The City Building Four Squared

Sixteen days to school beginning for Sarah and Jeffrey, and they have expressed quite vocally to me that they can't wait! This morning on our way to their grandma's Jeffrey was asking from the back seat “why is it still summer”? His principal complaint was about the mosquito biting … I think right now mine is the subtle heat that you don't think of putting on some suntan lotion to keep from burning you! Saturday morning from eleven to two I was out with the kids at Roosevelt Park where Souris Valley Recovery was holding a “Hope Continues” event signifying the reopening of Roosevelt after the flood of 2011 with bouncy houses, slides, arts and crafts, face painting, and free lunch by First Presbyterian Church of hot dogs and potato ribbons. Yummy!

Far more appetizing – to me, anyway – than chicken with plums (comprised of chicken, plums, caramelized onions, tomatoes, turmeric and saffron, served with rice). But far be it from me to judge the tastes of Marjane Satrapi's great-uncle Nasser Ali Khan, whose life story (especially the last week of it) is rendered graphically by the author of Persepolis in her 2006 work Chicken With Plums. Once Nasser Ali's tar was broken, his life seemed to fragment – and though ISBN 0375424156 doesn't sound like much of a story, in fact it is rendered and illustrated very poetically and dashed with a tinge of sadness. What story can I tell if Ms. Satrapi can tell this one so well?

From William Shakespeare's Star Wars by Ian Doescher (I haven't read it all yet, but I so want to!)

Enter HAN SOLO, who joins CHEWBACCA, OBI-WAN, and LUKE at a table.

HAN SOLO

Han Solo at thy service, gentlemen,

The great Millen'um Falcon is my ship.

My first mate Chewie telleth me ye seek

Safe passage to the system Alderaan.

OBI-WAN

Aye, true, if 'tis a vessel swift of flight.

HAN SOLO

“A vessel swift of flight,” thou say'st? Hast thou

Not heard of the Millen'um Falcon, Sir?

OBI-WAN

[aside:] Now shall he boast. But if his ship we'd have,

Some boasting we'll endure. [To Han.] Nay,

should I have?

Versus the George Lucas 1977 version:

HAN SOLO

I'm Han Solo, captain of the Millennium Falcon. Chewie tells me you're looking for passage to the Alderaan system.

OBI-WAN

If it's a fast ship.

HAN SOLO

Fast ship. You've never heard of the Millennium Falcon?

OBI-WAN

Should I have?

Jeffrey won his second game of chess with me Saturday – I should say, his second game with me back in our house; he says he played with me when we lived in the FEMA trailer, but I don't recall it – by putting me in check with his rook (his “Wookiee”) after twenty moves. I couldn't move my king out of the row or jump my own pieces, so well played my son, well played … But I did win game number three by having him where my pawn or bishop or queen could have nailed him in the next move! Most of our weekend was pretty quiet; last evening the kids went out with me under the bridge and pitched rocks in the water … it's a time, and I never remember doing that with my dad at least.

We need memories (and asides), David