The Democratic Virtual National Convention began last night, with much fanfare and very mixed reactions. Many questioned whether a virtual convention would work. The guy who worked hard to get the convention to Milwaukee was rueful about how little financial benefit will accrue to that city in these days of Covid isolation. But I have to say, what I saw those times I tuned in made me proud to be a lifelong Democrat. Whoever is putting this together is doing a damned fine job. The quantity and variety of speeches is just right. The videos showing anger, despair, love, hate and resignation are on point and well edited. Love will always triumph over hate, so the Dems will win the presidency in November. But how long will they stay in charge? Not long, if they forget their mandate and go back to their old ways of arguing over minutae. We shall see.

In the meantime, there’s old Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko, 26 year President (translated dictator) of the country of Belarus. This is a country caught between Poland and Russia, which means it’s been occupied by everybody throughout its history. It broke away from the Soviet Union in ’91 and Lukashenko was elected in ’94 – and has stayed ever since. Twenty six years is a long time for one president .. amazing how he could keep winning all those elections – the lastest one allegedly with 80% of the vote. However, a charismatic oppo candidate called Svetlana Tikhanovskaya stood up to the bully, then left town. Now there are people marching in the streets, and Svety is offering to come back from Lithuania and serve as interim pres if Al is ditched. Putin doesn’t want to get involved – he’s still got his hands full in eastern Ukraine – so if things continue as they have been, Al will be out and Svety will be in. Or will she? Will there be a power grab, when somebody below Al decides it’s his turn? Should be interesting. Either it’ll turn out like Libya if Al is removed by force or it’ll turn out like Ukraine, with a series of corrupt successors feeding at the corruption trough – until the comedian turned politician took over. So that’s why we need more of – comedians. Jimmy Kimmel for president!

A movie I haven’t seen in years..a lovely little film about a lovely little horse who made everyone’s life a little better. It reminds me of the special bond some humans and horses had when they were in sync with one another. The story is really well told, the book having been written by Laura Hillebrand. She had what was diagnosed as Epstein Barr syndrome and spent a year in bed. With nothing else to occupy her time – other than sleeping – she wrote Seabiscuit. Maybe she related to the horse’s back story: thrown away as useless, despite a great pedigree and lots of heart.

That describes pretty much all the characters in the movie, so clearly fate brought them together to achieve great things and meet their full potential. Isn’t that what we’re put on this earth to do? I believe so.

If this pandemic ever gets under control, I want to go visit friends and family and really spend some quality time with them. Covid has made our world so small..like Ms. Hillebrand’s. I’m sure there must be a reason for it. I’ll get some good writing out of it, maybe..like Laura. But at what price? We shall see.

Nah, not continuously since yesterday..just since about 5 when I watched Oakland play the Angels. They won..8 to 4, so they’re 4 1/2 games ahead of the Rangers and 5 games ahead of Houston in the AL West. Now I’m watching the Marlins, ahead by 3 in the second inning. They lost last night, as usual with a quality pitcher shortage. Need those guys out sick with the Cvirus back to fill in.

Wrote another Chapter today in The Reconvening..I’m exploring some issues regarding gender, something I’ve not done before. It makes sense, given my own exploration of the male and female elements of my psyche through therapy..my character was and is biologically female, but after being attacked multiple times by the marauders as a teenager, she decided to take on the appearance of a male, primarily for protection. Now she/he is very masculine in her behavior, fulfilling expectations of her followers who consider him/her to be a God. Not a goddess. The followers are unaware of her true self, something she has committed murder to ensure. It’s quite interesting to be thinking about and writing on this topic.

Blogging while watching baseball is kinda fun..the iPad isn’t as easy to manipulate with pictures and formatting, so that’s the trade off. I’m having to add the pictures after the fact. But at least I’m back, talkin’ to ya..but not talkin’ about politics, economics or public health..mad, sad and crazy..must be avoided.

Both the Marlins and the Athletics won. Yay!

just sitting in the Family Room watching the Marlins play on a little league field in Buffalo, New York. They’re playing the Toronto Blue Jays, who are banned from their home in Canada. Guess Justin doesn’t want any sickly Americans invading his country..can’t say I blame him. The Marlins are ahead 1/0 in the bottom of the 5th. Hope they keep up their winning ways.

