At the Blue Spoon Café...

... dig in.

Pictures from the periphery of the Obama rally.

Arriving as we did around 5, we couldn't get into the restricted area that people had lined up all day to get into. First, we went to Bascom Hill, which was well wired for sound, and there were hundreds of people sitting or standing on the grass:



This photo shows the attitude of the crowd before the speech:



It was nice to see some students studying:



We made our way over to the Union Terrace, about a block away from the live event, to hang in a mellower crowd by the lake. There was good audio and video over here, and some folks had their beer, while others, like me, had Babcock Hall ice cream cones.



These people were relaxed and listening. It was hard to tell what they were thinking. But they didn't chant along with "Yes we can." There were a couple clowns protesting, like this:



"9-11 Frame Up/Inside Job"... idiots.

We got cold and headed home before the speech ended and before the sun set.

ADDED: Some video.

"I had this belief that I couldn’t just accept to be treated as an object. It was a problem of dignity."

"But it wasn’t that. It was just that I couldn’t accept that they would call us by number, because I thought it would make it easier for them to kill us if they had to kill an object, a number."

Ingrid Betancourt describes her captivity... and its aftermath:

Betancourt says she made some immediate decisions about her new life: First, she would wear perfume every day; second, she would never deny herself the opportunity to eat cake.

"I promised to have ice cream in my diet, and I promised to change my priorities," she says.  In the jungle, one of the few books Betancourt had access to was the Bible, and she read it over and over again.  One passage stuck out:  "It says that when you cross the valley of tears, and you arrive to the oasis, the reward of God is not success, it’s not money, it’s not admiration or fame, it’s not power. His reward is rest. So that’s what I want for me now."

Her book is a big best seller. I wonder how many readers come to that cake-and-ice-cream part and think: Yes! I must eat cake and ice cream.... even though in their whole lives they've never left the oasis.

At the Frozen Custard stand...

(Enlarge.)

... watch out for drips and larger-than-they-appear objects.

On rare occasions, I drew a comic strip...

... back in the 90s, when I was obsessed with drawing in sketchbooks. This one had some basis in reality:


(Enlarge.)


(Enlarge.)


(Enlarge.)

"... concurrently simultaneously what is more for reasons unknown in spite of the strides of physical culture the practice of sports such as tennis football running cycling swimming..."

"... flying floating riding gliding conating camogie skating tennis of all kinds dying flying sports of all sorts autumn summer winter winter tennis of all kinds hockey of all sorts penicillin and succedanea in a word I resume flying gliding golf over nine and eighteen holes tennis of all sorts in a word for reasons unknown in Feckham Peckham Fulham Clapham namely concurrently simultaneously...."

We got [l]ucky and went to the theater last night. Waiting for the show to begin, we ate popsicles on the patio, overlooking the woods...



... and Meade saved me from a tick.

Later, the next morning, we reminisced and danced The Net. You know the new dance craze, The Net? You dance as if you are entangled in a net.

At the Big Dessert Café...

... indulge yourself!

We paid $11 for a pint of ice cream in Madison, Wisconsin.

Ice cream imported from... Ohio.



Jeni's. Flavor: Salty Caramel. I'm a sucker for caramel.

Time passes slowly ....

That video is from one of our longtime favorite commenters, rhhardin, who says:

Approaching Turkey in the Straw diagnosed and awaited, video from Monday bike commute.

The business model is doubtful, with the kids safely indoors in modern times.

That's from last night's "café" post — the one with the orange flower — where another favorite commenter, Lem, transports us into a long car ride with his wonderful father:

Anyway.. I had a good time driving my dad.. for about seven hours.. he drove the rest.

I caught a sign in PA that said "where is the birth certificate?"..

We both happen to see it and when I finally did a half hearted ha ha (because I didn't get it right away) my father asked me what do you think?

..he eventually told me about what he calls the "American Concupiscence of Obama".

and of course he told me ther is a price to pay for that kind of thing.

He told me that "codicia" (lust) is not only a material, nor only a sexual mater the way people like to pretend.

The conversation was, I think, in Spanish.

He said that [like] any object of desire that is able to overcome fears, it is a (for lack of a better explanation) godlike.

According to my father.. the seemingly "impossibility" of Obama becoming president played right into his theme of "hope and change".. So that when it did happened (he became president) people assigned to it a divine like experience/intervention.. and now with the spill he is (unlike Bush) "uniquely qualified" to stop it.. or everything they believed is in jeopardy.

I wish I could put it to you all in the poetic way my father does.

When he spoke.. it was as if I already knew it.. It felt good.

For people to blame themselves for the spill is a stretch.. it is the only thing keeping Obamas hopes alive.

If people blame Obama.. in their minds (says my father) they might as well blame themselves.. specially if they voted for him (i said) ... and my father said after a pause that seemed jarring dislocated.. my father voted for Obama.

