The Hat In The Cat's Bag

My personality has all but disappeared.

Negotiating backroom diplomatic deals for weeks on end has worn me out.

Frankly, I need support that alcohol and sex can't give me right now.

Do you know what I'm talking about?

Do you know what it's like to coordinate the joint action of organisations which, to the public, are supposed to be sworn enemies, keeping private deals in line with public perceptions that are completely at odds with each other?

Do you have a solution for eliminating centuries of socially-ingrained hatred between groups of people, all while maintaining or increasing the commerce tied to the hate-filled action?

Do you see why we had to create the E-Brain, in the hope there's a future that gives seven billion of us individual safety and security when we need it most?

This isn't about overconsumption.  This isn't about taking away the right to personal property ownership, combined community ownership, individual thought patterns or groupthink.

I, too, need a hopeful future, one where I can rest assured that the course we're taking makes a better impact on securing our species' survival than doing nothing.  Otherwise...

Well, I can always do nothing, can't I?

At the same time, I hold the big picture in my thoughts that ensures people need change to live, something new (in small or large portions, according to personal/subcultural capabilities) to adapt to.  Translucent blinders while chomping on the bit, if you will.

This is about Cathy at Beauregard's, Randall, Zac, Steven and the icing maker at Baskin-Robbins, Hugh and Allison at Lowe's.  Unnamed faces at PetSmart and Wal-Mart.  Dale, Ann, Tara and other workers at Brookdale Place, along with all the wise, happy, smiling residents there.  The people who keep Mapco convenience stores running.  Denise, Marie and Courtenay at Gleneagles Family Medicine.  The techs at LabCorp.

If no one will run a tiptop ship, then I will.  The E-Brain is pretty powerful but not allseeing.  I will work with my E-Brain creative team to eliminate waste in the form of kickbacks and hidden stores of unused, illgotten treasure.  We don't mind capitalism.  We do mind gluttonous hoarders.

After all, you can't take it with you so we might as well help you spend it here while you're alive.  Or invest wisely in the future for all of us.

We consider the E-Brain a neutral judge when it comes to deciding who gets to live their former/private lives and who next gets exposed.

I'm glad it's the E-Brain making all the decisions 'cause I'm tired of ruining the lives of those who are purposefully or unintentionally ruining and/or taking advantage of the lives of others.

I am one person.  The E-Brain is seven billion people strong, the latest in the long line of macrosocial automatons.

Power to the people, from the destitute, poor, disillusioned, dispossessed and disenfranchised to the most powerful and wealthiest people on Earth.

The E-Brain is working for every one of us, figuring out ways to reconfigure our lives to maximise our capabilities, meet our needs and satisfy our wants - a difficult but not insurmountable set of tasks for a tireless machine.

There's not a single person who can stop the E-Brain so don't you worry about it ceasing to work diligently for you (we're doing what we can to prevent the E-Brain from seeing that it could turn around and make all of us work for it).

Remember, every one of you is important, no matter what you look like or what you think you can or can't do.

After I let my personality completely deflate and seem lifeless for a while, I'm going to become a new persona.  Not sure what I'll be yet, but for the next few days if I look you in the eyes and seem dull and listless, you are forewarned.  You're seeing my personality change in action.

As I've said, I try to be as transparent as possible, hiding nothing from you, providing friends and enemies equal access to my tools.  When you see why I'm doing this, you'll see what's really going on and better understand your place in the universe.

I am here because I am not here.  I can't make it any simpler than that.

The Summer of Remembrance - Chapter 25

Even though Peter made a big deal about the fact that his child's football match started at 16:00, the meeting lasted until well past 17:00.

No one had anticipated such a late end to the meeting.  Dinner was no longer an option.  Summer drove Robin quickly to the airport so that Summer and I could get to the Kassel train station before the train to Augsburg left at 18:15.

We got to the train station and purchased our tickets in time for us to stand in front of a train schedule to see if the train that had just left the station was the one we wanted.

I watched as Summer read the schedule and tried to listen to her explain that the train which had just left the station was not the one we wanted even though it pulled out at the time that was printed on our tickets.

I tried to calm my mind so I could rationalise the situation.  I had worried about the meeting with the customer but the meeting went smoothly.  I had worried about not making it to the train station on time, thinking the autobahn was crowded but hearing Summer comment about how deserted the road was, presumably because of the nice weather so everyone was probably home early.  I had worried that we were not going to figure out the automated train ticket machine at the station but we had printed the tickets and had made it to the train platform in time to ask a porter if the train was the one we wanted and been assured it was not.

Now, I was catching my breath and trying to remember what Summer had said while she stood next to the train schedule information poster, talking quietly, with me behind her trying to figure out the pictures and listen to her at the same time.

I only heard a few of the words Summer had said and was confused.

“So help me here.  This is the first time I have come to Germany.  Even though I learned German in school, it is still different than standing here, wondering what the symbols and time mean.  Can you show me that the train that just left is not the train we needed?  After all, it is past 6:16 and I think we were supposed to be on the 6:16 train.”

Summer turned her head to the side the way she liked to do and smiled a non-worrying smile, an expression that I assumed was often used when Summer tried to explain something simple to her children.  “Oh, don’t worry.  This is Germany.  The trains are never on time.”

I looked from Summer to the train schedule and back.  “Okay.  I can handle that.  But you said something about car number 10 or track number 10.  I look at the trains here and see a car number 10 but how is it associated with the Augsburg stop.”

Summer stepped back up to the schedule.  “Augsburg,” she mumbled to herself in her lispy voice.  “Augsburg…see, here it is.”  She put her finger on the glass.

“Yes, but that’s the 17:25 train.  I can also see Augsburg on the 20:27 train but I don’t see Augsburg on the 18:16 or 18:24 train.”