I’m back to talkin’ about Smiley (not done with that topic yet..What? You got an issue with the topic? Oh..ok..gonna talk about it anyway..

The movie version of Call for the Dead, retitled A Deadly Affair, Starred James Mason as George Smiley, aka Charles Dobbs. There’s a character called Elsa Fennon who’s an essential part of the plot. Simone Signoret played Elsa. Simone was considered a French national treasure in her day. Her performance as the wife of an alleged spy and survivor of the Holocaust was worth watching for her subtlety. Her dialogue pretty much came straight out of the book, which made watching her say the words even more interesting. Le Carré writes wonderful dialogue, terse and evocative. Simone handles it really well, considering that English is her second language.

I Googled Signoret, just to see if she was close to end of life when this movie was made. She had plenty of life left, almost another 20 years, working to the end. She remained married to Yves Montand, which seemed very odd for two reasons. First: Yves had an affair with Marilyn Monroe when they made a film together. Second: apparently, Yves sexually abused Simone’s daughter from her first marriage for decades. Who knows if she knew, but the first transgression with Marilyn should have been enough by itself. But maybe Simone and Yves were wed in name only..?

I started to watch The Spy Who Came in from the Cold last night prior to going to sleep. It came out in ‘65, filmed in black & white with a great sound track by a guy named Sol Kaplan. Sol had his career interrupted by the HUAC putting him on the Blacklist. The sound track for A Deadly Affair was done by Quincy Jones, and was wholly inappropriate for the film. Sidney Lumet was the director, and since it came out in ‘67, guess the suits thought a Shaft-like sound track was a good idea. It wasn’t. Also, Sidney was married to Lena Horne’s daughter, so maybe that figured into it..I’ll have to look. Yep..he was married to Lena’s daughter when he made the film.

Back to The Spy etc. Richard Burton was Alec Leamas, a man caught trying to have one last shot at redemption for an “operations man”. He participates in a setup that is supposed to sacrifice a few participants in the scheme in order to get a fellow named Mundt discredited and shot by the East Germans. Things go awry (of course) and Leamas achieves his redemption .. in a way. Burton was married to Liz Taylor at the time, so this was his atonement for her and Cleopatra. The plot of this story is far more opaque than Call for the Dead. It is also rather critical of MI5 for using and discarding people to achieve dubious ends. This notion is boldly explored in several of le Carré’s books, most notably The Little Drummer Girl and Tinker, Tailor. We can watch the author reveal more and more of his disillusion with the spy service as time progresses. He never did get over the woman in his life. Apparently still doesn’t really talk about it.

So that’s about it for that..I think I’m done with the topic..unless something else comes up.

Let’s talk about the character called George Smiley. Who, you ask? John Le Carré, aka David Cornwell’s, alter ego in his spy stories. Why George? Because I say so, that’s why. I told you I’m not talking about anything that makes me mad or sad or crazy, so we’re talking let retch ur and sin eh mah…got it?

Le Carré introduced Smiley in his debut novel, Call for the Dead. It certainly wasn’t his best effort, but then neither was it his worst. What he gave us in that first novel was a keen insight into both the character of Smiley, and about the writer himself. Let me ‘splain.

Le Carré was at Oxford for his late college years, putting forth just enough talent to get himself recruited for MI5, the Secret Service. He learned German as a teenager, and then studied Germany philosophy at Oxford. That’s how he described Smiley exactly in this first book. It was MI5 that made David adopt the pen name le Carré before he was allowed to publish A Call for the Dead.

