This morning, though my right knee was feeling wobbly, I did my morning run/walk and regained my previous best time, 11:21. I only got to the bus stop after Aston Street before breaking stride, but I spent more of the mile with my legs limber and stretching. The great impediment, I think, is my lungs, which is a bit scary (since my father died of lung disease), but pushing and making such progress as I can is presumably the best way forward.
Hopping Along
After a two-week layoff to coddle my wobbly knees, I took a run again this morning and, although I was too winded to regain my personal best ‘before breaking stride’ point, I did get to Aston Street. My time — not bad, considering how much momentum I’ve lost — was 11:45.
Meaning and Deliberation
A few minutes ago, I was typing at the small table on which I also keep miscellaneous papers, some Post-It notes, a Newman memorial card, and the remote that operates our Apple TV. As I was typing (vigorously), I heard the remote beginning to slide off the heap orderly pile of papers. I heard, but did not see, because some of the papers lay between me and the sliding remote.
Without my looking up, while I still had not seen the remote, my left hand reached out under the edge of the table, roughly below the point from which the remote might fall. I caught the falling remote — before I even saw it.
Does this suggest anything about the relation of linguistic (and non-linguistic) expression and apprehension?
Back At The Ranch
Amiens is beautiful. Maybe more to write about that another day.
This morning I set out for my biweekly mile, and after a few metres my left knee twinged. I ran more gently for a few more paces, then it twinged again. By the time I reached The Fir Tree, it was clear I couldn’t just push through and make a full effort at the mile. I was sore tempted to turn back, but decided to go a mile anyway, even if I was mostly just walking. Every block or so, the knee would play up, but I made the mile in 13:15, including the full stop the first time I checked the knee.
Last Stop Before France
Pretty good run, still gasping for air: 11:15 time, though.
Cold Running
…and walking.
Today I got up and — despite the chill and the occasionally-icy pavements — I did my mile. My time was 11:33, not good, but at least I did the mile. Clearly this is a plateau for me; I’ve made up the easy conditioning, and here on will be the hard, frustrating, incremental gains that may buy me a few seconds at a time. I’m hoping that the weather begins to favour me also; my gasping is aggravated by the cold air and the chill winds. I do worry a bit about my lungs, but the only thing for it is to keep exercising.
Wednesday Update
My morning run felt good in a muscular sort of way, but I didn’t push my ‘not break stride’ mark any farther, and I was slowed by my laboured breathing (gasping); on the other hand, when I got back to our front door, my time was 11:13, which is a new low for me. I still strongly dislike the experience of running, but I gather that once you get in the habit of doing it, it becomes less unpleasant — and I’ll certainly feel much better about myself when I can run a mile without breaking stride to stumble and pant.
Some Things Are Important
The other day, Toots and the Maytals’ classic ‘Pomp and Pride’ (that image on the video doesn’t look like Toots Hibbert to me — hmmm, someone needs to learn that not all Black men look alike) popped into my memory-worm register, and I’ve been thinking about it and singing along since then. Nothing so surprising about that — par for the course, that a geriatric rocker should recall fondly the music of his twenties. And also not surprising, the non-Reverend Dr Adam rolled her eyes at this, particularly since I didn’t know all the words and was making up gibberish to fill the gaps.
So to satisfy my curiosity and to give Margaret something different to roll her eyes about, I decided quickly to look up the lyrics. Google Play covered all the relatively intelligible (to my time and volume-abraded ears) lyrics, and provided for one of the trickier lines
Is it an opulin, Iceland, calm down
Now, you have to admire Toots’s poetical ingenuity, working Iceland into a song about popular discontent with luminance (‘when they see it, they see it’s not bright’; cf. also ‘Tropical Iceland’ by the Fiery Furnaces). But ‘opulin’? Sorry, that — in the words of another line of the song — that can’t be right.
No worries — a quick look at another database provides
Ease it and happily, nicely calm down
which works well and seems plausible in context. I should also note that yet another source suggests ‘Isolyn, Jacqueline, Everton, come down’ — but mixing football teams with women’s names seems unlikely to me.