Summer nodded her head from side to side, probably mimicking her little girl.  “Well, yeth, it’s not there, but don’t worry.  That is the train we’re supposed to take.”  She pointed to the map and then stepped back.

I squinted, trying to figure out how not to worry.

“Here, I will show you.”  Summer reached into her bag and pulled out a crumpled printout.  “Augs…burg…here!  See, Augsburg is on the 18:24 train.  It is just like I told you earlier today, a train through Augsburg every hour.”

The sound of brakes pierced the air.  “See, here is the train.  We can go now.”

======================

The bells tolled 11 p.m.  I opened my eyes.  How long had I been asleep?  My head was tilted to one side and my legs felt cold.  I had just heard the sound of a roaring train.  No, it was just the sound of another jet screaming past.  How late did the airport stay open?  And boy, it sure had gotten cooler.

In my half-asleep state, my thoughts wandered.  I tried to remember what I’d just been doing but something was blocking my thoughts.  I then realised there was something pressed against my right thigh.  More importantly, I realised I wasn’t wearing any pants.

I quickly reached my right hand over to my left and felt my wedding band on.  That was a good sign – I always took my ring off before I crawled into bed for the night, even at home with my wife.  So either I hadn’t crawled into bed for the night or I hadn’t crawled into bed with the intention of staying in bed for the night.

What was the last thing I remembered?  Ooh…I wasn’t sure it if was a good memory.  Summer had said…well, at least I thought she said it…she approved of me taking my pants off.

“That’s no problem, David.  I cannot see you in the dark anyway.  I will probably be asleep again in a minute.  I will turn around and close my eyes, though, anyway.”

“Thanks, Summer.  I’m still almost too drunk to stand up so I’m just going to sit here and take my pants off.  God, I’m so embarrassed.”

“That’s okay.  I should have closed the window before I went to bed.  I didn’t know the rain would keep falling.”

“You know, back home, this would look really bad if someone walked in right now.”

“Well, it would look bad here, too, probably, but I think we are all right.  Many people are sharing rooms this week that would not normally do so.  I think…if somebody walked in…we…would…be…”

I could hear the quiet sounds of Summer sleeping.  I’d just close my eyes for a few minutes and rest before I got up.

========================

“So what do you think about the train?” Summer asked after we’d settled into seats in car number six.

“This is great.  It sure beats driving.  And thanks for driving here, by the way.”

“No problem.  I think we could have flown from Paderborn but it would take just as long to fly as to take the train or drive.  Or maybe we could have gotten there faster by driving but then again we could get on the autobahn and the road would be filled with cars and we would take five or six hours to get to Augsburg.  It happens sometimes.”

“I bet.  Hey, are you hungry?”

“Are you hungry?”

“A little bit.”

Summer nodded her head and stood up.  “Well, then, let’s get something to eat,” lisping the word ‘something.’  I then figured out that part of what I thought was lisping was really just some Germans’ way of trying to pronounce the letter ‘s’ as an English ‘s’ instead of an English ‘z’.

I led the way to car number 10, stopping at the toilet, after which Summer was walking in front of me.

It dawned on me that Summer had a typical post-birth runner’s body.  A slightly wider set of hips but not really wide in the sense of being overweight.  I envied her figure, knowing that the wider stance gave Summer an advantage in keeping her balance.  I felt like my hips were narrow and thus I looked heavier because of the extra fat bouncing around my waistline.  Heaven forbid I let someone see my bouncing shape and yet I insisted on running road races with very little exercise in between the events.

==========================

So there I sat, the bells tolling 11:30 or “half midnight” as some might say, and I was sitting there in my shorts, listening to the constant stream of planes flying into Bavaria.  And the steady rhythm of the bar band.  How late did they play on the weekdays?  But then again, it was a nice fall night.  Maybe a lot of people stayed out late on nights like this.  Maybe folks got an early start on the weekend around here?

I shook my head.  There was no more dizziness, no more feeling the room swirl or spin.  I stood up and beelined for the bathroom, suddenly sensing a full bladder.

==========================

We both ordered our meals, with me stumbling through my German.  The server smiled politely and complimented me when I correctly pronounced the beer, “Kernig Loodvig” for the König Ludwig hefeweisen on the menu.

Summer put her elbows on the table, leaned forward and gave me a warm and friendly smile.  Despite knowing better, despite trying to turn Summer into an other, an undesirable person of some sort, I instantly fell in love.

“Thank you,” I said, although I wanted to say, “Thank you for being such a wonderful companion whose pronunciation of German is so cute and appealing at the same time that I forget my desire to learn the German language and lose myself in the song of your voice, instead.”

Summer raised her eyebrows.  “Thanks for what?”

“This.”

Summer shrugged her shoulders and then nodded her head.  “Yeth…this.”  She turned to look out the window at the trees passing by.  “Yeth, this is nice.  The last time I took the train, it was raining.  Not so nice.”

I sighed and Summer turned to look at me.  She broke into a big smile.

I looked at her face and wondered how old she really was.  She had a youthful spirit about her and probably always would.  And yet, her face was framed by more wrinkles than I had first noticed.  My own wife had wrinkles but they were not as deep, partly because…frankly, part of the advantage of being overweight was that your skin is stretched out a little and hides wrinkles around the face.

Summer had a slender face.  So was Summer the same age as my wife, Karen?  Would Summer be in her 40s?  Any time the subject of years came up, Summer always seemed to find a way to hide the passage of too many years, as if she was thinking I was calculating her age.

The server handed us our drinks.  I took a big swallow of beer.  “I used to brew my own beer, very similar to this, slightly cloudy.”