Now, as to the actors, we’ll start with the first George Smiley, in the person of an actor called Rupert Davies. It was a small but critical role in the first movie made of any of the novels, The Spy Who Came In From the Cold. Two years later, James Mason was Smiley, but not Smiley. Apparently another studio owned the rights to the name, so they changed Smiley to Charles Dobbs. That didn’t really work, but Mason does his best to make it so. This is when le Carré’s antipathy toward wives – or former wives – is explored in the person of Ann Smiley, neé Lady Sercumb, who’d been his boss’ secretary. Coincidentally (not really), David Cornwall was married to a woman who’s middle name was Ann for 17 years. Art imitating life? Wow – write what you know, but the former Mrs. Cornwall was probably pissed about how she was portrayed in these stories. The fictional Ann is chronically unfaithful, for reasons that are never explored from her perspective, only his. His pain. His anger. His lust for her. Too bad – her back story would have very likely included some form of sexual abuse at an early age. Betcha.

Denholm Eliot, later Indiana Jones’ sidekick in that familiar series, played Smiley, but I don’t think anybody saw him. Everyone is familiar with the two most famous Georges: Alec Guinness on BBC television and Gary Oldman in the movies. That would be in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, which I think is le Carré’s best creation. Gary said he hadn’t watched Alec’s version of George, not wanting to be influenced by it. But both men managed to catch the essence of Smiley: fastidious, clever, honorable. Or honourable. We’re talkin’ Brits here, after all.

There’s a scene in the movie version of T,T,S,S where Oldman as Smiley sees Ann, the ever philandering wife, out ‘necking’ with one of George’s co-workers outside the building wherein there’s a party in full swing. Just the way Oldman looked for her in the building, then seeing her outside that said he really ‘got’ George. Ann was George’s only Achilles heel, and it was a bad case. Oldman didn’t say anything, it was just the looks of fear when she isn’t around, then a look that said he’s close to losing his lunch when he realizes what’s going on. Of course, she’s being manipulated by said Smiley co-worker (ref: my surmising about her above), but George is always the one that pays the price. Then he goes on to solve the problem at hand, rescue the day, and Ann returns to him. Wash..rinse..repeat.

So that’s it for George Smiley. Read the books, see the movies. David Cornwall, aka John le Carré, is well worth reading, and his movies are well worth watching. So sayeth I.

Or how long ’til the election, or any of the factoids I used to rely on to keep me on an even keel. The boat is upside down; but so what? Ride the wave! Ride the wave.

I will only talk about useless and inane things for the duration ’til 11/3, per guidance and direction from cousin in law Ray. That is a way to keep puttin’ one foot in front of t’other, I suppose. We shall see.

First up: last episode of Perry Mason tonight, wherein we shall find out about poor Baby Charlie, the pawn in this complex game set in the 30’s and essentially serves as the prequel for the old Raymond Burr series from the 50’s. It no doubt will also set the stage for Perry Mason II and PM III – etc, where our noble but flawed hero will save innocent victims from the hangman’s noose, firing squad and ole’ sparky. Matthew Rhys, the Welshman fresh off being a Russian/American or the other way around spy in The Americans, is sooo good in this role. The wardrobe is right; the hair, the cars – even down to the shoes. It hasn’t gotten the credit it deserves from Rotten Tomatoes, but I guess ya gotta be old to appreciate the story. Besides, HBO isn’t all that popular anymore. They occasionally try to make good television. What’s up with that?

Then I watched Hitmen with Mel and Sue. They were the adoreable introducers on The British Baking Show, who left after a dispute about something or other with the management. That killed BBS, of course – think Top Gear and getting rid of obnoxious but charming Jeremy.Clarkson. BBC thought they were doing the right thing. Viewers didn’t care and now the three cuties are doing an occasional gig via Amazon. C’est la vie.

Oh, back to Hitmen. Terrible..awful..stinky…reaally bad. First of all, trying to imagine those two gals as killers for hire is tough. Second, it’s on the new NBC Peacock network, which is obscure at best. Third, like most Brits, they swallow their words, so you have to try to figure out how to turn on Closed Captioning to follow the plot. Good luck. Took me thirty minutes. Then I felt bad for doing it, because I really wasn’t missing anything. The show makes Mel (the blonde one) look like a dolt, and Sue doesn’t really react to her stupid ways very much. I think it must be what is referred to as “British” humor, which would be fine if it were in the vein of, say Monty Python. It isn’t. It’s in the vein of black humor that doesn’t in any way feel right. So don’t watch it – waste of time and, in fact, downright annoying.

