Soundtrack

One of my favorite books of some year past is Rohinton Mistry’s epic novel of Bombay, during India’s state of emergency in the mid 1970s, A Fine Balance. I read the book shortly after it came out in 1995, but as I sometimes do with special books, I reread this one over the past week. I won’t say much about the book now, other than to recommend it, and to share a favorite paragraph near the end of the book’s 600 pages…

‘As he spoke, he absently pulled out a fountain pen, unscrewed the cap, and put the nib to his nose. She watched, perplexed, as each nostril in turn was pressed shut and the ink fragrance inhaled deeply. Fortified by his fix of Royal Blue, he continued…’

• • • • • • • •

About the only exercise I stick with these days is walking. While in Japan I had the long, almost endless walking path along the blossom strewn Kanda River, which I took frequent advantage of. Now in Florida and on the beach, I have another superb walking environment just outside my door. There isn’t a lot I can call established or routine about my days here now, but one regime apart from the daily blog post is a three-mile early morning walk on the beach. Somehow, I hold onto that discipline doggedly and never falter in covering my daily distance on the clean white sands of NSB.

There aren’t a great many people on the beach when I go out for a walk, but most of the nine or ten I pass are like me, getting in their own time of exercise. The sounds around me, the surf, winds and birdcalls are as much a part of the experience as the movement of feet and legs. Everyone is different, and some people I pass are walking to the beat of an iPod, or following the distracted cadence of a cell phone conversation. I tried the iPod walk once, but didn’t care for the wall it put up between me and the natural setting. And I do walk with a cell phone in my pocket, just in case, but it would be a rare instance for a phone call to shatter the sanctity of those three miles walking south, feet skirting the surf.

I am trying to learn the names of the common birds, and already know a few of them, like the ever present oystercatchers and white ibis. Earlier pages in the blog have explained my fascination with brown pelicans.

My denuded Japanese iPhone still has a few useful functions, and one of them is a pedometer, which keeps a history of distance walked, time, steps and calories burned. It now tells me I’ve walked thirty-seven miles of white sand since the first outing twelve days ago.

I’m looking forward to the late weeks of summer when there is a chance of encountering newly hatched sea turtles scrambling for the waterline. The giant turtles will soon be arriving all along this stretch of protected coastline to deposit their eggs in nests far up from the surf. The nesting area is a twenty mile stretch of beach, and around 150,000 pounds of eggs are laid each year. It’s always a perilous dash for the baby turtles, and nature very often turns against many. In summers past I’ve ‘rescued’ hatchlings found unmoving at the water’s edge, keeping them safe until the turtle specialists picked them up. I am told they hold them for a few weeks until they grow stronger and can be dropped off at a favorable site twenty-five miles offshore. Hard to imagine when holding a turtle hatchling in the palm of your hand that one day it will grow to be the size of an 800 pound boulder.

Post Office Blues

The mail system here in New Smyrna Beach brings to mind scenes from the classic Bukowski novel, Post Office. Some of the book’s characters left Los Angeles and now work in NSB, I believe. For the first ten or twelve days I was here, there was no incoming mail, and I never laid eyes on a mailman or woman.

Email is fine, but in some areas we still depend upon the postal services for particular un-emailable letters or forms. With my recent geographic shift, it’s natural that the postal systems would be a part of the shift, and leave me for the time being, semi-dependent on their mail delivery services. I’ve already received notice that two incoming payments were returned to the senders, and my tax-prep return documents also suffered the same fate.

When I finally managed to snag a postwoman down the road, she almost admitted that things were out-a-hand down there at the P.O. She quickly scribbled off a number to call for postal disorders. Well, there must be some magic in that number, because my mailbox got goosed and next morning gushed forth stacks of mail. “Lawdy, Lawdy, I been found!” I might have shouted. Bukowski would have described it as sub-normal.

I had a chat with a couple of my neighbors about the mail drag, and they both asked if my name was on the INSIDE of the box. That apparently is a key factor, because someone did stick my name up inside, I noticed when pulling out all the mail. Must have been the building manager.