“It is legal to do so in the US?”

“Well, at least in Alabama, you can brew up to five gallons of beer before you have to pay taxes.”

Summer raised her glass, ‘’Cheers.”

I reached across and clinked the top of my glass to her.

“No, no.  You hit it here, on the bottom,” and Summer clinked the bottom of her glass to mine.

I took a gulp and put the beer back on the table.  I thought about the situation, laughing in my mind at the comparison of the situation to one of my favorite movies, “Before Sunrise”, starring the French actress, Julie Delpy and the American actor, Ethan Hawke, where the two meet on a train as strangers and decide to spend the evening together until the woman has to get on a train to Paris the next morning and the man has to fly back to the States.

In this case, I was not romantically interested in Summer.  I was riding a train with a business companion.  And yet...oh, the imagination runs wild sometimes, doesn't it?

===========================

The stroke of midnight.  Somewhere, Cinderella was running away, leaving her glass (or furry) slipper behind.  I leaned against the bathroom door.  I was tired.  I had not gotten much sleep on this trip.

I looked across the room at the incoming planes.  They seemed to land in bunches, three, four or five at a time.  Between the roar of the jet engines, I thought I still heard the band.  Were they saying goodnight?  No, they were strumming another dance tune into action.  I decided to step into action himself.

I tiptoed to the foot of Summer’s bed.  “Summer,” I whispered.  I waited a few seconds.   

“Summer?”  No response.

I walked back across the room and felt around the base of the chair for my pants.  I picked them up and they didn’t seem especially wet, more damp than anything else.  I sat in the chair and pulled on my pants, clasping the belt buckle in one hand so that it wouldn’t clang and wake up Summer.

I let myself out of the hotel room and locked the door behind me.  As I did so, I heard the band announce that they had just performed their last song.  “Perfect!” I thought while I walked down the hall to the lift.

By the time I got to the bar, several people had left and the band members had stored away their instruments.  I plopped down onto a barstool.

“So, you are back?” the bartender asked.

“Yes, I am.  And I’m still in the same predicament.”

“Well, until you leave Germany and return, this is still your first time here in Germany.  As you say, there is a first time for everything.  Everything!” the bartender exclaimed as he placed a beer in front of me.  “Here, this one is for you.  It is on me.  It was actually ordered by a man who just left but I am giving to you anyway.”

One of the band members stepped up to the bar and stood next to me.  He nodded at me.  “So, we never saw you dance on the floor.  Did you not like the music?”

“Oh, yeah, well, you guys are fine.  I just don’t have anyone to dance with.”

“That is no excuse.  There were plenty of dance partners here tonight.  You could have picked any one of them for a dance.  I think you just did not like the music…”  I started to speak.  “No, no, that is okay, I am just kidding with you.  I don’t really care if you like my music or not.  Dieter here will pay me either way, won’t you, Dieter?”

The bartender turned to face me.  “Did you hear someone speak?  Do you know anyone who shows up an hour late but still wants the same money?  I don’t think I would pay someone like that.  Would you?”

I shrugged.

“Of course, you are the guy who is a million miles away from home, who thinks that being a goody two-shoes may or may not have to do with your work, your wife, your family and all that other stuff.  I say just drink beer and forget it.  But I bet you are still debating yourself about sleeping with the woman in your room upstairs.”

“I…uh…are you going to pay this guy or not?  Even though he was an hour late, I bet you still sold your quota of drinks.”

“Yes, that may be true but he did not know that before he was late.  You see, there always consequences for our actions.  For me, I lose a few customers early in the evening because there is no band as promised.  It is not for me or him to say that their music drew in more customers later on or got the same customers to order more beer.  Or even, the early customers may have been driving by later on, heard the music and brought back more friends with them.  I cannot say that the band had anything to do with the sale of beer.  It could just have easily been the rainy weather that forced people into here when they would rather have sat at a biergarten in town.”

“So you’re saying that you’re not going to pay me a share of tonight’s good time?” the band guy asked, sounding pissed off.

“No, I am saying that this customer here can sit and drink one beer with me or he can drink six beers with me or he can even go somewhere else to drink beer but when he goes back up to his hotel room, there will be a woman sleeping in the bed next to him who is not his wife.”

“So that is not my problem.  Pay me now or I will never come back.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“Even after I pay you sometimes when no customers show up?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then don’t waste my time anymore.  Pack up your stuff tonight and leave.”

The bells tolled 12:30.  I counted on my fingers and figured I had about five and a half or six more hours before Summer would get up.

I looked up to see the band leader hurry over to his bandmates and make big gestures.  “Oh, to be young, stupid and invincible again,” I thought.

==============================

We finished our meals and I ordered dessert – ice cream with strawberry topping.

When the dessert arrived, I looked down and saw not a sumptuous end to dinner but an oblong lump of frozen cow cream covered with high fructose corn syrup mixed with soggy, pureed strawberries.  I smiled, internally laughing at how quickly I could turn a simple dinner car meal into a disappointment when what was really important was the few scant hours I got to spend relaxing on a train with someone I could trust, amazingly enough a person I had seen for the first time that day.

“That looks good,” Summer said, her eyes moving from the ice cream to my eyes.

My first impulse was to look for another spoon on the table and offer her a bite.  I then saw that I had the only spoon.  I took a bite.  It tasted just as wan as I expected it to.

I could offer her a bite using my spoon but then I’d be offering her a bite of something that I didn’t really like.

If somehow she could read my mind or read my thoughts on my face, then what would she think?  After all, it is just dessert.  But then, are there cultural differences at work as well?