Then there’s trolling for anything interesting on the net, and from Medium: advice from Ernest Hemingway on writing. Hmm..maybe interesting…here it is. Stop when what you write is good, and you know what happens next. Wow..how clever. That’s what gets shared these days as good essay writing..sharing that pithy tidbit.

Baseball is back, in spite of multiple teams’ having been afflicted with the Cvirus. My former boys in Oakland (ref: years ago posts – none lately) are doing extremely well, and the Miami Marlins are doing ok, given the fact that they had to miss four games because of the Cvirus. They lost last night, because of poor pitching. The Marlins have more than $10 million worth of talent out sick, with most of the victims from the bullpen. So the fact that they’ve done this well thus far is because a) the Orioles suck; and b) the team has developed some sense of esprit de’corps with this illness – underdog fever I guess you could call it. We shall see where they end up, what with having a low end payroll and all.

OK, that’s it – I’m back. I’m tired of taking my temp, and the oxygen and stuff thing, so Bronx cheer to that. Be glad I’ve given ya this much, dammit!

The Portland Moms are still there, withstanding tear gas and attacks from the federales. There was valdalism and damage at Portland, early on, in solidarity with that which was going on in Minneapolis. But once law enforcement arrived and started attacking, things went from bad to terrible. I’m sure The Idiot in Chief chose Portland because it’s Portland, for chrissake. Blue Country. Scaarry, right? Making political hay from a national tragedy is unspeakably obscene. Shame on you. You have single handedly diminished the office of the president. It will never be the same.

Baseball started tonight, and John has a subscription to what’s left of the season through the MLB app. It’s free if you have TMobile, which he does through work. We’ll be able to watch Marlins and Athletics games in this abbreviated season. Dr. Fauci threw out the first pitch at the game tonight between the Yankees and the Natties. It was called for rain halfway through, but the Yankees were winning, so no biggie. His pitch was wide and wild, but the announcer proclaimed that he didn’t have time to warm up because he’s been so busy. Anthony Fauci is a national treasure, and bless that announcer for saying that. There are occasional bright spots in an overwise dismal landscape.

I finished Chapter 3 of The Reconvening today, and I’m pretty happy with how the first book is coming along. I am barely using the outline, instead relying on my instincts of where the story should go. I feel free to do that because I’m really comfortable with the characters. We’ll see what happens and if that freedom continues. I hope so. It’s much more enjoyable than being a slave to a previous set of notions.

I’ve sent Chapter 1 of Who Killed Kitty to the Lake Park Writers for their review and consideration. I re-read it through yesterday, and I was pretty happy with how it had turned out – geez, six years ago or so. The story is solid, and I just need to rework some of the dialogue and flow. But overall, it’s OK. John needs to show me how to FTP a file to my Word Press as I’m missing a couple of songs. Each Chapter title is a song, and the tune is embedded just below the heading. I listened to them while I read each chapter. There’s a couple that really got to me: Deja Vu All Over Again by John Fogarty was rather evocative, and the words to the 38 Special song Second Chance are particularly on point, bringing me to tears as I read the story I wrote all those years ago. Stories take on lives of their own, you know. Anyway, the songs that are missing are Most of the Time, which holds great significance for me, and the Last Cheater’s Waltz, a great Emmy Lou Harris tune. I’ll have to find them and with John’s help, embed them in their appropriate places in the story.

My temperature is 97.9° F. My blood oxygen is 95% and my heartbeat is 70 bpm. There are no apparent health issues at this time. Good.

Erik the younger had a birthday two days ago. I tried to call him and wish him a good one, but he’d gone fishing. Today I spoke with him, and he had great news. The government has deemed him 100% permanently disabled from his war wounds from Iraq and Afghanistan. This opens up a world of opportunity for him in terms of college scholarships for his children and avoidance of property taxes. I am really happy for him and Tiffany. He deserves everything the government can provide for him, given his contributions.

Let’s talk about Portland Moms and their protests. I believe that is just about the coolest thing I have ever seen. Their signage is amazing. One of them has “Momma” written on the back of amotorcycle helmet she’s wearing to protect herself from the government’s goons. But when I take a step back, I say, is that what it’s come to – that the mothers of America have to wear head protection to stand between their children and representatives of the United States government? This is simply unacceptable. Years ago, I came to the conclusion that moms would be the salvation of this country. Now we’re beginning to see that prediction come true. It’s about time, eh?

