Deal or no deal. That was a game show on TV once, involving briefcases.
Then, if you win…
It’s a big deal!
Or, of course, it is if you get in on the ground floor, which is to say, you’re one of the original investors, it becomes a great deal; it’s meaning, taking part in a financial transaction.
The word ‘deal’ along with big, great, tremendous, and once in a lifetime, feature prominently, but if you are like me by the time you invest the pyramid is about to collapse!
Then you’re in a great deal of trouble, meaning a lot of trouble — at the time, it feels catastrophic.
Or you’re working impossibly long hours to enrich the others above you, it a good deal of effort on your part for no reward.
Or deal with a problem, which is to say cope with or control, though if it’s a problem child, good luck with that.
But enough of the depressing descriptions,
When you play a card game, the first thing to happen is to deal the cards.
The second is to ask yourself if the dealer is dealing from the bottom of the deck, even if it looks like the top.
My father called these dealers ‘card sharps’.
Then there is a piece of wood commonly called deal, usually thin and square though not always so; it can also be a plank of pine or fir.
As some may be aware, but many not, Chester, my faithful writing assistant, mice catcher, and general pain in the neck, passed away some months ago.
Recently I was running a series based on his adventures, under the title of Past Conversations with my cat.
For those who have not had the chance to read about all of his exploits I will run the series again from Episode 1
These are the memories of our time together…
This is Chester. He’s looking for a cool spot to lie down.
We’ve been having something of a heat wave for the last few days, temperatures soaring above the mid-thirties, and nearly as high as forty degrees centigrade.
So, this morning we watched the ice hockey, and even Chester stayed the distance, not so he could smirk when the Maple Leafs lost, but to channel the idea it was cold somewhere else in the world.
And it worked for a while. Having been to the ice hockey in Toronto in person, I know just how cold it was.
After that, it was a matter of leaving the doors opens to let what breeze there was flow through the house, so Chester first sat by the front door, then the back door, then came out to see me.
Time for the air conditioner.
Yes, we have air conditioning, and yes, the cost of electricity in this country is horrendous. It was why we had solar panels put in.
I just leave it as long as possible before turning it on.
I thought about toying with him, but he’s sitting on the keyboard looking angry.
I’m currently sitting in my car waiting to pick the grandchildren up from school wondering where that dream of the glamorous life of an author went.
Can it be said that any author leads a glamorous life, except for maybe J K Rowling, James Patterson and a handful of others?
That dream is of course only a dream. I did not start this writing caper to become rich and famous or live a glamorous life. I started It, and it continues in the same vein, that I have a lot of stories in my head that I want to get on paper.
If anyone else wants to read them, then that’s a bonus. If I happen to make enough money, rather than live high on the hog, an expression my father often used to describe the rich, I would happily invest in programs that get young people reading more.
It also strikes me that it would be difficult to write a literary novel in the vein of Jane Austen or the Bronte sisters, to name a few because modern day life has no real meaning like it did then.
Instant news, instant communications, and the rest of the country, as well as the world, do close, we can go anywhere, and communicate instantly. In the days of classic literature, they survived on periodic letters, and traveling to another part of the same country was very arduous. Just the receipt of a letter could give a chapter, the trip to and the visit to a relative could give several.
But those tales of life were always about people of means, not the ordinary people. Stories that have the minutiae of daily life do not appeal. No one wants to read about their lives, they want to be transported to another world where there is no such inanity like cooking, cleaning, washing and picking up children.
I’m using this time to write another episode or chapter, or, in this case, a blog post.
As any parent will tell you, it is the calm before the storm.
As some may be aware, but many not, Chester, my faithful writing assistant, mice catcher, and general pain in the neck, passed away some months ago.
Recently I was running a series based on his adventures, under the title of Past Conversations with my cat.
For those who have not had the chance to read about all of his exploits I will run the series again from Episode 1
These are the memories of our time together…
This is Chester. We’re both a little tired this morning.
I spent a little too much time on the next few chapters of my NaNoWriMo project and lost track of time. It was going so well, I thought it best not to interrupt the flow of words.
But…
This morning, after getting to bed about 2:30 am, I found it hard to get out of bed.
Fortunately, as usual, I had the cat alarm clock wake me out of deep sleep to be informed that it was breakfast.
I looked at the clock and saw it was 6:30 am.
I mean to say, Chester was with me at 2:30 when I was writing, and he didn’t tell me that it was time to go to bed, much earlier than I did.
I think he enjoys torturing me like this.
So…
I get up, get him breakfast, some smelly fish food that even he turns his nose up at, and go out to the writing room with the intention of getting on with the story.