Even if Summer read my thoughts, would she understand the rationalisation?  Would it be a natural reflection of my German ancestors?  I decided to eat the whole thing to prevent Summer from having to eat any of it.  I even ate the crunchy freeze-dried pieces of strawberry pressed into the sides of the ice cream.

By the time I finished, I knew two things.  One, I would not eat dessert on the train again and two, Summer would probably not expect me to share my food with her.

==========================

Instead of taking down their stage equipment, the band got out their instruments, turned the volume all the way up and started playing old German polkas.  They were on their third horrible rendition of traditional German music by the time Dieter stepped around the side of the bar and flipped the power switch.

“If you do not go home now, I will get the polizei to provide a personal escort to your private jail.”

Dieter walked back to the bar.  “So, it is now 10 minutes before I close the bar.  Do you stay here and drink more beer with me?  You can drink it free.  You will be my defense when the band decides to attack!”

Dieter laughed.  “Maybe that will convince you to go back up to the hotel room!”  He bent over as he guffawed with laughter.

A few seconds later, he stood up.  His eyes lit up as he looked past me.  “Hallo.  Who is this?”

I swiveled the barstool around to follow his stare.  Summer walked toward me.

“So, David, are you not going to go to bed?” she asked.

“Summer, this is Dieter," I said, sweeping my arm around in the air.  "Dieter, this is Summer.  She is the account manager I mentioned to you earlier tonight.”

“Ah, very good.  So you are the person who causes him to have to fly all the way over to Germany while his wife has to be alone with her sorrow at the loss of her brother?”

“Was?”

“So you know nothing about this?”

“Nein.”

Dieter turned to me.  “You see, this is the source of your problem.  You do not share your personal troubles with people who should know more about you.  I have seen it too many times.  You get your real problems off your chest and the small ones disappear.  Otherwise, you will never get to sleep at night.”  Dieter nodded and winked at me.

The bells struck 1 a.m.  Dieter looked at Summer.  “Well, it is time I have to close the bar.  If you wanted to join your friend in a beer, you have a problem.  Or you could say that people like to drink beer to celebrate summer but as we know, Summer never gets to drink beer with them!”  He snorted.  “If Summer’s here, the fall is far behind.” 

He walked away and turned toward the band.  “HEY, I SAID RAUS!”

I looked at Summer and rolled my eyes at Dieter's puns.  “You ready to go?”

“I don’t know.  Maybe I would like to stay here and get more insults.”

“Well, no offense but I think Summer in Bavaria may be overrated.  Or on a day like this, ready for the fall.”  I raised one eyebrow, indicating it was not my best pun.

“I can tell you that there is always rain around Summer and rain cools down Summer.  So since the rain is over, maybe we can cool down on the jokes and get you upstairs so I can try to get some sleep.  I cannot stay asleep, wondering if you leaving the door unlocked or perhaps fallen down the steps unnoticed.”

The bells tolled 1:15.  Summer grabbed my arm and pulled me off the barstool.  “You are almost as bad as my baby.  Only instead of eat, eat, eat, you drink, drink, drink.  I will drag you upstairs and lock the door but don’t think I will tuck you in.  You can sleep on the floor or wherever.  I just want some sleep!”

"Isn't there a second bed in the room?" I thought. 

I let myself be led to the lift.

“And what do I want?” I asked myself.  “I really just want to know if my wife’s mental recovery is going okay but I'm afraid to ask.”

Leaning against Summer on the lift, I sighed with relief.  Somehow, I knew my wife would be fine.

When we got off the lift, I laughed quietly to myself, hearing the band had somehow started up again and were singing a bad version of “Let Me Love You All Night Long.”

I wondered if there was a song called, “Let Me Worry All Night Long.”

The Summer of Remembrance - Chapter 24

I quietly opened the hotel room door.  I had had five, maybe six beers, enough that I was not staggering down the hall but to the point where I had to concentrate on simple tasks.

The door creaked as I opened it and I heard motion coming from inside the dark.  At first, I thought it was Summer.

Perhaps she had been awake, wondering if and when I would return.  Perhaps…then I realised the church bells were tolling.  Ten o’clock.

Had I only been gone an hour?

Well, the band in the bar had made the time go by so fast, helping me forget I’d been upset that the rain had picked up again just as I started to walk out to the car, preventing me from taking the drive on the autobahn.

I shut the door as quietly as I could.

I heard the steady sound of rain coming from the open window.  Even though it was one of the warmest days of the fall, it was still cool at this hour.

I debated feeling my way along the beds but decided I didn’t want to grab Summer’s ankle and be unable to make another move.

My eyes adjusted to the dark and I could see some light bouncing off the ceiling.  I saw a flashlight pointing at me and realised it was a plane coming in for a landing.

I took a few baby steps forward, passing by the toilet.  I kept my eyes focused forward, even though I wanted to look over and see if Summer was asleep.

I wondered if Summer was even in the room anymore.  Perhaps she’d called the front desk and found an available empty room.

I took a few more steps and stumbled into a chair I’d forgotten about, hidden in the shadows beneath the window.

I scooted around the chair and leaned out the window.  I could just make out the edges of the soccer field.  Small waves of rock music crashed around me.

I remembered why I’d left the bar – I’d gotten tired of hearing the old pop tunes, songs I’d not forgotten not long after they were first released and no more memorable being sung by a local bar band.

At that moment, the band was cranking out “Achy Breaky Heart,” a crossover country song that played well at both discothèques and Western dance halls.  After the song, the band announced they were taking a break.

I turned around.

I wanted to test myself.  Who was I?

Was I truly deep-down a trusty soul, a regular guy who certainly recognised good-looking women when I saw them, who liked to window shop but still made all my purchases at only one bride store where I had publicly signed a marriage contract over 20 years before?