I didn't react to that.. (thank God) It would have been disrespectful to him.. the fact that he told me it was not so as to give me an opportunity to call it into question. I think it it was more to brace waht he had been telling me about.. "The American Concupiscence of Obama" had been real enough to carry him away like a Hoover Dam Relief.

Concupiscence.

I wish Lem could capture that poetry on video. I picture Lem's father as a YouTube wise man.

Some commenters told me that the flower photograph looks like a painting. I've been a painter in my time, and the truth is: It doesn't look like a painting at all. I said:

The reason this flower looks like a painting is because it lacks something that — ironically — I would put in if I were doing a painting of it. There are no black/gray shadowy areas demarcating the depths of the folds. It's just more orange. It's not what the brain thinks will be there, but it's what the camera sees.

You could look at that photograph and paint without thinking so much and thereby produce a painting that looks like a photograph. Artists have done that, creating the illusion that some photographs look like paintings. But it is, most assuredly, the other way around.





Time passes slowly up here in the daylight
We stare straight ahead and try so hard to stay right
Like the [orange] rose of [late spring] that blooms in the day
Time passes slowly and fades away...

We left Albany at about 1:30 pm (Eastern Time) yesterday, and we pulled into the driveway here in Madison at 2:30 am (Central Time).

Not easy, but we had 2 drivers, and we're both good at napping in the passenger's seat, and it's not fun to stop in a just-off-the-interstate motel around midnight and go through the tedious routine of getting stuff out of the car, checking in, getting a few hours sleep, checking out, getting stuff back in the car, when you could be rolling along and end up in your own bed, with the next morning free to luxuriate in the glorious routine of breakfast and blogging in the Meadhouse dining room. And there are a number of ways to make the driving fun. One that I can show you here is trying to grab photographs from the car window. I'll post a bunch. The compositions are half chosen and half determined by the movement of the car through the American landscape.

1. Kurver Kreme:



2. Babyland:



3. Liberty Income Tax:



4. I-90 sunset:



5. Near Chicago and midnight:

It's Friday night, in the Once-in-a-Lifetime Bistro...

... and, beyond question, life is worth living.

(Video clip by our exquisitely brilliant commenter, rhhardin.)

"A modest woman who liked to watch the 'Jerry Springer Show' and eat fried chicken, bacon and ice cream. She refused to use dentures. 'I don't know how she does it. She only has her gums, no teeth.'"

Gertrude Baines, born in 1894 in Shellman, Georgia, has died. The new world's-oldest-person is Kama Chinen, 114. She's in Japan.

Lake Mendota, today.

We sat on the terrace (with ice cream cones):



We did not go swimming:

On the road. (Yesterday.)

Blogging from the road:



Yes, I always wash my hands, but I also always look everywhere for a fish-eye effect, and I have my camera ready to bring it back to you:



I even did a re-take of this post to... change the focal point.

At the next stop... hey, what do you want? Onion rings? French toast?

And today's famous Cincinnati food is...

Graeter's Black Raspberry Chocolate Chip Ice Cream!



Applause!

Did you have a nice Valentine's Day/Friday the 13th combo weekend?

I never noticed the collision of the 2 dreaded days before. But I suppose it happens ever 7 years. Did I do the math wrong? I'm sticking with my theory. So, every 7 years we get the Valentine's Day/Friday the 13th combo weekend. Note every time this happens and only when this happens, Valentine's Day falls on Saturday. That Saturdayosity magnifies the romantic dimension of Valentine's Day, so it might be a good idea, when this 7th year rolls around, to lock all your doors, dish out a big bowl of Haagen Dazs...



...put "Wuthering Heights" in the DVD player...



... and curl up on the sofa in your Snuggie.



Because it's a risky place out there. For example, I was out driving, hundreds of miles from home on Friday the 13th, and I blithely made a right turn and drove a half a block before I saw the oncoming traffic in my lane. I quickly made another right turn at the corner, and immediately saw the police car lights in my rear view mirror. The cop — with his beautiful blue eyes — was very handsome — very heart-of-the-heartland handsome. I effused "I'm so sorry." He asked us where we were going. I didn't wisecrack, "the wrong way, apparently."

We said where we were going, and afterward, I wondered what the hell difference did it make where we were going? Nosy cop. Nosy handsome cop. Nosy adorable cop with brilliant blue eyes. I'm theorizing that he asked because the thing is to ask anything to get the driver talking so that words might be slurred, incoherence demonstrated, or alcohol smelled. It's not a speeding ticket he'd like to give me, it's a DUI. And maybe the whole point of making that street 1-way is to net drunk drivers. Why was the cop right there? I bet every 10 minutes, somebody goes the wrong way at that turn, each one a potential DUI, and that was a net that I slithered through. But maybe Mr. Handsome Blue-Eyed Cop let me off because he liked the place we said we were going. And I got lucky that way on Friday the 13th.

So, welcome to Monday. Welcome to the working week....



I told you people to be careful. I said: "If you're going to take any risks, I hope it's worth it for you." Did you take that risk? Did you make that wrong turn? And if you made the wrong turn did you get off easy and end up in the right place?