becoming andromedous. I am reminded of life off Dana Point, in the fishing village of Cayucos, where my people were lobster lifters. As I may have mentioned elsewhere, lobsters love to be lifted and set down repeatedly and pay highly for this recreation, so most of my Portuguese relatives made good. A few did not; they couldn't progress from pilchard fishing, which brings only poverty and despair because there is no such fish. More recently I hear everybody has gone into boogie-boarding followed by luaus and pajama parties --for all of which I am now too old, disproving my Dana Point relatives' advice, "Geo., you can't leave too soon."
But I digress. Norma's immediate response to sustained pluie was alarm for crushed chrysanthemums, which she dashed out and harvested for display in a surrealistic section of our kitchen.
The wall mural is Norma's work. The red, much-foxed, oft-repaired French/English dictionary is crucial to our relationship. The bluish volume of Great letters is mine and rests upon The Monk And The Philosopher, which is jointly owned. These books reflect differences in our backgrounds. She studied truth, translation and everything nice, while I majored in flummery, tarradiddle and puppydog tails. In my defense, I thought I had entered a cooking school and should have suspected its motto: "You're only as good as the last person you fooled." But I digress.
Norma's picture returns us to our subject. She said nothing but her expression conveyed intense concern and alarm. I knew what she was thinking, WET THERMOMETER! Something about it reminded me of medical equipment.
"Colonoscopy find anything, Doctor?"
"Some plaque on the back of your teeth but your dentist can fix that."
"Well, I bet it left a big hole in my wallet."
"No chance, we took your pants off."
But I digress. Patterned objects resting upon surfaces of echoing patterns fascinate Norma. She remained in the rain to arrange this:
Wet pine cones collected on a wet table on a rainy day --an irreducible pattern from which I find it impossible to digress. To all, a pleasant December!