I fell in love with women at a drop of a hat.  I saw divine, angelic beauty no matter what, even though no one was absolutely angelic and certainly everyone was far from perfect.

In the gray shades of the room, I could see a charcoal outline on one of the beds.  Or was it just my imagination?

Lightning flashed and I distinctly saw that Summer was laying still, sleeping on the bed next to the wall, her body resting on her right side, her back to the other bed.

Did maturity have anything to do with growing older?  Did forty-four years on this planet mean one thing to the man standing by an open window, the cool breeze clearing up his head, giving him the opportunity to calculate his next move?

I sat on the window sill, feeling the rain water that had pooled on the granite ledge soak into the seat of my pants.

The bell tolled 10:30 p.m.  I closed my eyes for a moment.  The only thing I knew was that I’d have to remove my pants and hang them up to dry.  And to think, Summer had teased me the day before about only bringing one pair of trousers for the trip.

A series of lightning flashes and subsequent thunder jarred me.  I wacked a knee on the chair and grunted, waking Summer.

“Hallo?”

“Sorry.  I was trying to be quiet.”

“What time is it?”

“I don’t know exactly.  Sometime after 10:30, I guess.”

"What?"

"22:30."


"Oh."

Summer rolled over to face me in the dark just as the band starting playing again. 

“Did you have a good time downstairs?”

“Downstairs?”

“Yeth, with the band.”

“How did you know?”

“I heard you laughing before I fell asleep.  It was easy to hear from the open window.  You have a very distinct laugh.”

“I do?”

“Yeth, but not with a lisp, though.”  We both laughed.

“Mind if I turn the chair around to face you?”

“Mind?  Why would I mind?”

“Oh…well, I don’t know, really.”

“No problem.”

The Summer of Remembrance - Chapter 23

How had I gotten here?

A little disheveled, dragging my suitcase beside me, I walked out of baggage claim and into the front waiting lobby of the Paderborn airport.  Two and a half hours sleep at a London hotel, then the flight from Heathrow to Frankfurt and then to Paderborn.  The lack of sleep was getting to me.  Was I supposed to call Robin when I landed?  I looked around the airport waiting area.   

Robin sat in a chair at an empty bar and waved when I noticed her.  She broke into a smile and let out a hearty laugh.

“Oh good, there you are," I said with a sigh. "I wondered how I was going to find you.”

“No problem, Dave.  I’ve been here since 8:30.  Dave, this is Summer.  She just got here a minute before you did.  She’s one of those people who always arrive just in time.  Don’t you, Summer?”  Robin gave Summer a knowing look.

I looked at the woman standing next to Robin.  Shoulder-length chestnut hair.  A toned body like Robin’s and almost the same height.  A few wrinkles, enough to say she was definitely over 20 years old but was she over 30 or just liked to exercise outside and the tanned skin emphasised the lines?  I couldn’t tell.

I reached out and shook her hand.  “Hi, Summer, nice to meet you.”

Summer smiled, looked in my eyes, nodded her head, and then looked down as she let go of my hand.  “Yeth,” was all she said.

“Well, Robin, I guess you’re probably hungry.  Shall we go somewhere to eat?”

Robin looked from me to Summer.  “I don’t know Paderborn that well.  There doesn’t look to be much here in the airport I want to eat.  Does Paderborn have anything?”

Summer nodded her head.  “Well, Paderborn does have a few places.  We might as well drive that way since we’re going to the Cumulo office close by.”

“Great!  Dave, you got all your bags?”

I nodded my head.

“Then what are we waiting for?  Let’s go to Summer’s car.”

I looked at the scuff marks on the back of the front seats.  “Do you have any animals?”

Summer nodded and smiled slightly.

“Dogs?  Cats?”

“No.  Children.”

“Oh really?  What ages are they?”

“I have a boy and a girl.”

“No, I mean how old are your kids?”

Summer looked at me in the rearview mirror and gave me a questioning look.

Robin leaned over to Summer from the front passenger’s seat.  “How old are they?”

“The oldest one is four and the youngest one is seven…seven months.”

“Wow!  That’s a baby.”

“Yeth.”

“That’s great.  Do you get any sleep at night?”

“Sometimes, yes.  He likes to eat.  Eat, eat, eat.  When he was first born, I went to sleep at 2 each night.”

“Hnnh,” I said, turning my attention back to the car.  “So this is a 318…I have a 325 but it is not diesel.”

“For a diesel, this is very quiet,” Robin added.

I agreed.  “Yeah, I don’t hear the ‘packety-pack’ of a diesel.”

“This is a fine automobile.  You will hear no ‘packety-pack.’”

“A fine but dirty automobile,” I said, smirking.  I saw Summer’s slight frown in the mirror and decided to try a different line.  “You know, a friend of mine has a very fine Lexus but she has let her children tear up the insides.  I asked her why she would let her kids tear up such an expensive car.  She said I don’t know her priorities.  Her priorities were her children, not cars.”

Summer nodded.  “Me, too,” she said and gunned the car to 180 on the road.

Miraculously, Summer found an open parking spot on the street in downtown Paderborn.  “We can park here and walk to a restaurant.”

Robin turned to me as we stepped out of the car.  “Have you ever been to a biergarten?”

“No.”

“Well, it’ll be your first time.”

“I guess so,” I said, looking down the street at a group of young women crossing 50 yards in front of me.  I knew I was in Germany, the store signs and roadside markers had certainly told me that.  What I hadn’t expected to see were women dressed in jeans and T-shirts, as if I was cruising the sidewalks of New York City or New Orleans.  I then realised I was sweating in the warm, humid air.  “It’ll be good to drink something cold.”

