A Day in Hong Kong I

Macau Sã Assim III

Tourists on the steps of São Paulo's façade

The Holy House of Mercy

Vasco da Gama

Taipa Bridge and the Forbidden City

The old and the new

Macau Sã Assim II

Here are more pictures of Macau. You can click on them to enlarge.

Leal Senado is now 'Instituto Para Os Assuntos Civicos e Municipais'

Fast and furious come the new casinos

Guia Lighthouse

The Grand Lisboa Casino Hotel seen from Rua Nova a Guia

The Grand Lisboa Casino seen from the front

Macau Sã Assim

For starters, I’m posting some photos taken on our recent trip to Macau and Hong Kong. As time permits, there’ll be other posts forthcoming, but this being the start of the holiday season, and with much to catch up on before we leave again on another trip, we may have to postpone uploading the bigger album of photos.

Blue Bicycle

Casa de Portugal em Macau

Graffitti Art

Edificio Hang On

Modas Indigo

Green Balconies

Architecture worth preserving

Avenida Dr Rodrigo Rodrigues

Casino Hotel Row

More casinos a-building

Greetings

A very happy and safe Thanksgiving to all our relatives and friends.

Over here it is a cold, lovely, clear morning, cold enough that the heating system in the house comes on, which reminds me that the filter needs to be changed.

Outside the sky is free of clouds, and the view across the Bay is pin sharp.

On a day like this, you want to think that all's right with this world of ours.

Perfection

I went looking in our backyard for the perfect Japanese maple leaf, one that could be flattened and preserved between the pages of a book. The perfect leaf was one that had to have changed color completely and evenly, would not have any visible blemishes, whose tips were not dry and brittle, and whose shape was symmetrically pleasing.

Among the scores of leaves that I examined, there were very few that could pass most of the strict guidelines I had imposed. Some were close to being completely red, except for the slightest tinge of brown at the tip. If there was even a minuscule hint of brownness, it was rejected. Others were shapely, with perfect tips, but the color would be uneven. Still others had the right coloration and no brown tips, but the body of the leaf was speckled.

So finally I gave up looking and settled on just five leaves that came to represent the best our Japanese maples had to offer. I have concluded that if I wanted a perfect maple leaf, I’d have to wait for one perfect green and unblemished leaf to turn a glorious red, millimeter by millimeter, over a long period of time, and then pluck it at the exact moment when the color is uniform throughout, and before the tips begin to turn brown and dry.

Perfection is a difficult thing to find.

Common Errors in English

Came across this very useful site during my Web wanderings. Thought I'd share it with you all.

Errors

Upcoming Holidays

Thanksgiving in a few days. It is truly the most American of holidays and one that should be honored regardless of one’s religion or creed, or even the lack thereof. We have plenty to be thankful for, so much more than so much of the rest of the world.

This year we have been invited to Thanksgiving dinner at the home of my wife’s niece. She and her husband have recently remodeled their kitchen, which we will see for the first time. The evening promises to be fun.

My brother-in-law is a hunter and will probably have a few ducks and other game to bring to the table besides the turkey. I have no doubt that there will be quite a spread.

* * * *

And after Thanksgiving there will be a holiday on this blog for two weeks, as we embark on another trip, this time to the Far East. I just bought many more gigabytes of electronic film for my camera in anticipation of this trip, and plan to have pictures up for viewing on our return. If I am energetic enough, there may even be some video clips. We shall see.

9:00AM Sunday Morning

Got out my camera when I saw the mist over the treetops. Got off a couple of shots just as the microwave buzzer sounded to let me know the porridge was ready (this time it did not spill over).

Los Angeles

Los Angeles -- composition outside the hotel

Flying over the California coast at 32,000 feet around midday.
Clouds on the left are towering cumulus congestus topping at about 10,000 feet.

Baggage being loaded at LAX

Some Random Observations

Really don’t know why I should be annoyed by them, but I am. “Them” are those bumper stickers, or sometimes rear window stickers, usually found on family minivans or SUV’s, advertising the scholastic achievements of their owners’ offspring: “My child is an honor student at (pick a name) (elementary, middle, high) school.”

Does anybody really care, including the über-achiever of a child?

* * * * *

Music recommendation on your iPod for a one-hour walk or jog – Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2 in E minor, with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by André Previn. The timing is just right.

Symphony No.2 (Rachmaninoff)

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

Thoroughly enjoyed reading Haruki Murakami’s collection of 24 short stories, “Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.” The guy has a gift for making us care for his characters, however outrageous their circumstances. I had previously read some of the same stories in this collection in the “New Yorker”, but having them all in one volume is a real treat. Highly recommended.