Next thing I know, there’s a gentle tapping on my forehead,
I wake up and it’s Chester.
What? I ask. You can’t possibly want more food.
No. I thought you were dead.
That’s amusing, he sees me asleep in bed and doesn’t think I’m dead.
How could you think that?
There are only two reasons why people become inanimate in their chair, they have suffered a heart attack or stroke, or they’re dead.
What about simply falling asleep because they’re too tired, and their faithful assistant didn’t tell them to go to bed earlier?
Look, let’s not make a beak deal out of this. I was concerned. Perhaps I won’t be next time. A final glare and he jumps down off the keyboard, which left a page of endless d’s on the page I had been working on.
Perhaps he’s getting old and forgetful, or, suddenly he realises I mean more to him than just giving him food and cleaning the litter. No, stop deluding yourself. You’re his friend, he’s not your friend.
And, yes, the simple description for this word is that area of the earth that isn’t covered by water.
It could also describe that little patch that my house is built on, and is generally covered by the expression, house and land as a package.
After all, a piece of land is not much used to you unless there’s a dwelling on it, or, on rare occasions, under it. Does that mean then that land in this instance only as what you can see?
OK, now it’s getting confusing.
What if I wanted to live off the land. A small patch will not do, in this case, is need a large area, perhaps thousands if hectares.
It is said that the Australian aborigines have lived off the land for thousands of years, with a nomadic lifestyle.
No small patch of land for them.
Now, what if I come down out of the sky. Oddly enough this means I have to land, even if I come back to earth over later. It’s still a landing.
Now it’s getting interesting.
So what if you wanted to refer to where you live? That would be your homeland or motherland, and it describes a country.
So it’s my patch, my country, any area where there isn’t water. What about describing a country, say the land of the long white cloud, or the land of the rising sun?
And just to add to the confusion
I can land a fish
Make land, after being all at sea, and,
Best of all, land that much desired job.
Wow.
I’m beginning to think it’s another one of those ‘four-letter words’
The Bund The architecture along the Bund or Waitan is a living museum of the colonial history of the 1800s. The area centers on a section of Zhongshan Road within the former Shanghai International Settlement. The word bund means an embankment or an embanked quay. It was initially a British settlement; later the British and American settlements were combined in the International Settlement. The Bund is a mile-long stretch of waterfront promenade along the Huangpu River. There are 52 buildings of various architectural styles, including Gothic, baroque, and neoclassical styles. The area is often referred to as “the museum of buildings”. Building styles include Romanesque Revival, Gothic Revival, Renaissance Revival, Baroque Revival, Neo-Classical or Beaux-Arts, as well as a number in Art Deco style. Having seen these buildings initially the night before, mostly lit up, our viewing this morning was from the land side, and particularly interesting in that the colonial architecture was really fascinating considering their location, but not surprising given Shanghai’s history. A lot of these buildings would be more at home in London, that out in the far east.
The Bund waterfront is about two kilometers long and impossible to cover in the time allowed for this part of the tour.
There was just enough time to get photos of the waterfront and the old buildings.
Some of these buildings had odd shapes, like one on the far right that looks like a bottle opener.
And, for some odd reason, a bull.
On the other side of the water, the sights that had been quite colorful the night before, were equally impressive though somewhat diminished by the haze.
As you can see the shelves are multi-purpose, but that’s all about to change.
The problem?
I have been buying books and I am now running out of shelf space, so the drinks will have to go.
There have been quite a few that have been reduced in price, and this is the time when I buy up big.
The problem is that I have so many, and no more space for shelving, that sometimes I have to ‘recycle’, but a friend of mine doesn’t mind because those recycled books find a good home elsewhere.
Even so, I don’t think I’ll stop buying books.
They’ll just have to lie around on the floor is stacks.
As some may be aware, but many not, Chester, my faithful writing assistant, mice catcher, and general pain in the neck, passed away some months ago.
Recently I was running a series based on his adventures, under the title of Past Conversations with my cat.
For those who have not had the chance to read about all of his exploits I will run the series again from Episode 1
These are the memories of our time together…
This is Chester. We both agree that summer has come early.
But that’s about all we can agree on. I’m going to start calling him a cranky cat.
For the last week or so the temperature has been hovering in the low 30-degree Celcius mark, and we have been subjected to the constant aroma of smoke from bushfires raging north and south of us.
Normally, the hot weather doesn’t arrive until after the middle of November, and then the temperatures are around 30 degrees with moderate humidity.
Now, it is hot, with Sunday being about 36 degrees Celcius, and not a day to venture outside the airconditioning.
