Looking for Alec & Zoe Callendar: Part 1

"Hey, what joker moved the steering wheel?"

I had everything planned so carefully for our first trip to England.  From the places we would visit in London, to the driving directions to our timeshare condominium in the Midlands, to everything we wanted to see in the seaside village of Rye, we thought we had reduced, if not eliminated, all the uncertainties involved in visiting a foreign country.  So, after arriving at Heathrow Airport, we battled through jetlag for two-and-a-half days as we visited the places in London we most wished to see, wandering the world famous city afoot, and aided by their bus and underground train systems.  Then we rented a car and ventured onto the roads of England. 

According to Google Maps, our drive to the English Midlands would take a few hours.  As we could not check in at our condo until late afternoon, we had planned a few interesting stops along the way.  The first was the village of Pinner, where one of our favorite English sitcoms, May to December, was set. 

Our research had prepared us when it came to basic navigation, such as what side of the road to drive on, and recognizing the speed limit signs.  It was the roundabouts that tripped us up.  Unlike intersections, roundabouts presented us with a variety of perplexing options.  Sometimes the road we needed, according to our Google Map directions, might be painted on the asphalt of the particular exit we needed to take.  Or there might be a sign that showed which turnoff we wanted.  But two, three, four, or more streets can adjoin the same roundabout, and each of those intersecting streets separate before they join the roundabout, so you have to be doubly careful when counting each potential turnoff. 

When we came across simple intersections, we looked for street signs. Sometimes we spotted the street name on a sign affixed to a fence at knee or waist level, but only after we were nearly through the intersection.  Or they were placed along a building farther down the street, visible only after we had passed through the intersection.  Or they simply weren’t there.  Not that we found many intersections.  For the most part, we encountered roundabouts.  This was an aspect of British life that had seemed so quaint and endearing when we were at home, relaxing in our living room and enjoying our beloved TV shows.  In real life, we found them anything but relaxing.

Google Maps had estimated a fifteen-to-twenty minute drive until we reached Pinner.  After half-an-hour, we realized that we had taken several wrong turns along the way, and had no idea where we were.  So we attempted to reverse our course as best we could.  But each roundabout is only a link in a chain, and each link will only tell you how to get to the next one, most of which weren’t listed in my driving instructions.  On those rare occasions when we navigated our way back through roundabouts we recognized, we still couldn’t figure out where or how we had diverted from the printed instructions. 

We had planned on a fun, picturesque drive.  We had hoped to find several meaningful locations where we could connect with the British TV shows we loved.  Instead, after more than an hour, we were driving in circles (literally), frustrated, exhausted, and utterly confused by an onslaught of choices that didn’t correspond with the journey we had so carefully planned before leaving home.  But life is never as hopeless as it seems, and soon we would receive aid from a source we would never have anticipated. 

Feeling lost in your journey right now?  Stick to your course, and keep looking for a source of help.  Life might just surprise you. 

Dragon Dave

Related Dragon Cache entries

A Journey into English Fiction: Part 2

Related Internet Links

An extensive Wikipedia article on Roundabouts all over the world

When We’re At Our Weakest

It seems that diamonds aren't always a girl's best friend.  At least, not according to my wife.

Need a recharge?

Travel can invigorate the mind and stir the soul, but it also saps the body.  On our visit to Stan Lee’s Comikaze, we spent hours sitting in the car traveling there and back.  We mostly stood, or walked, in the convention hall.  We had planned to get lunch at a nearby restaurant.  Then we saw how long people were waiting in line to get back in. (I can only assume it had to do with the total allowable number of people inside the building).  As none of the food there appealed, we elected to eat the protein bars and snacks we had brought with us.  The second day we were exhausted, and left before noon so as to get home sooner.

The following weekend, we drove up to Oxnard, and used that as a base for exploring Ojai, Malibu Creek State Park, and Point Dume.  This involved more driving, more breathing in air conditioned and filtered air, more fast food, and much more walking than we’re used to.  While we enjoyed our second weekend away, all this took its toll on our bodies, minds, and spirits.  We had more trouble concentrating on our work, and did little more each evening than sit on the couch and watch TV.

For the most part, I was even too tired to read.