The Cvirus continues unabated, and growing, but the death rate, measured as total deaths/total cases continues to decrease. The government has agreed to give Pfizer $2 billion for a vaccine that’s supposed to be ready by the end of the year. Color me skeptical. Anything good that gets promised between now and November 3rd is suspect. If the cases are far exceeding the numbers that should be produced by increased testing, as indicated in an article in today’s NY Times, then that means more deaths for the foreseeable future. Will the numbers increase when children go back to school? That is the question that has not been answered at all, much less to my satisfaction. Robin intends to home school Kiernan with another group of moms. Emily is going to get a GED and go after a certificate in a medical field from Palm Beach State College beginning in the spring. I support both those strategies. I suspect a whole lot of other parents and grandparents would too.

I participated in the Monday evening gathering of the Palm Beach Gardens Writers group two days ago. We read our stories and gathered feedback from the group. A member I hadn’t met before named Joan was there, and provided a great story based on the leader’s prompt. Toward the end of the meeting she talked about a YA project she was working on that was in the ‘beta reader’ process. I volunteered to be a beta reader, and she sent it to me. The story was nuanced, detailed and definitely would be of interest to a young adult. She intends for it to be the beginning of a series, and I like that. I hope we will become friends, since she seems very convivial and thoughtful.

We are still working on the improvements to the Tallahassee house, but self-distancing has made that difficult to say the least. We need to take beds, headboards, tables and chairs up with us. Once there, we need to paint the stair steps and put down a runner. I’m itching to get started, but until Cvirus issues abate, that really isn’t smart. All in good time.

My temperature is 98.1° F. My blood oxygen is 97% and my heartbeat is 73 bpm. No issues. That’s a relief.

It is Sunday, and we made the couch switch with Jopie. John’s old couch looks great in her apartment. The one she had looks good in our family room. Win win!

One hundred six days left until the election. According to nearly every media source, things are going very badly for the incumbent. Gee, that is such a pity. I think if he were to win another term, I’d seriously contemplate moving to Canada. I did a little research on that, and other than being terribly cold most of the year, it’s a nice place, full of nice people who have always welcomed runaways from America. That includes slaves after the Fugitive Slave Act, young men avoiding the draft, and old ladies who can’t bear the thought of another 4 years with that very bad man. So we shall see. I think it is doable.

Speaking of the Fugitive Slave Act, we watched Harriet last night on HBO. The gal who played Harriet Tubman is called Cynthia Erivo, a British actress. She was great, but I knew I’d seen her somewhere else. I looked her up on IMDB.com and realized she was Holly Gibney in The Outsider on HBO. She was the best thing about that show, which frankly was quite mediocre. The critics found the plot of Harriet predictable, which it decidedly was. But she is a stellar performer, and undoubtedly will have lots more work in the future – in all kinds of roles. Why do I say that? Because Harriet made its budget back and then some – by a factor of 3. That’s what it takes to make more movies that are allegedly aimed at a demographic or an ethnic group. That’s a shame that we have to categorize films that way. Either the writing and acting are good, the sets look genuine and the editing works. Or not. Shouldn’t matter what ethnicity or age the characters are. Or even if they’re real or fictional. A good story is a good story. Nuff on that.

We went to Vero last night and had a picnic with Pat & Tom & Bob & Susan. We had a great time, the weather cooperated and it was good to see my friends again. I took Mexican Beans, a recipe I got from Milk Street and everybody – including me – liked the dish. It was a lot of work, but worth it.

Next week I’m going to start getting the materials together to do the spare room. We need it done by the end of the month as Ray & LeeAnn will likely stay with us a few days before they venture north. They sold their North Palm house, so it’s back to Atlanta for them. Hopefully they’ll sell that and do something with the North Carolina house so they can move back down here for good. Ray is my writing buddy, and he’s been great for giving me ideas. I hope I do the same for him.

