Aurel's laurels

My son took this picture with his new camera. I'm really glad that I was able to fund one quarter of its cost. He now has two digital and one emulsion cameras and, for reasons I cannot understand, he is still attached to the emulsion camera and wants to let go of the less expensive digital. We are in negotiation for me to get it Cathy and I are off to France to visit friends and for my nice niece's wedding and it sure would be nice to have something a little more flexible that my cell phone. Mind you, the cell takes so much better snaps than the brownies of my youth, that I am well content, if I can get to recharge it. The battery there only lasts for two hours!



My life is returning to normal after three weeks of what my best friend affectionately called "Spring Fever". I really was quite disturbed, but at the same time had greater insight into myself than before and got off my addiction to rather harmful drugs. All prescription of course, but I came to realise that I was over dependant on them, that they worked less well than when I first started taking them and that much of the discomfort in my body was attributable to their side effects.
Tonight it is illness which has me awake before dawn, but, during those weeks, I simply had "rebound insomnia". "Rebound" anything is the theory that, when one stops a drug use, one gets an augmented version of the presenting symptoms. It makes sense to me. God bless Wikipedia and Knol.
All the while I have been reading a simple, excellent translation of the German book, "The Reader". I don't actually read much. Most of my favourite books listed in my profile are simply the books that I managed to finish. I have a little trouble reading and therefor find it well nigh impossible to read something that does not grab my enthusiasm at every page. I read about two books a year and frequently reread old favourites. As often happens to me , apparently the reverse of the normal, I am attracted to books by the films that people make from them. The passivity of cinema suits my mind perfectly. I could, I use to say, watch anything on a screen that moved. Less true now, but I am returning more and more to the habit of my childhood of staring at the world around me as I go through it , but I have overcome the shyness of my youth and now engage with anyone who seems open to a little discussion. Men walking dogs are usually friendly and so it was that after smelling a sweet skunk on the station platform at dawn, I observed tiny shoots emerging from the branches of the tamarisk on the corner and then saw two dogs hassling a raccoon in the park. The raccoon went up the tree so slowly and cautiously that the dog walker reckoned she was pregnant,. She stared down at us with that deceptive cute face and we stared up at her for a good moment.