otherwise rational, sane woman said, “I’ve got to go get that turtle!” and bounded out of the car, walking alongside the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
At this point it is prudent to cite regulation 601.10 from the Turnpike’s rules, of which we were then blissfully unaware: “Pedestrian travel or entry on the right-of-way of the Turnpike System is prohibited.”
Bewildered, but deciding that I didn’t want my dear spouse to be running around on the Turnpike alone, I waited a moment and then walked after her, back to the site where she had seen the turtle. By the time I arrived, [name redacted] had already walked across two lanes of automobiles traveling at 70 miles per hour or better, and was trying to pick up an object that was about the size of a hubcap—a monster truck hubcap—and was brownish green in color. The turtle had evidently tried to cross the road, but had made it only halfway (miraculously without being flattened by a speeding tractor trailer in the westbound lanes) before its journey was cruelly stymied by the concrete barrier in the middle.
A split second later [name redacted] recoiled from the animal, then dashed back across the road to where I was waiting. “It tried to bite me!” she said with an admixture of outrage, shock, and fear, since it should have been obvious to the imperiled creature that she was only trying to help. And then: “You go pick it up!” I then crossed all the fast traffic and came face to face with the prehistoric reptile. The beast, in a word, was pissed.
Thursday : Katrina scoots by; rain ending in the A.M. Some peeks of sunshine in the afternoon. High 84, low 62.
Friday : The tropical moisture is pushed out of the area and high pressure settles in. Dramatic decrease in humidity; mostly sunny skies. High 81, low 60.
Saturday : Continued pleasant and sunny. High 80, low 58.
Right about now, dear reader, you may be thinking: These are two seemingly level-headed educators. Why in the hell did they think it was a good idea to go running around the Turnpike after a turtle? Didn’t they think to call someone? Or just keep driving? And all I can say is, No. We did not.
After a few unsuccessful attempts to pick the being up myself—forestalled by its prodigiously long neck and powerful jaws—we felt we needed a different tack in capturing the wayward animal and returning it to safety. My wife, who solves a dizzying array of problems each and every day in her classroom, proposed this solution: “I know! I’ll get my coat. We can throw it over the turtle”—presumably to disorient it—“and then we’ll be able to pick it up.” As [name redacted] went to get her coat in the car, she motioned for me to come back to the side of the road from my current location—next to the concrete traffic divider with my new friend. I did not understand this motion and gave her the thumbs-up. I remained in the middle of the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
I spent part of this time noting the faces of drivers as they scorched past me—faces that said, “What the bloody hell is that guy doing? Is he crazy?” I spent the other portion of my quiet time reasoning with the turtle, which according to my wife was more than a little bit amusing to behold. “Alright, now, my friend. Let’s cut the crap. I’m only trying to help you. No—now, hissing at me is just unfriendly. I’m going to pick you up and—OK, maybe I’m not. Boy, you almost really bit me that time, you little—”
“Honey?” [name redacted] said. “Had any luck talking to the turtle?” My sullen deportment said all she needed to know. As planned, we placed the jacket over the turtle’s head. The turtle bit the jacket. We could not pick up the great creature. Our last-ditch plan was an unqualified failure.
Just then, I caught a flash of inspiration as I looked at the turtle’s alligator-like tail. If I could pick it up by the tail, perhaps then it would not be able to separate my hand from my arm. This just might work, I said to myself, as if hatching a plan in a movie. As [name redacted] watched for a break in traffic, I seized the beast—hissing and snapping futilely—by the tail, and ran across the road, inadvertently scraping its head slightly on the shoulder of the roadway. I deposited the turtle in a grassy area past the guardrail to ensure it would be safe, and it scampered (really, this thing could move) away from danger. (Whether it perceived the speeding vehicles or the two of us as a greater danger, I cannot say.) I believe my wife and I actually high-fived to celebrate this best of all possible scenarios: the turtle and both Martins had escaped the ordeal with their lives.
Sunday : More of the same: sunny and pleasant. High 80, low 58.
Monday : More of the same. High 78, low 57.
Back to school projection for Tuesday through Friday : We will have highs in the upper 70s and lows in the upper 50s with little humidity and pleasant breezes. (Rain is possible toward the end of next week.) Hopefully this weather will begin to dispel some of the stale air and stifling heat that has been collecting in the building all summer long. Soon enough, children whining about the heat, pitted-out dress shirts, and fainting spells will be distant memories…
A postscript to our tale: As we made our way back to the car, a state police car went by and flashed its lights at us; soon after, a Pennsylvania Turnpike worker stopped on the other side of the road, made his way across to us, and asked what was going on. We explained as briefly and reasonably as possible. His only comment was, “Well, I guess you’ve done your good deed for the day.” And we were off.