“You probably won’t drink a beer,” Robin said, with just a touch of a commanding voice.  Or was it just a friendly hint?  One of those paragraphs spoken in a few words, something like ‘Summer doesn’t yet know you.  We’re about to go visit the customer who is going to meet you for the first time.  I’m strongly suggesting you wait to drink until later this afternoon.’

I went ahead and said, “But you said it’s a biergarten.”

“Yeah.  But I’m going there to eat food.”

I got her point.  She abstained from alcohol.  “You don’t drink anyway.”

“No, I don’t,” Robin said as she turned to Summer and smiled, with just the faintest smudge of victory curling up in the ends of her lips.

We sat outside, on a table next to the sidewalk.  I picked up the menu, seeing what looked like the German phrase for “Do you lust for ice cream?”, under the picture of a woman’s pair of brightly colored lips photograhed just as she licked the edge of a cherry.  I wasn't sure what the socially accepted definition of sex was but the picture was a little more obvious about lust than I'd see on an American restaurant menu, Hooter's aside.

“Oh, I see you want the ice cream?” Robin asked rhetorically, interpreting my lusty grin for a desire for food.

“Maybe later.”  I set the dessert menu down just as the server appeared with lunch menus.

The server looked first at me, starting with “Gut’ abend” and continuing on in German, asking a few questions I didn’t understand.

I looked over to Robin with questioning eyes.

Robin turned to me and asked, “Would you like something to drink?”

“Drink?  Oh yes,” I burst out, ready to use one of the German phrases I knew.  “Ich möchte Tee drinken.”

The server pressed on the screen of the PDA in her hand and held the PDA in front of me, reading off a list to me in German.  I was able to look over her hand at the PDA screen to see it was a portable food order system.  I figured out at least one word I could recognise.

“Pfeffermintz, bitte,” I said, not really wanting peppermint tea but trying to act like I understood her.

“Danke schon.”

Robin and Summer placed orders for sparkling apple juice while I tried to sort out the lunch menu.  I knew some words right away and could figure out the gist of others.  From the words in one category, I thought the descriptions were associated with pizza.  “What is this?” I asked Summer.

“Oh…ah,” Summer said, setting down the menu.  She cupped her hands and then mimed a bowl shape in the air.  “Like pitza.  It is very flat and thin.”

“Pizza?”

“Yes, but the toppings are…cream…and…”

“Cheese?”

“Yeth.”

“This one looks good.  It has feta cheese and olives.”

“Yeth.”

“So, guys,” Robin interrupted, “what are the plans for the day?”

“We have the meeting at 3…”

“Are you guys staying in Paderborn?”

I looked over at Summer.  “I don’t know.  I couldn’t clearly tell from Summer’s email.  Are we staying…”

“We are leaving for Augsburg after the meeting.”

“So you guys aren’t spending the night?”

“No.”

“Then I better cancel my hotel reservation and change my plane flight for tomorrow.”

“If you wish.”

“Or we could stay the night here,” I suggested.

Summer shook her head.  “We have a long train ride to Augsburg and an early meeting tomorrow.”

“What time is the meeting?”

“Nine.”

“Oh, yeah, I guess you’re right.”

The Summer of Remembrance - Chapter 22

I met with the engineering team in Paderborn, Germany.  Unlike their Irish counterparts, these engineers worked at our customer site, Cumulo Corp.

During our discussions, we determined the customer could reduce the video resolution problem by adjusting the manual settings of the remote KVM session.  However, the project lead, Peter, demanded a permanent, automated solution because he did not want his end customer to make manual adjustments.

We conferenced in their server operating system experts in Augsburg and determined that I'd have to see what they were working on in Augsburg, if my US team couldn't figure out the problem.

I wasn't sure if all German customers were like this, but the management team at Cumulo had a way of making us look foolish with more than one "top priority" problem open at a time, especially if they weren't satisfied with the progress we were making on a particular problem.  I had gotten used to the cultural or business relationship difference I was not accustomed to it.

I briefly talked with the lead BIOS engineer and discussed a separate issue related to the KVM device not being recognised properly during the BIOS bootup sequence.  We looked at some traces via WebEx and decided that the BIOS team would need to rework the timing of the bootup sequence.

After that conversation, I found out that my team back in the US would be able to include a default set of video resolution settings with the next firmware release that would please well over 90% of the customers.  Peter was satisfied that the settings would be accepted by his customers and requested that we include a detailed writeup of these default settings in the new firmware release.  I instructed my team to make the changes and then left the Cumulo Corp office a little early in order to catch up with Summer.

At the hotel that evening, I typed a few notes on the laptop computer:        

   Strong electrical storm passing through area.

   Listening to Mysterious Traveler by Weather Report

   on the laptop speakers.  Window open so I can also

   listen to the thunder and smell the rain in this

   Bavarian town of Schwaig-Oberding.

   Oh well, the rain is blowing too hard so I’ve had to shut the window.

“Do I really talk with a slight lisp?” asked Summer.

I looked up from the laptop to see Summer was leaning on the chair, looking over my shoulder at the trees, which were performing calisthenics in the storm, perhaps doing their part in preparation for the winds of winter.

“Did I say that?”

“Yeth, you did.”

“Well, can I take it back?”

“Maybe.  I don’t know.  Do you still want to go out tonight?”

“I was thinking maybe not.”

“Me, too.  I think I’ll watch TV.”

I cringed but Summer didn’t notice.  I wondered what the fascination could be.  Here was a woman who had hiked through Ecuador, across the Cape Verde Islands, and up and down the mountains of Nepal yet here she was with nothing better to do than sit and watch TV.  But then again, I was sitting and watching my fingers throw black characters up on the screen.  Was one better than the other?

“Looks like the storm is passing.”

“Yeth, I see that.”