The following weekend, my wife was watering the plants out back when she tripped and fell.  I put ointment on her scratches, and bandaged her palm where the skin had torn free.  Through attending carefully to her palm each day, the wound began to heal.  But then last Friday, after she got to work, a sparkling diamond appeared in one of her eyes.  Gradually, this shimmering effect expanded across her eye, obscuring her vision.  She called me, and knowing how tired we were, and how tight our muscles had been, I recommended she take some Ibuprofen.  She did so, and closed her eyes for a while.  After about twenty minutes, the shimmering diamond expanded to the periphery of her vision and vanished.  

Thankfully, the doctor found nothing wrong with her eyes.  She had done her research by this point, and told him the phenomena most resembled a Scintillating scotoma.  He suggested that such flashing lights, or sparkles, usually preceded migraine headaches.  As we had been overdoing it of late, this made sense.  Nevertheless, the incident reminded us how fragile we all are.  This comes as no surprise, as travel seems to take it out of us more as we get older.  Nevertheless, like one of James Bond’s martinis, we were left shaken.

When we were both so tired, we abandoned our usual practice of massaging the other’s neck, back, and legs several times each week.  It was too easy to relax and do nothing.  Had I rubbed her muscles more, might she not have fallen?  Might her migraine attack have been avoided?  Alas, I can answer neither question conclusively. Still, these incidents remind me that when I am at my weakest, it is then that those closest to me may need my support the most. 

Dragon Dave

Related Internet Links

Scintillating scotoma on Wikipedia

Golson The Strongman

No one thinks bigger than Kevin J. Anderson

In Kevin J. Anderson’s new book Clockwork Angels, we meet Golson, a strongman in a circus.  He pleases his crowds by loading every weight he owns except two onto his barbell, and then lifts the immense load above his head.  But he never adds those last two weights. Instead, they rest off to the side of the stage, bound with a chain and a padlock. 

While he’s far stronger than most everyone else, and feels like he should be able to lift more, Golson is afraid to push himself too hard.  For the last time his mentor tried to beat his personal best, he couldn’t handle the weight.  Instead, he was crushed on stage, while the audience watched.

In the early 1980s, author Piers Anthony experienced a series of excellent three mile runs.  Previously, he had never strung together more than three twenty-two minute runs in a row.  Suddenly, he found himself running faster.  Each thrice-weekly run was under the magical twenty-two minute mark.  As months passed, his speed increased further.  After seven months, he was beneath the twenty-one minute mark. 

Concurrently, Piers Anthony's regimen of Japanese pushups, done on alternate days, decreased in time.  From his normal seventy-five in five minutes, he brought the time down to four minutes-and-seven seconds.  Both remarkable streaks ended when physical pain landed him in the hospital.  Although it turned out that he suffered from nothing more than a kidney stone (mentioned in “Dreaming of Kevin J. Anderson”), I have to wonder: was his body signaling that he had stressed it too far, and he had exceeded the limits of his physical capabilities? 

Like Piers Anthony during the 1980s, Kevin J. Anderson completes several books each year.  How much he pushes against the upper boundaries of his capabilities, or how regularly he exceeds his previous limits, I don’t know.  But I do remember, in his memoir On Writing, that after Stephen King reached each day’s word count goal, he took the rest of the working day off.  He also gave himself time after completing the rough draft for his mind to relax, before he launched into the process of revision.

This week I finished the rough draft of my second dragon novel.  My rational mind tells me I should immediately leap back into the first one, and start revising it, but experience has taught me that when I push my creative muscles too far, they give up, and leave me unable to focus on any writing for a while.  Given how difficult I found it to concentrate this past weekend, I’m listening to experience for the rest of this week.  Hopefully, I’ll be ready to hit the first novel hard next week.  At least that’s the plan.

I was recently shocked to learn that an acquaintance, someone who’s always worked harder than me, had a stroke.  As he's in his twenties, it seems a little too early for that to occur naturally.  Golson’s decision reminds me that, while every day I should do what I can, I cannot do more than I can, for a long period of time, without facing the consequences of excessive physical and mental stress.  In a country where productivity and efficiency seem like gods, his example may strike some as foolish, but to me it seems wise. 

Dragon Dave

Related Dragon Cache entries

Dreaming of Kevin J. Anderson