Over 60,000 cases today, and as usual, we’re number 1 in cases but not in deaths. However, I’ve noticed a trend of few deaths reported on Sundays. So if there’s a big spike tomorrow, it’ll likely be because people who report these stats took Sunday off. God bless ’em – they deserve a day off. But we shouldn’t take a day off from being careful. Kirsten and Craig’s tests both came back negative. That’s good – so far.

My temperature is 97.9° F. My blood oxygen is 94% and my heartbeat is 84 bpm. That’s a bit higher than normal. Have to keep an eye on that.

Did I mention that Kiernan tested negative for the Cvirus? Since my days run together I can never recall which day I found out. So I was counting all those days for nothing. Will that teach me? Nope. Every day is a new adventure.

I finished reading Einstein’s book The World As I See It. Nothing to write home about, as it’s just a collection of his letters and various musings. But it certainly made clear I was right in my assumption about what Einstein was telling Rabbi Marcus. He affirms his belief there is no afterlife, and hints at his position that is reflected in the letter he wrote to the man. Einstein considered himself a deeply religious man, but not in the sense of an anthropomorphic deity with a long white robe and nearly equally long beard. No, he calls it a cosmic religion, where he believes in the power of the logic and order of the universe. I recall another quote that has often been misinterpreted of his: God does not place dice with the universe. This was in response to being questioned about what he thought of quantum mechanics. According to Scientific American, this is what he actually said in a letter to Max Born:

Quantum mechanics is very impressive. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory produces a good deal but hardly brings us closer to the secret of the Old One. I am at all events convinced that He does not play dice.

Albert just couldn’t wrap his head around the notion of a probabilistic universe. Hawking certainly could. He said, Not only does God play dice, he sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen. Imagine what Newton would have thought of quantum mechanics: his head – the same one allegedly assaulted by a falling apple – would have exploded. Ain’t it always that way? Einstein says so. In another of his essays, he talks about the strength and determination of the early scientists, and how they soldiered on, even when what they were saying went against dogma. I think that was what Einstein believed was the true religion. I have a similar sense about the power and wonder of all things universal, as I wrote a few blog posts ago in response to the writing prompt about gazing at the stars. Imagine that – Einstein and me on the same page. Speaking of the prompt, I wonder if I’ll be invited back to the Palm Beach Gardens writing group on Monday? If I were a betting woman – which I often am – I’d wager not. We shall see. It’d be OK if I wasn’t.

Another booming day in the Cvirus business: over 74,000 cases. Fauci predicted we’d get to a hundred thousand in the near future, and we appear to want to help him keep his credibility by reaching that benchmark. No end in sight, but what I find most interesting are the patterns that form. I think it must be just the nature of pandemics. The US is number one in the world with 377,000 plus cases. The number two country, Brazil, has about half as many cases as the US. If you look at Florida, the number one county is Miami-Dade, with nearly 78,000 cases. Broward is number two, with about half as many cases as Miami Dade. I suspect if you break it down even further – say by city or even further down to zip code, you’d see the same pattern between #1 and #2. The only grouping that breaks that pattern is the list of states where New York is still #1, but California, Florida and Texas are catching up fast. I think that’s because New York is through with their first round of cases, having shut down long enough to weather the storm. I don’t think the next three states have been nearly as effective with the mask wearing, distancing and shutting down gathering places. According to the modeling, by November 1, New York will have a bit over 35,000 deaths, which is just a few thousand more than they have now. California will have a little over 21,000 and Florida will have a little over 19,000. That means the number of deaths will triple in those two states by November. So again the pattern shows itself, with New York nearly twice either California or Florida. But what happens if the virus returns in the fall? Will we learn anything from the first round? That is the million dollar question – actually, more like the trillion dollar question. It remains to be seen.

I think the problem yesterday with my temperature and heartbeat was the start of a urinary tract infection. A couple of days on antibiotics, and things are getting back to normal. My temperature is 98.2° F., my blood oxygen level is 96% and my heartbeat is 74 bpm. All good. Now, if I could just get a decent night’s sleep, that would be greeaaatt, as Lumberg would say. We shall see if it works out that way tonight.