fireworks and clowns, circus and congress, boxes and helicopters

In normal times there is an evening sea breeze from the cool ocean into the city of Santa Barbara. Since a cursory examination of the current administration’s ability to convince a sizable portion of the population that cruelly separating children from their parents is okay, someone else’s fault and what Jesus would do, these are not normal times. So it wasn’t surprising when the temperature soared to 101 ℉ (38 ℃) during the day, remained in the high 90’s late in the evening and was accompanied by strong sundowner winds bringing heat from the mountains to the ocean. In short, like the current administration, the weather sucked.

Nazy was in San Francisco visiting Shahriar and Fay while I dealt with the weather and..
dan and tiger at the circus

“… a power failure, Nazy.” I explained during a phone call.

“That’s really..”

Bad! It’s really bad, Nazy. Without power there is no air conditioning.”

“Our house doesn’t have air conditioning, Dan.”

“Oh! Well, if it did, it wouldn’t be working because Southern California Edison had an outage.”

Before Nazy left on her trip, she and I took Arrow and Tiger to the Vargas Circus. Although the circus was small (and animal-free), the acts: trapeze, juggling, motorcycle tricks, tight rope,
clowns (on loan) were great. The boys even got a chance to walk around the ring before the show.

Arrow also started pre-school this week. Going to the same school as Tiger, he is very comfortable and independent. And Tiger has been always available to help Arrow get settled.

Arrow’s verbal skills developing quickly as well. For example, on Monday, I picked him up from school and took him to our house for a nap. I took him out of the car seat and started walking toward the house.

“Want Mamon now.” Arrow exclaimed.

“Mamon Joon is in San Francisco, Arrow,” I replied. “She’s not here now.”

“Want Mamon now!” Arrow replied.

Maybe he doesn’t understand,” I thought.

“Want. Mamon. Now.” Arrow reiterated.
Fireworks with boys for TWL

Or maybe he just thinks I’m dumb,”I thought. Accurately.

Later in the week, I joined Melika with Tiger and Arrow, at her home to watch the 4th of July fireworks. The view was great. I discussed the view with Arrow.

“Isn’t this great, Arrow. What is it?”

“Airplane.” He replied.

“It’s fireworks, Arrow.”

“Airplane.”

“Funny Airplane,” I replied. “
Close enough,” I thought.

Later, when I was holding Tiger, Arrow saw what was going on —

“Me too, Dan.” He asserted. I ended up holding them both.

Nazy, who returns to Santa Barbara on Saturday, will face a house full of boxes. We’re packing for the move toward the ocean later this month. Tiger was annoyed to see that some of his toys had been packed.

“I know, Tiger. It is annoying. It takes so much time to pack boxes. Can you think of a better way.”
IMG_3562


“You need a big truck, Dan.” Tiger replied.

“You’re right about that,” I replied. “
And some big strong men,” I thought as I looked at the massive marble dining room table that is roughly the size of Luxembourg.

“A very big truck, Dan.” Tiger repeated — probably after looking at the dining room table.

“How about this Tiger? We could get a helicopter to pick up the whole house, fly it to our new house and shake all the stuff out.”

“No.” Tiger replied. “That won’t work.”

“Why not?”

“Everything will break, Dan.”

Maybe a better result than taking all of this stuff,” I thought.

This week I also received an interesting proposal…

Life insurance,” I thought. “they’re betting I live and I’m betting I die. If I win, I lose” Unwilling to bet against myself, I shredded the solicitation and opened the next piece of junk mail — ominously entitled “FINAL NOTICE”. This one was an offer to restructure my student loan, an obligation paid off several decades ago.

It’s also a lie,” I thought. “since I get one of these FINAL NOTICE letters once a week.”

I’m too young and healthy for one list and too old and debt free for the other.

As I was dealing with the mail, Nazy returned from San Francisco.

“I sat next to a deaf but very loud cowboy from Utah,” Nazy explained. “I gave him my window seat and he kept yelling about the brown and dry Santa Barbara surroundings.”

“But wasn’t he from Utah?” I asked. “
Did he miss the red and yellow fires, or the black burn scars?” I thought.

As you’ve probably guessed, the first thing Nazy wanted to do was to see Arrow and Tiger. We obliged.

To see last week's letter, please click here

Nazy and the Santa Barbara Boys


Nazy with the boys July 2018

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