This all points to the problems of bridging Jamaican pronunciation and patois with [British] standard English, the classic article on which being Steve Cotler’s ‘Draw Your Brakes — A Jamaican Creole Shout,’ which explains the otherwise opaque
Forward and fiaca
Menacle and den gosaca
(‘Opaque,’ that is, to foreign ears.) Not only are the words themselves puzzling (if indeed those are the words in question), but Scotty intones them with an ominous, prophetic intensity. If we don’t know what ‘Forward and fiaca / Menacle and den go sa-ahkah’ means, how are we to respond to its urgency?
Cotler consulted experts (imagine that! In your eye, Michael Gove!) Peter L. Patrick of Essex, and Kenneth Bilby of the Smithsonian, who explained that
“Forward and payaaka, manhangle (manhandle) and den go saaka.”
In the “youth man slang” of the time, “payaaka” was a verb, meaning “to take away another man’s woman/girlfriend.” In this “slang,” “saaka” meant “to fuck.” So the song’s intro meant, “go and take away a next man’s girl, grab her and then go have sex with her.”
So if this be prophecy, I guess I will fall far short of its mandates (and will not proclaim it so ardently when The Harder They Come comes round on my playlist). Good to know, right?
And while we’re on the topic of difficult-to-parse accent-and-patois expressions, what (you will probably ask) (actually, you won’t have thought of this, but I’m putting my thoughts in your mouth since it’s my blog, so there) ‘But what about the beginning of ‘007 (Shanty Town)’ by the giant Desmond Dekker?’ I applaud your good taste — I too am a great admirer to Desmond Dekker — and I too have had difficulty figuring out what’s going on in the song.
As it turns out once one investigates the lyrics, the song concerns rude boys who have been released from custody (‘them out of jail’ — Dekker pronounces the noun with more of an ‘ee’ sound, as happens in some Scottish patterens of pronunciation), who are obliged to behave themselves as part of the conditions for their release (‘them must get bail’, likewise leaning toward ‘ee’). This also clarifies the ‘weel’ sound at the end of the first line — it’s ‘wail’ — and the line ‘Dem rude boys deh pon probation.’ ‘At ocean eleven’? Well, not all mysteries are easily explained.
Sheaffer Balance, Roseglow
Between 1936 and 1938, Sheaffer manufactured its Balance pens in this dusty-rose striated design. The roseglow — so-called — is relatively uncommon, and somewhat more valuable than your run-of-the-mill green, brown, or grey striated.
It’s their plunger-filler design, and has a slightly stubbed nib.
Its first owner seems to have been Dick Wynn. If it were a more unusual name, or combination of names, I’d spend hours online trying to track Dick down, but I haven’t given it a try to this point.
Early Extra Go
This morning I took my Sunday morning run early, since tomorrow I’m leaving early for Ripon, where the Rt Revd Helen-Ann Hartley will be installed as Bishop. Helen-Ann took a class or two with me back at Princeton Seminary lo these many years ago; I was pleased to attend her being made an Honorary Fellow of Worcester College a couple of years ago, and now I’ll go — proudly — to see her installed as Bishop of Ripon.
But today, this morning, I took my weekend run. I pushed my ‘not break stride’ point till the spot I was reaching before the Christmas holiday, which felt good cognitively (though not so good in the running). I didn’t feel really limber till about half way, but by then I was so winded that the limber-ness didn’t really matter.
Anyway, I shaved my time down to 11:29, so that’s good.
Surprise Steps
I ran my Wednesday mile in 11:39 today, which came as a surprise since my knees felt rusty and my steps seemed shorter than in the last few runs. And I didn’t extend my ‘before I broke stride’ distance, either. Still, when I hit the ‘Stop’ button at the doorway, I had shaved almost thirty seconds off Sunday’s time.
I should add that I’ve been doing pretty well at sleeping eight hours at night, up from my ‘seven or whatever comes before I automatically wake up at 6:00’ norm. It requires me to go to bed earlier than I used to, and I miss some of that expanse of time before sleep — but the experts seem to think eight hours is a lot better for me than seven, and at my age I should do as many ‘better’ things as I can induce myself to do. I want to spend more time with Margaret and our family.
Catch-Up
I forgot to note yesterday’s time, which was 12:12 for the mile — still not caught up to where it had been before the Christmas holidays, but I’m expecting to get back to form as I recuperate from (successively) jet lag, the flu, and now general poor conditioning.
And for my medical records, something odd is going on with my eyes, as of fifteen or so minutes ago — as if I had looked into a powerful light (but I haven’t, as far as I can recall).
[Checking back: Seems to have passed. I don’t know what that was.]