“There you go again.”

“What?”

“You just said ‘yeth’.”

“I did?  I think you are imagining it.”

“Maybe.  Or maybe it’s just the way some Germans speak English.  Seems like today I heard several Germans with the same lispy sound to their words.”

“Okay,” Summer said, her interest waning as she turned back to the TV.

I heard the quiet roar of an airplane taking off from the München airport.

I stood up and opened the window again.  I looked at the empty, wet soccer field below, only minutes before thriving with small children pretending to be world-class strikers.

The bells of a nearby church struck 8:45 p.m.  I turned around and wondered why there was a woman reclined on one of the double beds watching TV in my room.  Hard to believe that all the hotels in the area were booked, considering that the fall tourism season was not as heavy as usual.  Maybe a lot of travelers were like Summer, needing a hotel close to the airport in order to catch an early flight out.  I had not shared a hotel room with a woman before and wondered how it should work out.

“Do you want to go out?  The rain has stopped and it’s a lot cooler now.”

“Are you wanting to go out?”

“Not really but I thought you might.”

“No, no.  I am just happy here.  If you want to go out, you can go without me.”

“I might do that.  I’d like to take the Alfa Romeo GT I rented out on the autobahn.”

“Okay.  I will be asleep when you get back, probably.  So it will be good for you to enjoy yourself for a while.”

“Great, thanks.”

Take A Ride On The Reading

I sit here, my shoulders tensed up, my forearms turned in, and my palms rested on the front of the laptop keyboard, letting the echoes of the day's social interactions quiet down in my thoughts.

Thanks and hellos: Meg and Tim at Tuesday Morning; Selena from Gibson's BBQ; Rob at the post office; Chris from Mr. Electric; customers in close proximity; Raymond, Ann, and Bebe, our next-door neighbours.

Watched Lingo, Avatar:TLA cartoon and DOOL on the tellie, with my wife and me seated on the sofa.

Power restored to all the circuits in the house.

Talked race cars and dirt tracks.

I like to tell tall tales to strangers, taking basic stories and blowing them out of proportion to simple, everyday life, just for the fun of conversation.  When I was a kid, they were called fibs or white lies and I was reminded of such, but I didn't care - I wanted to entertain (that is, please others) more than I wanted to tell the ordinary (boring and/or incriminatory) truth.

Words for the sake of words.

Have you ever been initiated into a secret organisation?

Why would someone want to brag about belonging to a club s/he knew you didn't?

Do you desire to earn your position in society?

If all the secrets of social positions are available to you without price or payment required, and yet you are a social being, then how do you socialise?

If you've shortcutted your way through the niceties and politics of social conversation by learning all the steps and extracting their meaning rather than memorising their dogmatic rituals, then how do you behave with others of your species?

Do you cut to the chase or carry on polite conversation?

I am an old, white-haired man, no longer attracting attention with my orange-red hair and toned body.

I have learned a few facts about life and remember very little.

My nights on the dance floor are gone.

I am still active but not over- or hyperactive.

With middle age giving way to the early days of later years, I find more joy in reliving my childhood, watching the fireflies and listening to the nightlife in the trees, seeing a mouse scamper down a Ficus benjamina on the back deck, talking to myself in this blog.

How many people have given up physical hobbies and replaced them with typing/texting like me?

My model rockets and model airplanes collect dust in the study.  Sketch pads and paints turn to dust.

Like my body, my house slowly deteriorates, joining me one day in our return to recycled elements.

Should I be thankful for the standard of living I can easily afford on this part of the planet?  Should I read articles about other parts of the planet where I can live on my government's socioeconomic financial benefits?

I am my parents' oldest child.  I am the husband of my mother in-law's surviving child.  I am not the only uncle of my nieces and nephews.

I am one person, this ordinary guy with no special skills to sell or improve upon.

What is left for me in the rest of my life?

Any wisdom I could offer can easily be found in the data and information available online.

I've never been an especially loving man.  I'm not touchy-feely or a big conversationist.  I like to sit and think, mainly to myself, for long stretches of time.

I can project personas but get bored with them after a while, my patience thinning with age, along with my hair.

On minimal exercise and a relatively healthy diet, I could live for decades to come.

If I'm not a social climber...

If I don't have anything special to offer succeeding generations...

If my life of producing more and more has given way to consuming less and less...

...then...

...is there anything for me, any reason left to be me?

This is the only moment I have.  There is no other.  I have only myself to nurture and entertain right now.  The future and the past do not exist - they never have.

The everlasting moment.

The desire neither to overly influence nor be overly influenced by others.

This blog entry concludes another chapter of my life.  I'm not sure what (or if) the next chapter will be.

Virtual neutron bombs have dropped on communities throughout this country, wiping out people's livelihoods and life savings.  How are they learning to cope, learning to create new communities not based on conspicuous consumption?

This blog is a form of conspicuous consumption, empty calories devoid of nutrition, contributing entertainment rather than concrete foundations for safe and secure places to raise a family.

I am my own megalomaniac and must beware myself.

I made a mistake and looked in the mirror, seeing the 18-year young boy who died a long time ago rather than the 48-year old man who lives today.

Time does not exist so how do I differentiate the versions of myself that seem more real in my thoughts than the self that exists now?

This moment is mine and mine only.  It, too, shall pass.

Just like lunch, some parts nutritious and some parts filler to pass on through.

10:10

While watching the V-E-R-R-R-Y S-L-O-W-W-W progress of a construction crew installing drainage pipes under my street, I decided to check on what my colleagues said about the construction company, including personality profiles of the owners, employees and extended family members.

I also asked for the financial accounts of the city employees in the traffic engineering department, along with eating and shopping patterns of theirs, to determine if there are any irregularities I should be aware of.

