Bopping Around

Cloudy this morning and then----RAIN!

After a month of hotter-than-the-surface-of-the-sun days in Oklahoma, my mind was confused at first. "What is water...falling...from sky? Why is...air pleasant...and refreshing?"

I walked down to the Trafik to buy public transportation tickets, my umbrella held at a jaunty angle. After about ten minutes the rain, she stopped. The umbrella went back into the bag and didn't come out again, but even after the sun emerged and the water evaporated, a nice breeze remained and it felt like Spring. I'd guess it was about 80 degrees F.

I got on a streetcar, rode a few stops, then got off and walked around. I was trying to get some street photos and that's what I concentrated on today, trying to sneak pictures of people being themselves. You gotta be kind of sneaky.

I hopped on and off several streetcars looking for pictures. Must have walked a couple of miles.

As always, click on any pic to bigify / enlargenate.

Cubes of painted concrete. If you have to stop truck bombs, at least make the barriers purty.

I like these kind of buildings, but not the streetcar wires that ruin the photo.

Here's something you almost never see [cough, cough]:

a woman unleashing a tsunami of jibber-jabber, 

the man wishing he could pour 80 pounds of instant-dry cement into his ears.

Something else you almost never see:

a woman wondering if her man will at least look at her.

Stenciled graffiti. Anyone know who this is?

This sort of sight is getting rare. Most people buy from supermarkets.

Summertime sidewalk cafe girl talk.

I'd estimate these roofs are at least 5 years old, if not older.

Even here you don't see many of these.

It's basically an enclosed trike with a tiny engine, steered by handlebars.

I wouldn't mind having one. I bet it gets 73,912 miles per gallon.

B comes home tonight from several days of work in Brussels. We look forward to seeing each other again after four months apart.

Back Again #16

Arrived on time at 8:15 local time. Sunny skies, but already warm that early.

It ain't Oklahoma-hot, but it later got to about 90 or so. No air conditioning here, so there's that.

I was groggy. No sleep on the flight from DC to Vienna, thanks to a contingent of screaming (not just crying, but fucking screaming) babies in our section of the plane, who took turns keeping all the adults---not just their parents!---from getting a night of semi-restful airplane sleep.

Well, hell. At least at the end of it, I found myself in Vienna. I could have been flying to Bovina, Texas.

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B's dad picked me up at the airport and drove me to his place. B's mom surprised and delighted me, having prepared a care package of 1) the great local bread 2) fresh apricots 3) homemade potato salad, and 4) her world-class schnitzel.

They drove me to B's place. And where, you ask, was B? In Brussels working, but she'll be home today and we'll have a nice reunion. Four months apart this time...

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It kind of shocks me that this place seems so familiar, but by my count this is my 16th visit here, the last two being of five weeks, then nine weeks, duration. This will be an 11-weeker, so I guess it's no surprise Vienna is feeling like home...

I was too wasted to do anything but spend my first day here sleeping, watching TV, eating, drinking, and sleeping again.

But I did stumble upon this crazy Austrian. And I thought all the eccentrics live in America.

It's About Time by Professor X

Last night I had a dream. The only part I remember is this: I was talking on the phone to one of my dearest friends. "I have something to tell you," he said, "but don't worry. Everything's OK."

"What?" I asked.

In a very calm and conversational voice he said: "I went to the doctor. He told me I have cancer and I'll be dead in six months."

Silence. Then I said: "Tell me you're kidding."

"No. But like I said," he went on, "everything's OK."

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Whenever I've tried to predict "the" future, I got it wrong. (I put "the" in quotes because, what? There's only one future? Fnord!)

There's a thing called probability and it does most of the future-predicting work for us, even when we don't know the odds. For instance, the sun will probably rise tomorrow, for a number of reasons. I can't calculate the odds of it not rising, but based on past performance and lack of any data suggesting the sun is about to fizzle out, it seems pretty certain that it'll happen.

If you toss a non-rigged coin, the odds are almost 50-50 that one or the other side will land upright. Almost 50-50 because there's a chance, however slim, that the coin will land on edge. Toss two dice and it's certain you'll end up with a number between 2 and 12, and some of those numbers are much more likely to come up than others---and the odds are known, due to the simplicity of the task. There are only so many possible outcomes.

But when you get into stuff like:  will my son become a doctor, or is my soulmate out there somewhere, or will tough Army men who are trained to face life and death fighting under very arduous conditions suddenly fall apart like hormonal teenie-boppers if they have to serve with gay people, things get tricky. There are simply too many variables. So who knows? Answer: nobody. Including you and me. So it doesn't pay to worry about it. See what happens.

I haven't spent too much time dwelling on the past, but I have a history of dwelling on possible futures. Lately, though, that's happening less and less. I'm trying to tone it down. Sure, I have plans---clean the garage, paint the spare bedroom, stuff like that. Can I predict the outcome of my goals? No. Too many variables, including possible incapacitation or death or a changing of the alleged mind on the part of your humble blogger.

The present moment seems more and more interesting to me. (I say "the" present moment even though I have the idea there's no such thing----it's like looking at the Danube and talking about "the" water droplet.) And watching time flow by, like watching a river, can be kind of interesting. Sometimes it's fun to just wait and see what happens. It's fun doing this with your creative endeavors, too---do them anonymously and then watch the fun.

Take a look at the young Austrian schoolgirl, above. Do you think she could have imagined all the interesting and wonderful things that later happened to her? She could imagine things just as fascinating----but how many of them came to pass? And how many of the things she experienced did she first imagine?

Nobody really knows, but when the photo above was taken I bet she never imagined she'd grow up to be dealing with a strange American who walks around half the time with smoke in his skull. Nor could the strange American imagine the grown-up Austrian schoolgirl until about, oh, seven years ago.

You just never know what a future will bring, but sometimes it's really fascinating and fun when it happens.

And then you need to savor the ever-moving moments.