We didn’t realize it at the time, but our encounter was with an American Snapping Turtle (chelydra serpentina) weighing about 30 to 40 pounds. According to my research, these reptiles spend most of their time in fresh water and are characterized by muscular legs and long, saw-edged tails. Since the plastron (underside) of the turtle is much smaller than the carapace (upper part of the shell), this turtle cannot draw itself into its shell to protect itself. Therefore, when threatened on dry land, the turtle become aggressive (no kidding!), using the powerful jaws that gave the animal its common name to defend itself. Its neck can reach back halfway to its tail, so the range of motion is extraordinary, allowing the animal to “snap” quite effectively. It strikes with amazing speed and force; its powerful jaws can tear flesh quite badly.
These animals typically only come out on dry land from late June to mid July to dig a nest and lay eggs (so, we reasoned, our friend must have been a mama snapper looking for a place to lay her eggs). A lot of the best nesting sites are near roads, which is unfortunate for the turtles. Snapping turtles like to nest in the soft sand and gravel of road shoulders. The eggs need to be above water to survive, so the females search out dry gravely spots to lay their eggs. Snapping turtles have also been known to travel more than a mile to mate or lay eggs, putting them in harm’s way as they end up crossing roads. Sadly, many adult female snapping turtles are killed every year, during the egg laying season, on our roads and highways.
For most of their lives, they like to hang out in shallow lakes, streams or swamps with lots of plants. The snapper eats invertebrates, carrion, aquatic plants, fish, birds, and small mammals. It spends most of its time in the water, either floating close to the surface, or lying in the mud in shallower water (usually, with only eyes and nostrils protruding).
And that, friends, is how I spent my summer vacation.
Monsoon
Monsoon's Weather Update for MLK Day 2008
Hey Friends,
Just wanted to give you a quick weather update, but before I do that, I wanted to give you the latest on my back situation, as many of you have been kind enough to inquire since I sent out the Open MRI piece. Despite the fact that my back has actually been giving me little to no pain over the past week or so, the MRI result is that I have a herniated disk in the lower lumbar region. I’m meeting with a specialist to discuss the MRI, who I suspect will prescribe some sort of exercises or physical therapy, maybe some narcotics, maybe a shot or something. Anything short of surgery, let’s hope…
Monday 1/21: sunny and very cold. High 24, low 15.
Tuesday 1/22: breezy and becoming overcast with flurries and snow showers developing toward late afternoon. I’m thinking a dusting here and there, with isolated spots getting as much as an inch. But the atmosphere is so dry here right now, I don’t see much resulting from this. Snow showers taper toward midnight. High 35, low 24.
Wednesday 1/23: sunny; becoming cloudy late with an evening flurry not out of the question as another arctic cold front moves in. High 32, low 15.
Thursday 1/24: partly cloudy and cold. High 26, low 11.
Friday 1/25: sunny and continued cold, but not quite as frigid. High 32, low 18.
The weekend: cold with highs in the mid 30s and lows in the low 20s. Snow showers are possible on Sunday, but I don’t think this is anything to worry about just now. Stay tuned for updates.
Next week: more of the same…highs in the mid 30s, lows in the low 20s.
Next chance for snow: I’m looking now toward the following weekend for a potentially major event. Friday 2/1, Saturday 2/2—keep an eye on that. I’ll keep you posted…
Your Weather-Servant,
Monsoon
Monsoon Martin's "Open MRI," My Fifth Vertebra Forecast
Weather-friends,
First, I want to say regarding Sunday night into Monday that there is still the potential for snowfall and the slight chance it could accumulate, but I’m leaning heavily toward a storm track that will miss us altogether, bringing only snow and rain showers to our area during that time. I will post an update in this space if the situation changes dramatically over the weekend.
Second, I’d like to submit “Open MRI” to the pantheon of particularly cruel or egregious oxymorons, or contradictions in terms, of which some of the most famous and appropriate are “jumbo shrimp,” “open secret,” “peacekeeper missile,” and “military intelligence.”