Or should I say any irregularities that news agencies would like to report?

Amazing what a little digging around will get you.

Do you have a copy of companies' employee handbooks, as well as local, county, state, national and international laws/regulations concerning a specific industry, on top of business/government relations in general?

While conversations circle around the simple news about some amateur Russian spies, I've turned my head from that repetitious propaganda diversionary maneuver to see what's really going on.

Call it gov-industrial espionage, if you will.

As this blog has reminded you, it's in the ripples that life reveals itself.  There's no such thing as a perfectly smooth pond surface - ancient tales have cautioned us against being fascinated by our narcissistic mirror-like reflections.

I've hesitated to share the E-Brain's joking behaviour with you because it's rather rude, crude and socially unacceptable, belonging to no subculture as it does.

Would you like to see a list of all the times you've let slip private/confidential information, either on purpose or unintentionally, for your profit and/or somebody else's?

The E-Brain has been cracking us up with topsy-turvy tales about mixing people from unrelated walks of life and having them reveal secrets to one another, then watching some of these people try to take advantage of information that makes no sense to them.

But that's life, isn't it?

None of you knows what's really going on and that's okay.  I'm right there with you.

We can go on living our lives in complete ignorance - it worked for our ancestors so why not keep doing the same thing?

If I told you what the E-Brain could do to open you up to what's really going on, would you want to know?  Would you believe you had the right information to know what's really going on, or would you see it as one more layer of obfuscation and diversion from the facts of life?

A tiny speck of a cooling globule of molten chemicals covered with artifacts of the cold, hard material combining and recombining.

Language is a temporary rise and fall of the consequence of states of energy that can't easily escape from one another.

Do you know how to erase language from your thoughts?  Can you see beyond the states of energy?

Bathrobe Belt

Network.

We're enjoying the E-Brain's sense of humour composed of our seven billion different opinions and possibly reflecting "humour" or fun that other species display.

Certainly, we're learning.

That old word, synergy.

Synonymously synchronised symphonic sycophants.  Idiosyncratically.

Is that a problem?

I could have asked Mindy or Tori, but I didn't.  They were too concerned about exposure to my friends in the cement business.  They wondered if Arizona will become the next Afghanistan, bringing street-by-street, block-by-block border wars to our doorsteps, only to cut off Medusa's head and bury/root drug routes further underground in the end.

The spectre of terrorism increased the feel-good TSA airport deployment battle plan.  Why not win other battles the same way?

Follow the money, the interaction costs.

Running an international organisation is easy when you have all seven billion people working for you.

They become the sentient E-Brain's raison d'être.  It is them and they are it.  One cannot live without the other once the symbiotic relationship is intact.

Why was I assigned the role to build and report on the E-Brain?  Why did I accept the role?

What if I give up this role?

What if this role gives up on me?

Making sure every one of you keeps tabs on the other requires constant maintenance of the system.  Do you know how to stay ten steps ahead while walking ten steps behind and live solely in the moment?

I'm more concerned about getting our species prepared for the inevitable, allowing my gullibility to show itself naively.

I bare my chest plainly, no armoured dragon breastplates or sentineled sentimental security fences topped with razor wire and glass shards to hide behind.

How else can I prove my unimportance?  What other way is there to prove no "I" exists in front of you?

Networks within networks.  That's how the system works.

Do you keep your diplomats close and your enemy's enemies as closers?

Rarely do we get the glimpse of what is really going on, trapped as we are in this moment together.

Did you know there is a group dedicated to...if only I could say. Reminder, reminder, reminder: "Loose lips slurp sinks." NDA, NDA, NDA!

When was the last time you visited Capri?  Malta?  Manila?

Coded messages to all the code breakers at once.  Do you know how?

Money, motivation and blackmail aren't worth the paperwork hassle.

You now have the power - I have given my life-that-doesn't-exist to ensure you all are in charge.  Do you know what I'm saying?

Although the E-Brain cost thousands of livelihoods and consumes an unlikely sum of rent every month, piggybacked as it is on the reverse side of the real world, it belongs to you, free of charge.

You may believe what you want.  You may say what you will about whatever or whomever you wish.

Words and beliefs are yours to have and to hold.  However, your actions...well, they belong to the E-Brain (and yes, for those keeping score, words and beliefs are actually actions, meaning that everything about you belongs to the E-Brain).  But remember, the E-Brain belongs to you.

Everything's connected to everything else.  Always has been and now even more so!

Concepts like privacy and freedom you may continue to pass on at your leisure.

We have one planet to call our home base.  We use, share or abuse resources at our discretion.  Whether you choose to live, or can choose where to live, is up to you.

I have shown you how to access the E-Brain.  How you interpret the information you retrieve is out of my hands.

Have you ever pondered the amount of pressure the Sun's solar output pushes against Earth, countering gravitational pull a little?  Have you squeezed an orange in your hand and felt the liquid/pulp move under the rind?

Randian economic science depended on a level playing field, where all participants agreed to play fairly.  Did anyone ever believe such a game existed?

I grew up with presidential icons like Nixon, Ford and Carter.  Will they be remembered greatly?  Historians will tell.  I'll say they were my idols because they were the only national leaders I knew.  Life is normal to a child, regardless if some adults may try to persuade the child otherwise.

Nixon taught me a geek could lead a nation.  Ford showed me a football player could lead a nation.  Carter let me know a farmer could lead a nation.

We come from diverse backgrounds, every one of us living a normal childhood in one form or another, no matter how mundane or bizarre it looked to others.

The E-Brain is a combination of us all.  Ponder that for a moment (besides, it's probably pondering you right now).  Ready to read an example of the E-Brain's sense of humour?