Blind_Willow,_Sleeping_Woman

Memories Preserved

More than ten years ago, my nephew interviewed his grandmother, my mother, in a series of recording sessions, to preserve her memories for future generations. She was in her mid-eighties at the time, and she passed away several years later.

The taped recordings were subsequently re-mastered by my nephew onto more durable compact discs, and he was kind enough to make copies to send to all the family members who wanted them. They are a work of love, and we are all grateful for the time and work that went into the project.

To hear again the voice of my mother describing her life from when was a young woman, and vividly recalling the wartime years, makes this memento a truly wonderful gift for the family.

My nephew is a skilled sound engineer in Massachusetts, whose excellent work in many stage productions has received wide recognition. He is also an accomplished composer.

A Certain Slant of Light

There's a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.

Heavenly hurt it gives us;
We can find no scar,
But internal difference
Where the meanings are.

None may teach it anything,
'Tis the seal, despair,-
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the air.

When it comes, the landscape listens,
Shadows hold their breath;
When it goes, 't is like the distance
On the look of death.

-- Emily Dickinson

Chinese Zodiac

There’s a Chinese restaurant near our house that serves authentic Shanghai cuisine. We dined there last night. It’s a small place, tastefully decorated in deep blues and lime greens. On the walls are large framed prints of advertisements for cigarettes, pomades, medicines and teas, featuring pretty girls in cheongsams in the fashion of the Thirties. The prints bring to mind Ang Lee’s latest film of wartime Shanghai, ‘Lust, Caution’.

The paper place mats are printed with the animals of the Chinese zodiac, along with the lunar years to which each animal belongs, and a capsule summary of the attributes of the humans born in those years. The zodiac cycle being one of twelve years, it follows that the Gregorian calendar years for each sign is separated by this interval, so that for the Dragon, for example, we have 1916, 1928, 1940, all the way up to 2012.

Chinese horoscope

The place mat also has a note that if the diner was born before the year 1900, he or she should add 12 to his or her birth year to determine the correct zodiac sign. Born before 1900, indeed! That would make that diner at least 107 years old today.

But not to worry, for the years printed on the place mat go as far into the future as 2012, thereby preparing for the advent of diners yet unborn.

These Chinese restaurants, they think of everything.

Back Alley

Beautiful fall day. Clock reverted to Pacific Standard Time this past weekend. Took a stroll in downtown Millbrae, and grabbed a couple of shots of a back alley.

Collars

For men only, here is a bit of trivia that may come in handy. Old credit cards, cut into the right dimensions, make excellent replacements for collar stays. The ones that come with the shirt these days are often too thin and flexible to be of any use. They may curl up and give your pointed collar a scruffy and comical look.

Of course, if you are a button-down kind of guy, this information is not meant for you.

Lunch Wagon

It is near the noon hour when the truck, with its quilted aluminum sides, begins to circulate through the neighborhood. The first hints of its presence are two bars of the tune from its musical horn, which is both evocative and familiar. Da-da-da-dum-DUM, da-da-da-dum-DUM.

Click here

The truck stops wherever its owner knows, or can surmise, that there are itinerant, and even possibly undocumented, workers having their lunch break. It carries to them an assortment of food items that are both inexpensive and appealing to the palate, and especially those palates partial to the maize-based, hot-chili-pepper-flavored, heavily leguminous diet of people from south of the border.

The tune that the truck plays to announce its arrival originated during the Mexican Revolution of the early twentieth century. It is simple and cheerful, though the words that accompany the original song are not exactly innocent.

Here are the lyrics:

La cucaracha, la cucaracha
Ya no puede caminar
Porque no tiene, porque le falta
Marijuana por fumar

(The cockroach, the cockroach
It's not going to walk
Because it does not have, because it lacks,
Marijuana for to smoke.)

All Hallows

In the dream, he is sitting with his back to me. We are in a café somewhere, and sunlight floods the place. The details of the cafe are in sharp focus, as often happens in these dreams of mine. The chair in which he sits has a wrought iron back in an arabesque pattern, like the ones seen on balcony railings of older apartments.

From where I am standing I see only the back of his head, the black hair slicked down with brilliantine, carefully combed to a duck tail. Across the table from him is a woman, who wears dark glasses against the glare of the sun. Their right hands meet on the table top, which is of rose-colored marble. Perhaps there are coffee cups or wine glasses near at hand, but this detail is not clear or important, for the scene is transformed when the woman smiles. Her smile lights up her face. Her lips are a deep scarlet.