So, it’s not all singing frogs and herb gardens around here. The small bumps and snags will pop up, and over at the post office I don’t expect anything to be like that semi-famous brag of theirs, “Neither snow nor rain….”

Some Favorites

Two weeks of living here in the beach condo has been time enough to reconnect with some of the tidbits that make the days good. What I mean are some of the small things I found over the years in an old shop or out of the way place, and bought to fill a corner at the beach. For a long time they were all things I only saw for six weeks each summer. Other seasons were all in Tokyo. And so these past fourteen days I’ve been getting reacquainted with some favorites.

Sitting down and noting my special likes, the list became too cumbersome, so I just whittled it down to frogs, herbs, books, Pelikan and glass.

FROGS There are two carved wood frogs from Indonesia living under the tables. One is very large, and the other small. They came from a gift shop in Mt Dora, Florida, fifty miles west of here. When you rake the ‘bat’ across the ridges on their backs, they croak and sing.

HERBS On the patio is a small herb garden with parsley, dill, basil and tarragon that the winter renters left behind for me. Kind people who spent the past five winters in this condo. This small patch of green is new this year, but how those herbs survive in this salty air I don’t know.

BOOKS My complete library has been divided for the past eleven years, with half in Tokyo, and half here in Florida. It’s always a joy for me to be among the collection here. (The Tokyo half is on the high seas, soon to join us on these shelves.) The photo squeezed between the top shelf books is one of my mother and father in the mid 1940s.

PELIKAN This one has great sentimental value because it was a gift from my good friend in Tokyo, Yoshiro Sawane. It is the traditional Pelikan pen holder, the large size.

GLASS The white pelikan is standing on a thick, round slab of glass. It’s very heavy, about a half inch thick and six inches in diameter. It is completely unmarked, with no hint of origin. I can’t for the life of me remember where I got it.

And as the old Rodgers & Hammerstein musical said, “These are a few of my favorite things.”

Bankers for Dinner

The week’s cooking practice got put to the test this evening when a friend came for a sunset dinner at the beach. Phillip is the man who charts my decline into poverty and watches over my pennies at the bank. Confidence is such that I’ve followed him through four bank moves in the past eleven years. My guess is the dinner turned out well; timing of everything was perfect, except right at the moment of putting it all on the table, I couldn't find a corkscrew to open the wine with. Strange as it seems, there is no corkscrew in my kitchen, or at least I don’t have one any more. Would’ve sworn there was one there for the simple reason that I’ve always had a corkscrew. Had to borrow one this time.

I knew that my friend would be happy with chicken, so over the past several days I have been concocting and experimenting with a couscous and chicken recipe idea. A lot of my grocery shopping now is a matter of new discoveries and getting a feel for what I can and can’t find in the market. No question that the Publix here in Florida is vastly different from my old Summit Supermarket in Tokyo. I'm still finding my way. The ingredients for this new chicken couscous recipe turned out to be fairly standard and the shopping was easy.

Call it whatever you like, or stick with the generic sounding ‘chicken couscous’ the finished dish has a North African texture and flavor. One thing for certain is the healthful quality of the ingredients. There’s nothing in this recipe to alarm even the strictest of diet conscious eaters, and you can prove it by the doctor. Some might balk at the pre-dinner tortilla chips and guacamole, but hold back on the chips and you’re safe.

The guacamole is a recipe I’ve used for years and never fails to impress. The mix is simple:

One or two ripe avocados rough chopped in a bowl; add some chopped tomato, chopped onion, and a little chopped garlic. Stir in some salsa (I use bottled) and about two heaping tablespoons of plain yogurt. Add salt, pepper, chili powder and a squeeze of lemon juice.

CHICKEN COUSCOUS

Ingredients:

1 box of plain or flavored couscous. (I used Near East brand, roasted garlic & olive oil this time,

but plain couscous is a better health choice.)