And, that’s where the cranky cat and I disagree.
He likes to sit at the back door and collect the breeze that flows from the front door to the back door and hates it when I run the airconditioning because I have the doors closed.
When that happens, he comes into the office and sits on the table next to the printer with his angry face on.
I figure using the printer might disturb his protest, but it doesn’t.
And to ignore him is at your own peril because, after a few minutes of silent protest, he comes over and starts pushing keys on the keyboard.
One day I expect he will type ‘you are a very bad servant’ for that I am.
I’ve stayed in a few places where ghosts were purported to be roaming the passages at night, but apparently not the night I was staying.
And that’s something else that I have a problem with, why is it ghosts only come out at night, or is that just the perception I have hot from reading up on the subject.
Maybe my view of ghosts is somewhat stilted, after all, I think my first introduction to ghosts was watching The Centerville Ghost, a movie I saw on t.v. when I was very young.
You have to admit Hollywood’s perception of ghosts is quite interesting.
But…
Do you think they are real? Do I think they are real?
I think I would have to be presented with some fairly solid evidence they exist, but perhaps not to the point of meeting one.
There are, it seems countless examples of ethereal forces, you know, wind blowing where there’s no wind or draught outside, room temperatures dropping for no apparent reason, knocking, rattling of chains, strange noises like low moaning.
And yet…
There are hotels you can stay in such as the Chelsea Hotel in New York, where it’s possible to run into Sid Vicious.
Sorry, not staying there any time soon.
Then there’s the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles where it’s possible to run into Marylin Monroe, who lived in room 229.
That could be an interesting encounter.
Another is the Westin St Francis in San Francisco where the actress Virginia Rappe died while attending a party held in Fatty Arbuckle’s room, Arbuckle’s room, who was later accused of assaulting and murdering her, and whose career tanked after the incident.
Her ghost is seen moving about the hotel tearing her hair out. It seems all of the spectral activity occurs on the 12th floor.
Good to know if I decide to stay there. I wonder if they have a 13th floor?
Perhaps in too old to be running the gamut of paranormal experiences, the old heart is not as strong as it used to be.
Tiananmen Square Some interesting facts before we get out of the bus… Tiananmen Square or Tian’anmen Square is in the centre of Beijing name after the Gate of Heavenly Peace, a gate that one separated the square from the Forbidden City.
The Square contains,
the Monument to the People’s Heroes the Great Hall of the People the National Museum of China the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong.
The square is about 109 acres and was designed and built in 1651, and since then been enlarged four times since, the most recent upgrade in the 1950s.
The Monument to the People’s Heroes
This is a ten-story obelisk built to commemorate the matters of the revolutions. It was built between August 1952 and May 1958. On the pedestal are reliefs depicting the eight major revolutionary episodes.
The Great Hall of the People
This was opened in September 1959, and covers 171809 square meters. The Great Hall is the largest auditorium in China and can seat up to 10,000 people. The State Banquet Hall can seat up to 5,000 diners.
The National Museum of China
This is one of the largest museums in the world and the second most visited museum in the world after the Louvre in Paris. It was completed in 1959, and sits on 65 hectares, and rises four floors. It has a permanent collection of over 1,000,000 items.
The Mauseloum of Mao Zedong
This was built shortly after his death, and completed on May 24th, 1977. The embalmed body of the Chairman is preserved and on display in the center hall.
My own observations This is huge; one of the largest public squares in the world, and if you’re going to walk it, like we did, make sure you’ve been exercising before you go. It covers 44 hectares, borders on the Forbidden City, and has a memorial to Chairman Mao in the center of it. But you cannot go near it, it’s fenced off, and it is guarded.
That’s both the statue and the square as there are random guards marching in random directions all the while watching us to see that we don’t misbehave.No one wants to find out what would happen if you jumped the fence around the statue, but I’m guessing you’ll have a few years to contemplate the stupidity of your actions with some very unhappy government officials.
Around the edges of the square are huge buildings, on one side is the museum
and on the other is the Chinese equivalent of parliament.
Around the sides are also large gardens
At one end, where the Forbidden City borders on the square, there’s a huge flag pole flying the Chinese flag, and this too like the monument is fenced off, and guarded by members of all of their armed services. No tanks rolled out during our visit much to our disappointment. There is no entrance to the Forbidden City from the square
At the other end is the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong, which was closed the day we were there, as was the museum.
There are four sculptural groups installed outside the mausoleum.
Other than that, it’s just another square, albeit probably one of the largest in the world. It can, we were told, hold about a million people.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 