I stand there as an observer, not approaching them, and for all that I know or care they may be completely unaware of my presence.

A child in rags appears. She looks about seven or eight years old. She stands there barefoot and dirty, with her hand held out to the woman.

The man tries to shoo child away, with a brusque gesture. The woman knits her brows, looking across at the man. She says, ‘Give her some money.’

The man reaches into the pocket of his trousers and pulls out a handkerchief. As he does this, a shower of gold coins falls down to the tiled floor, but noiselessly. The little girl starts to pick up the coins, and then suddenly there are scores of children all around, grabbing at the coins.

The man and woman get up from the table, pushing their way through the crowd of children. As they walk away, I see that the woman is wearing high heels, and nylon stockings with seams.

The children gather up the coins. There is no sound. Only light.

At this point, I awaken.

Groan

Exasperation –

The computer malfunctions

So again I’m lost

Fig Tree

This twenty-five year old fig tree in the garden produces some delicious figs.

Like this one.

Hope

Ever more swiftly

The days and weeks come and go —

Spring will soon arrive

The Mirror

Pores become larger -

hairs sprout from inside one's ears

winter is fast approaching

Fall Colors

Wildfires

The disastrous wildfires in Southern California have kept us glued all day to the television. The conflagrations have reduced hundreds of homes and other structures to ashes, and the end is nowhere in sight. One person has perished, and thousands have been left homeless. Whipped by powerful and unpredictable Santa Ana winds, the flames are testing to the limit the state's ability to keep them in check. Let's hope that the weather changes soon, that the winds will die down, and that moisture will give the firefighters a chance to contain the multiple fires.

Santiago

This is a shot taken when we were standing outside the Hospital de los Reyes Católicos, kitty-corner from the famous Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, in northwest Spain. It's your typical tourist picture, and had likely been captured many thousands of times from the very same spot. The components are Old World, picturesque, with elements of history, and religion, alongside ancient and modern culture, and perhaps even myth as well.

If you look closely, you will see along the hills in the background that there are new houses either being built, or recently completed. A cluster of three of them in a row appear no different than tract homes seen in our American suburbs. A larger house in the middle distance is much higher than its neighbors, and shows the current European trend towards large skylights. Its roof tiles are modern and regular, unlike those of the older buildings in the foreground, some of which have become discolored over the years, and indeed show signs of decay and tufts of weeds along their courses.

The climate does not allow whitewash to remain white for long in rainy Galicia, and you can see the stains of mildew on the walls of the older houses, which stand cheek-by-jowl alongside houses that have, at least on their façades, a cleaner look.

The street on which the foreground houses stand is very steep and narrow. Some of the houses have wrought-iron balconies, others have roof terraces. The street lights are, of course, electric, but their design suggests that before the advent of electricity, they may have been fueled by natural gas, and maybe even tallow.

To the right are visible the decorative pillars on the outer wall of the Hospital, and the stone of which they and the supporting base are made is grey and weathered, much in contrast to the incongruous modern spy camera mounted a metre or so below, which points down towards the street, and whose coiled cable forms an elegant calligraphic lower-case letter 'g'.

On the wall to the left the pillars are of a newer design, and one might suppose that they were either added later, after the originals had crumbled through age, or the entire lighter-toned stone structure might have been erected next to the original wall centuries later; a couple of windows lower down seem to favor this second thesis.

In the street below two commercial enterprises are visible. Their entrances are surmounted by canvas canopies which appear to have been well-maintained. One is a restaurant called "Las Huertas", and the other is a pharmacy. Between them is a "No Parking" sign. A couple of people stand outside the restaurant, looking at the printed menu outside. They appear to be locals rather than tourists, who have all recently dined at the quite impressive refectory within the Hospital de los Reyes Católicos.

Trash

From outside come the steady beeps of the garbage truck as it backs into the cul-de-sac. But we don’t call it a garbage truck these days. The environmentally correct term is ‘waste management conveyance’.

On alternate Thursdays three trucks arrive, at different times, to pick up respectively 1) household trash including garbage; 2) the recyclable items, paper, cardboard cartons, plastics, glass, and metal; and 3) garden cuttings and yard waste.

It used to be that the plastics and glass had to be placed in one bin, old newspapers in another, and paper items and cardboard in yet another. Things are simpler now – mixing disparate recyclables in the same bin is permitted. Presumably sorting will take place later at the recycling plant.