3 cups of shredded roast chicken; a rotisserie chicken is easiest

2 cups of chopped onion, green pepper & tomato mixed together

2 cups of broccoli stalks peeled and julienned

4 tablespoons of good quality olive oil

1 large clove of garlic

1 teaspoon of Italian seasoning

Salt & pepper

Stir the couscous (and seasoning packet contents if there is a packet) into one and a quarter cups of boiling water, with an added tablespoon of olive oil. As soon as the couscous comes to a boil, turn off the fire and cover the pot. Allow the couscous to stand covered for five minutes.

Meanwhile, add the remaining olive oil to a wok along with finely chopped garlic and half a teaspoon of Italian seasoning. Be careful that the garlic does not burn.

When the couscous has absorbed all the water, fluff it with a fork and then add it to the wok. Stir, being sure to mix it well with the seasoning, garlic and oil. Add the chicken and toss well; next stir in the onion, green pepper & tomato mix, as well as the julienned broccoli.

Give the couscous-chicken-vegetable mix a good stir now and then as it continues to cook on medium high heat. The vegetables should be tender after 15 minutes.

I served the couscous with steamed asparagus and summer squash, and a simple green salad of lettuce, tomato and cucumber. (And how I wish I could get Japanese cucumbers here.)

This is an easy meal and one that will very likely please the folks at the dinner table.

Pelican With a ‘C’

As anyone familiar with these pages will already know, one of my favorite things is Pelikan fountain pens. But there is another pelican I am also fascinated with, and that’s the one with wings that eats fish. I have wanted for the past week or so to write something about these birds, because they have become a daily sight and one of the quiet pleasures about my new life on the Atlantic coast. Stepping outside these days, I inevitably turn an eye to the passing, or feeding brown pelicans that have become my avian neighbors.

Somewhat clumsy and awkward on land, these large birds are in flight, the picture of grace and beauty, often reminding one of a corps de ballet in the precision of their movement. Four to five foot long birds, weighing as much as ten pounds, they are masters of the wind and it is a prodigious sight to see a flock of nine pelicans flying in a straight line six inches above the surface of the ocean.

The brown pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis) is the smallest of the seven pelican species, and is common to the Pacific, Atlantic and Gulf Coasts of North and South America. They congregate in large flocks and are social and gregarious. Long-lived, some tagged pelicans have been found to be as much as thirty years old.

The head is white with a pale yellow crown, and the long neck is chestnut and white. The main body is brown streaked. Bill and pouch are gray and can hold three times as much as the bird’s stomach. There is an old limerick by Dixon Lanier Merriot that reads, ‘A wonderful bird is the pelican; his bill can hold more than his belican.’

The pelican flies with his neck folded and the head resting on the back, with slow, powerful wing beats. They have keen eyesight and can spot fish from as high as seventy feet over the water. Air sacs beneath the skin cushion the impact of their kamikaze-like dives when feeding. They eat up to four pounds of fish a day. An interesting thing about the pelican’s pouch is that it serves as a cooling mechanism one minute, and a feeding trough for the pelican chicks the next. Parents care for the young three months, and first flight comes about seventy-five days after birth.

I have never found it documented, but a story I heard from a local man who has observed them all his life, says that these birds have an unfortunate manner of death. The story goes that the pelicans gradually go blind from the daily pounding their eyes take in the repeated dives for food. Unable to see to find fish, they starve to death.

The mystery to me is why over the course of thousands of years the eyes have not evolved a protective feature of some kind. Isn’t that the very nature of evolution?

Here’s the complete Merriot limerick, written in 1910…

A wonderful bird is the pelican

His bill will hold more than his belican,

He can take in his beak

Enough food for a week

But I’m damned if I see how the helican!

Miscellany for an Afternoon

As he lay dying, the last words uttered by Oscar Wilde were, “Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.” No, this is neither a piece about Oscar Wilde or wallpaper, but about an interesting book I pulled down from the shelves recently. It is an extremely witty and fascinating compendium of miscellany, and a fabulously researched book.