Why? Because yesterday, I became the victim of a medical bait-and-switch of the cruelest sort. I was sent for an MRI by my doctor to take a look at my lower back, which as many of you know has been hobbling me for some weeks now. Knowing of my claustrophobic tendencies, not to mention my … generously apportioned physical stature, my doc sent me to Ephrata Open MRI. Open MRI, I thought. Sweet. In a regular MRI, in case you’ve never had the pleasure, the patient is loaded onto a slab and shoehorned into a massive structure like a round peg in a square hole—where the patient must stay, unmoving and unable to move any part of the body, for up to an hour. (I had an MRI way back in high school when I was getting severe migraines but was somehow not all that affected by it then.)
An Open MRI, I imagined, would be an absolute dream. There would be no shoving my immobilized self into a space no bigger than a morgue drawer. Surely in an Open MRI I would be free to move about gaily as I wished. I would be forced to sit (or perhaps lie) still for a short, pleasant enough period, during which time some sort of machine would take some sort of picture of my lower back. It would all be over in mercifully brief fashion, and I would experience none of the claustrophobia associated with the typical MRI experience.
My people, what followed instead at Ephrata Open MRI was 50 minutes of meta-claustrophobic torment. (For those of you who are new to the Monsoon weather list and/or weblog, it should be noted that my accounts of personal turmoil and inconvenience are not without their liberal pepperings of hyperbole and histrionics. I admit this now, only in a moment of weakness, and will never do so again.)
I was told to “gown up” and led into the MRI room by a technician who was, to her credit, extremely patient and understanding. I was laid on a table, facing feet first into a gargantuan, ringed structure that resembled a sort of brick oven (like at Carrabba’s in Lancaster, which is totally good) but instead of creating scrumptious northern Italian cuisine, it created only vise-like pressure and shrieking terror. (I told you: hyperbole.)
The technician (I forgot or blocked her name; let’s call her Hazel) then told me I had an array of music choices to accompany my ordeal. A few radio stations came in fine, she said, though two—94.5 (the evangelical Christian station) and a country music station—came in best. Need it be said here that I declined to listen to either station? She also said she had a few CDs to choose from: Enya, some philharmonic thing, and a Sting CD which she said was called All the Hits. Now, Enya takes me back to the days at Albright when my roommate would play the purportedly soothing—but actually numbingly bland—music of Enya and Yanni (I am dead serious) and make me want to jam hot knives into my earholes. I typically shun classical music as aggressively European and staid; it’s the white man’s music. And I used to be quite a Police fan, and Sting’s early solo work was quite good (the later period, when he was doing guest vox on vapid hip hop tunes, not so much). So yes, I said, let’s crank up the Sting!
Soon my torso was swathed in some sort of heavy wrap and I was then inserted, like a tongue depressor, into the gaping maw of the Open MRI machine, forcing the air out of me like I was a sad Tupperware container. I stared up at the ceiling of the “Open” MRI machine, which was about an inch and a half from my face and ended at about eye level (the top was open, so I could look up, to the side and out, and my feet were hanging out the other end, which mattered not at all, though I suspected contributed to their being able to use the meaningless term “open” in describing the MRI).
I began to wonder if I was going to make it through this—laying there uncomfortably for the better part of an hour, unable to take a full breath, the world closing in on me. Hazel observed that I was getting a little “wigged” and said gently, “This isn’t supposed to be stressful, you know?” to which I responded with a weak chuckle. Hazel handed me a small, rubber ball connected to a wire that looked like the end of a sphygmomanometer (blood pressure taker); I was told to squeeze it if I needed anything. This offered me little solace.
As the machine began its work, a few realities quickly became apparent: first, that my mild claustrophobia had evolved considerably; second, that the machine makes an irregular, intervallic death rattle that sounds like an excavator is operating on top of me, or some sort of undulating Lex Luthor death contraption; and third, that the Sting CD was one of the most wretched collections of aural ineptness ever put to record. The fact is that Sting had dramatically reworked many of his most well-known songs (including “Fragile,” “When We Dance,” and “Fields of Gold”) and performed them in front of an exclusive audience in Tuscany for an album that was actually called All This Time. His arrangements are whitebreadedly affected and ponderous, his delivery sloppy, the instrumentation languorous. The overall effect of listening to this was infuriating: snippets of the work sounded familiar, refrains seemed nearly recognizable, and yet it was all so foreign, so poorly executed…so icky. Sting even—unforgivably—included the (wreckage of the) song “Dienda,” with lyrics inexplicably added, on his CD. “Dienda,” composed by the late Kenny Kirkland and included on Branford Marsalis’ seminal Royal Garden Blues, is an evocative, gorgeous gem—probably my favorite song of all time.