The trucks are large. These days each household trash truck is operated by one man. He drives and does the picking up all by himself. In the past there used to be three men, one to drive, and the other two to run around pushing large steel bins on casters, into which the contents of householders’ trash cans are deposited, usually with a considerable amount of noise, all up and down the street.

One never sees women doing this kind of work. I am guessing that the physical strength required to lift heavy trash bins may be the reason.

I would often be awakened by the noise of trash collecting. Some Thursday mornings I would wake with a start upon realizing that I had forgotten to put out the trash container the night before. But that sort of oversight happened only infrequently, I’m happy to say.

I have settled into a ritual on Wednesday evenings. I go around the house collecting all the rubbish I can find: old magazines and newspapers, wastebasket contents, empty or near-empty plastic water bottles, plastic bags filled with shredded paper from the paper shredder. Using a hand-truck that I had acquired specifically for the purpose, I wheel the cumbersome bins of recyclable items up the driveway and over to curbside for the next morning’s pick-up.

The job is harder if we had a house party the previous weekend, as we just did.

Old Friends

They are those

who listen

and help where able

when needed

They are those

whose voices

are the most pleasing

on the phone

They are those

older now

who once were children

beside us

Overcast

Today the sky is overcast, cumulonimbus and stratocumulus extending a gray aspect to the afternoon. Showers are forecast. I have set up my video camera on a tripod out on the deck to record at 3-second intervals so as to speed up the cloud action.


The sun is filtered through the clouds, and here and there it does shine through. The resulting light is quite marvelous, giving the landscape a glow that can best be described as ethereal.

P.S. Good thing my wife was alert when it began to rain. She got my equipment back indoors just in time.

Dragonflies

Through the long summer

they came to visit our pond –

but where are they now?

Art Show

It’s been some years since I exhibited any of my oil paintings, and it’s gratifying to have three of them on display again. They are at the clubhouse of the retirement community across the Bay where we have lately been spending time. I do not yet have any photos of them for posting here, but one day I’ll get around to it. There is a very active art association at the community, with talented artists in various media whose works are also being exhibited. I plan to spend more time over there, and do more painting. It’s the time I need, always. More time.

* * *

There you are, sitting in a small restaurant enjoying lunch, when a car stops outside. You do not hear the brakes, nor the car’s motor. Instead what you hear is a deep, gut-numbing boom from supercharged loudspeakers from within the car, a steady throbbing that seems in close sync with your heart rate, and is no doubt intended to emphasize certain sounds that pass for music. Or singing, or, yes, the thing they call rapping. The words are unintelligible, as though barked in an alien tongue, but there are those for whom the words are consequential, even meaningful. The bombardment continues for the better part of a minute, until mercifully, the traffic light changes, and the car moves on, leaving us poor diners to finish our meal in the welcome, and quieter, hubbub of the restaurant.

Autumn

A leaf from the maple

falls upon the deck

with a solidity

that surprises –

not a rustle

nor a whisper

as you might expect,

instead there’s

a robust

plop.

Paintings

This is an oil painting that I made after visiting Italy in the nineties. It's the pretty town of Orta San Giulio, right on Lake Orta in the Piedmont.


This is a view looking north on Kearny Street in San Francisco. That's Telegraph Hill and Coit Tower at the top.

Home Again

Unsteady and slow

thrilled to leave his bed at last –

he takes his wife’s hand

The Moth

Clinging to the window glass

with the light from my room reflected

in its incandescent eyes,

the little moth displays five,

and only five, skinny legs.

Why five? I wonder, leaning closer

to count again –

where is number six, little moth?

how came you to lose one?

And will you, like a crab,

grow a new one in time,

as strong and nimble

as the one you lost?

Soldier on, little moth,

may courage

be your companion

while you still

have life.

Landscape awaiting rain

Look, Columbus - Cumulonimbus

Today's skies as seen from our balcony

Generations

How quickly they grow up. It seems like it was just a couple of years ago that they were babies. But one is in her second year of university, and the other in her final year of high school. And we see our future as their future.

Styrofoam

We bought a couple of lamps recently: a floor lamp and a table lamp. These were manufactured, of course, in China, where else? But proudly designed to U.S. specifications, and containing so far as we can surmise, no toxic ingredients.