It’s called Schott’s Original Miscellany, conceived, written and designed by Ben Schott, and published by Bloomsbury in 2002. There is a companion book called Schott’s Food & Drink Miscellany, published by the same in 2003. I’ll save that one for another time.

The original Miscellany begins with this perfect description of its qualities: ‘Its purpose is to gather the flotsam and jetsam of the conversational tide.’ The book is a series of topical lists, charts and explanations, and much more, bound up in a beautiful design. Categories include, Some Famous Horses, the NATO alphabet, ‘I love you’ in forty-three languages, and…

PHOBIAS - The long list includes a phobia for clowns called ‘coulrophobia’ and one for sea swells (cymobphobia).

SEVEN WONDERS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD - (1) the Great Pyramid of Giza, (2) the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, (3) the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, (4) the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, (5) the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, (6) the Colossus of Rhodes, and (7) the Lighthouse of Alexandria.

FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE - (1) War-white horse, (2) Slaughter-red horse, (3) Famine-black horse, and (4) Death-pale horse

HOLALPHABETIC SENTENCES - (sentences using all twenty-six letters of the alphabet)

(1) We promptly judged antique ivory buckles for the next prize.

(2) Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz.

THE NINE MUSES - (1) Clio-history, (2) Melpomene-tragedy, (3) Thalia- comedy, (4) Calliope-epic poetry, (5) Urania-astronomy, (6) Euterpe-flutes and music, (7) Terpsichore-dancing and lyric poetry, (8) Polyhymnia-mime and sacred poetry, and (9) Erato-love poetry

BON MOTS OF DOROTHY PARKER -

(1) On Katherine Hepburn: She ran the whole gamut of emotions from A to B.

(2) On being told President Coolidge was dead: How do they know?

(3) You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think.

Schott’s Original Miscellany, great way to fritter away an afternoon.

Another Kind of Ink

I have a fair share of liberal ideas and would probably never be mistaken for a conservative. Like to think I’m open minded about things, and someone who can tolerate radical behavior in individuals, as long as it or they don’t hurt or threaten others.

Now ask me about tattoos. If the topic is the increasing popularity of tattooing, then for once you’ll find me on the conservative side of the fence. Like most, I have two or three friends with tattoos, have been acquainted with many, but getting a tattoo is not anything I would ever do.

Last week I was in a restaurant seated near a family, a mother, father and son. At first glance, they appeared typical, and they interacted in ways that reflected warmth and familial feelings. Looking across later, I noticed that the father had tattoos along both arms. I didn't think anything about it until I noticed a tattoo on the son’s forearm. He could have been no more than eleven or twelve. The tattoo gave every appearance of being the real deal.

Next, I hear a story from a friend about the family in the supermarket. According to the story, the boy holding onto his mother’s belt loop had a Chinese dragon tattooed on his neck.

That’s bad. That’s child abuse in my opinion. Not only does it inflict severe pain, but it doesn’t come off—EVER. What kind of person makes that decision for a child?

Today I read on the Internet the story of the Georgia couple who tattooed five of their six children, because the children “wanted to be like Mommy and Daddy.” Mom and Pop used a homemade tattoo gun. Know what I say? Send them to Judge Judy! She just might sentence these parents to a long stretch in the Big House.

Here in Florida I see a great many more tattoos than I saw living in Japan. The last four or five years has seen a spike in the popularity of tattoos, and it isn’t uncommon these days to see them on Japanese college students, though not to the extent we see in the US.

A few years back, during some repair work in the condo here, among the work crew was a young man of about twenty or so who had a Japanese word tattooed large on his forearm. Knowing I had come from Japan, he thrust out his arm rather proudly and asked if I knew what the inked characters meant. Little mystery there—CRIMINAL. But I held my tongue and waited to hear what the tattoo artist had told him.

“Outlaw…cool, right?”

Mmm…