The ensuing 40 minutes or so are a blur of near-panic, existential crisis, and strange, maniacal thoughts. A sampling:
What in the hell is that picture supposed to be?
One, two, three, four, Mary at the kitchen door…
Breathe…breathe…whew…haa…whew…haa…
I’m gonna lose my shit…I’m gonna lose my shit and eject myself out this bitch.
Keep it together keep it together keep it together.
Maybe I’ll try a little visualization…I can visualize my ass right the hell out of here…yeah, I’m not in this machine; I’m in a happy place. A…happy…place. Where’s my happy place? Hoff, are you there? OK. Yeah, a real happy place. Oh, this would be good: I’m back in Rhode Island, it’s last Christmas, and I’m walking with my lovely wife on the Cliff Walk. That was a happy time, and it’s a nice, open vista…yep, I’m on the Cliff Walk. No, I’m still here in Ephrata. I can’t visualize a god damned thing. Jeez, maybe I should take up yoga or something.
I wonder how much time is left?
What does MRI stand for? Oh, that’s right: Magnetic Resonance Imaging. I wish it had taken me longer to figure that out. M…R…I. Am, are, I? Oh, holy crap it’s an existential puzzle. Am, are, I? If I am not, how can I be? And if I be not, am not, whither me? What the hell am I saying?
Why, oh why, did Sting sully his songs so?
How much time could really be left? Oh damn, I wonder if it just seems like a half-hour has passed but in reality it’s only been three! Nah, that’s not possible…
They make bombs that can be programmed to fall on a postage stamp but I have to lay my ass here for an hour and wait for this machine to do its work. Isn’t that a fine how-do-you-do?
“The Wire” soundtrack is really good…oh, I know…I’ll think about my favorite songs on it. That’ll get my mind off things…well, the dialogue snippets are great, especially the Snotboogie material and the “Omar comin’!” piece. The songs are a mixed bag… “Ayo” and “My Life Extra” from the B-more hip hop scene are strong, really hypnotic…and it’s nice to see Michael Franti on there…the Solomon Burke song is outstanding, and I like the “Gilded Splinters” song…I even like the Greek song…The Pogues and Tom Waits, not so much. OK, that’s it. What’d it take, two minutes?
How much longer??
Finally I couldn’t resist any longer and squeezed my little rubber doober to summon Hazel. She came in: “Yes?”
“Oh, hi! Liiiiisten…I was just wondering how much more time?”
“You said hi…that’s cute! Most people don't bother saying hello. No, we haven’t got much more time. One more vertebra, so another nine minutes.”
[long exhale] “Whew. Thanks…I needed to hear that.”
[leaving] “You’re welcome…not much longer!”
“Oh…and could you turn off the music? It is so, so horrible.”
[sniggering] “Sure.”
After this, there’s not much to tell. The end of the test went off without a hitch, as I spent the last nine minutes counting. When it ended, I extricated myself from the machine and happily made my way out of the room. I had one final question for Hazel:
“Why would Sting ruin his music like that?”
“I know, right?”
Monsoon
Monsoon Martin's I'm Back! Weather Update
Hey, weather-friends,
It has been several weeks since I have addressed you all, and fortunately it’s been a quiet weather period so you weren’t missing out on vital information or anything. I thought I’d take a few moments to offer you an explanation of my absence, provide a forecast and a new post to boot.
My absence was partially due to a heavy workload (Term Paper grading) and partially due to pain. About the Term Paper grading I have little to say, except that the ordeal will be over for another year when I’ve graded the final drafts later this month. About the pain, which held a vise-like grip on my extreme lower back for a couple of weeks off and on, I will speculate briefly about its cause: slipping on ice at Vision Volkswagen; hunching over miserably grading term papers; and careening colossally off a rolling desk chair prior to the winter holiday. I dare not say more for fear of implicating my abettors and arousing the suspicions of The Man.
Weather narrative: First, I want to announce a small change to the WeatherTable: I have eliminated the wind speed column and will only remark on wind when it is notably strong or pungent. The unseasonably warm weather, with highs reaching well into the 60s, is coming to an end, but temperatures aren’t going to plunge below normal for another week or so.
I don’t see any really compelling winter weather potentialities on the horizon here. Perhaps toward the end of the forecast period (the 21st, 22nd) we may see a moderate snowstorm. Stay tuned.
Monsoon