The lamps, like so many other household appliances nowadays, come in large cardboard cartons, and are kept in place within the cartons by molded blocks of lightweight white material which help protect against breakage or damage. This material is generally called Styrofoam, but that is a brand name which has taken on a generic life of its own, like Kleenex and Band-aid. The correct term, as I was able to discover on the Internet, is polystyrene foam.

It is used for things like single-use coffee cups, life jackets, insulation, and things of that kind.

In the course of opening the cartons and assembling the lamps (yes, there was some assembly required, though the task proved not to be too arduous for your average senior citizen), bits of the Styrofoam came off and flew all over the floor, like crumbs. These tiny bits of material are very difficult to clean up. They are ultra-light, and they tend to be attracted to almost any surface in their vicinity: upholstered furniture, trouser legs, fingers, shoes. Trying to sweep them up is a hopeless task. The little beads fly every which way except into the dustpan, and the act of sweeping seems to generate a stronger static charge, making it even more of a chore to shake off.

And to make matters worse, Styrofoam is not ecologically friendly. It may not dissolve back into the earth for hundreds of years, though there now appears to be a way to use bacteria to assist the process.

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

Some beautiful cumulus clouds today.

The Rudest Travel Book Ever Written

If you have never heard of Mrs Favell Mortimer, this is a good introduction to her travel writing.

Non-PC travel writing

Late Afternoon

My first and only BMW

Yangon

Rice bowls upside down

Rain drenching their saffron robes

Monks call for Aung San

The Visit

In his nursing home

we speak of remembered trips --

chilly autumn air

Gravity

For someone who has always prided himself in being well-balanced and upright, I was rudely humbled two days ago just outside my front door.

I had ventured forth to pick up the newspaper. The morning was fine with a slight chill in the air (which incidentally reminded me of a scandalous 1913 painting titled ‘September Morn’ by the French artist Paul Émile Chabas) and hardly a cloud in the sky. click here

The newspaper comes delivered in a plastic bag, presumably to protect it from dew or wet walkways (this detail adds nothing to the story, except to give it an element of veracity), and is then picked up gingerly by a corner of the plastic to avoid wetting the newsprint inside, which can happen after a heavy rain or by long exposure to the automatic lawn sprinkler system, when the paper is soaked through and rendered absolutely unreadable until it is later dried out in the oven, and even then acquires a strange crinkled texture that makes the whole thing rather unpleasant to unfold for reading. As an aside, sometimes the plastic bag has an extra sealed pocket in which has been inserted a sample of one kind or another: a foil package of instant oatmeal (dry, of course); a packet of laundry soap; enough instant coffee for one small cup. The sample is more of a nuisance than an incentive for the newspaper reader to go out and buy the large version of the product advertised.

But I am digressing here. Time to get back to my story.

While I was walking back to the house, my foot must have caught on some small obstruction on the edge of the lawn (it could have been a sprinkler head that had not returned to its position of rest, or a bit of aggregate concrete walkway lifted up by a centimeter or so by the underground root of a birch tree, betula alba being the correct botanical term for the European white birch of which our lawn has several, I’m not sure which it was).

One moment I was upright, walking, and in full awareness, not to say complete charge, of my bearings, and a split second later I was face down on the ground, my chin no more than an inch above the concrete surface, which by some stroke of good fortune or automatic reflex at the instant of my heavy and precipitate descent, had been spared injury of a sort that it makes my flesh creep just to imagine.

Somehow my left hand had reflexively broken the fall, and so became the main casualty of this plunge. Glasses, teeth, and bones were all accounted for and undamaged. The left palm bled a bit, having been abraded in several places, but that was a small price to pay for what might have proved to be a much more serious matter.

I might add as another aside that a stroller had just walked past my house when this whole episode took place, and so she was not a witness to it. Had she been half a minute later in her walk, and seen the tumble, I would have been mortified no end.

My pleasure

It really wasn't necessary. They needn't have done it. But they were so kind to show their appreciation for what I did, and now in turn I acknowledge their kindness, which they expressed through a gift of fine wine shipped by express mail to our house.

What I did was to make a video of a reunion of my wife's schoolmates. This reunion is an event which occurs every few years. It is organized by dedicated and hardworking women from all over the world who at one time attended a prestigious Catholic school in Hong Kong. This particular reunion of about three hundred former students was unusual in that it took place aboard a cruise ship over three days, sailing from southern California to Mexico and back.

The organizers, my wife among them, were remarkable in their skill, and in their enthusiasm for making the event a success. The affection with which they hold their old teachers, the nuns, and each of their fellow students never ceased to charm the menfolk who were with them on this excursion.

So what I did for them was no more than what they truly deserved for their own hard work.

And, ladies, for me it was a pleasure besides.

New Arrival

Today one of my wife's nieces announced the good news that she is pregnant, and that the baby is expected in the spring. Our best wishes to her and her husband as they prepare for the new arrival.

* * * * *

I’m working at my PC while listening to Dvořák on the iMac next to it. For some reason, the music from the small speakers of the iMac sounds much better than that from the larger PC. (I’m sorta proud of myself; got the correct accent marks into Dvořák.)

Shopping

This afternoon I paid a visit to our local warehouse store. It is not a particularly big one as warehouse stores go. The ones down in the South Bay are much bigger, and seem to have a bigger selection of merchandise. Still, what we have at our local store can satisfy the buying impulses of your average consumer.

I was a little late, which meant that many of the ladies who hand out free food samples were getting ready to clean up their stations. I did however have a sip of some energy drink or other, from a tiny paper cup. Not bad. At another station there were veggie burgers which smelled okay, but did not look appetizing enough on the pan. I passed on the proffered sample.

I got what merchandise I had come for, and a few other items that I had not even thought I might need. You have to buy in bulk at these stores, you see? Not very practical for a household of two. Sometimes the seemingly reasonable prices can tempt you into getting stuff that will invariably end up in your closet, never to be used.

In a plastic blister case, a set of small tools, exquisitely designed, a pair of folding pliers that incorporated many tools in one, very pocketable, a tiny flashlight that didn’t need batteries, and other items. I thought the set might make a nice Christmas gift for someone. The brand name SwissTech suggested skilled Alpine craftsmen in Basel or Zurich. I looked in the small print to learn where the tools were actually made. Hidden way in a corner on the back in print so fine you needed a magnifying glass to find it: Made in China.

There was a 68-piece craft and hobby knife set, ideal for an aspiring sculptor, woodcarver, model maker, whatever. Under twenty bucks. Beautifully set out in a fitted wooden box. Made in China.

Everywhere you look, from leather couches and armchairs, exercise machines, clocks, heavy armoires and dining room sets, metal storage racks, mirrors, ceramic space heaters, they were all made in China.

Only in the apparel bins were there items made other than in China – in places like Bangladesh and Mauritius and Vietnam and Sri Lanka. You hardly ever see anything from Korea or Taiwan or the other Asian ‘tigers’ anymore. Much less Japan. Products from those countries are nowadays no match for the Bangladeshes etc. when it comes down to consumer prices.

Items made in China have been much in the news lately. The defective toys recalled by a major US toy company, the tainted pet food, the cardboard buns, these will make consumers in this country more leery about the ‘Made in China’ label.

Fruit Labels

Fresh fruits nowadays in the supermarkets tend to have labels on them, and I’ve often wondered why. At first glance it would seem that the labels are placed to advertise where the fruits come from. But such a lot of trouble, for each individual fruit (I’m talking millions upon millions) THAT makes for very expensive advertising.

So there must be another reason. Government regulation? Batch number? Who knows?

Imagine what is required to have a sticky label on each fruit. Surely that can’t be done manually? Must be by machine. But each fruit – each plum, each pear, each apricot, each peach, each nectarine! So, okay, these are from California, where high technology rules. Computers can do wonderful things with robots. See what they use to build cars? Robots. Highly efficient and accurate robots. Surely the same technology can be applied to fragile fruits.

But there are fruits from other parts of the world. Bananas from Ecuador, melons from Chile. Do they have high-tech robots in those places? Or must their labels be affixed laboriously by hand?

Whatever the case may be, the fact that each fruit has a label is a source of amazement to this writer. And a source of annoyance at times, as well.

Just try peeling a label off a ripe and juicy plum without tearing the skin. Can’t be done.

Nuptials

Another wedding, another young couple embarking upon a life together. Our friends the bride’s parents are justifiably proud. The ceremony, conducted by a Filipino priest with a sense of humor, went smoothly. The singing in church was uplifting. The bridegroom is Filipino-American, and his family adhered faithfully to the Catholic traditions of the old country: the veil, the cord, the lighting of candles, the gathering of relatives who blessed the couple kneeling at the altar. At the reception, a round of speeches, of which the bride’s father’s was brief, to the point, and affectionate.

With many relatives and friends attending on a beautiful but breezy day, charming company at dinner, and the happiness displayed by the newlyweds, not even the closure of the Bay Bridge over this holiday weekend could do much to dampen the spirits.