Fried Twinkie, Al Fresco

Sept 6, 2012

On Saturday mornings during the warm months, Appleton, Wisconsin, closes College Ave. from Appleton St. to Durkee St. and holds a farmers’ market, which it calls a Farm Market. It has vendors, of course, both fresh food and handcrafts, including some that sell from trucks, such as this one brimming with corn.

There’s a bit of live music, too.

And some prepared food from food trucks. Note that Anthony’s has deep-fried Twinkies. I’d heard of such, but never had one. This was my opportunity, for a mere two-spot, to try it. So I did.

It was a lot like the fried dough you find at carnivals, except that it had creme in the center, all gooey and hot. Another member of our party spotted me ordering it, and later asked me how it was. “Fried death,” I told her, to conform to prevailing opinion about such a deep-fried creation. But I figured that one wasn’t going to shorten my life any more than the time it took to eat it, and that one deep-fried Twinkie per lifetime was probably enough anyway.

Working the Crowd

Part of my work on some days involves visiting places with crowds like these, and taking pictures. Today was one of those days.

Specifically, pictures of smaller groups of people within this larger group, two to four ideally. I also have to get their names and titles, and perhaps ask a bit about their business. I'm not a salesman or politician by inclination, but like public speaking, it's something I've learned to do. All part of journalism in the digital age, since the pictures I take and the information I gather is usually published electronically the same day, or the next one.

The Butt-End of the Eclipse

What could the recent eclipse augur? The death of disco music stars, maybe.

Yuriko tells me that the Japanese media were all atwitter about the annular eclipse over the islands. As well they should be, since apparently the last time Japan saw a ring-of-fire eclipse was nearly 1,000 years ago. Yamato Japan, that is, since Okinawa caught one only a few decades ago.

Not long ago I bought a few pairs of eclipse glasses. Were these even on the market in the mid-80s, the last time I experienced a partial solar eclipse? I don't remember. I didn't have any anyway. Actually I bought the glasses for the Transit of Venus next month, but they came in time for the partial eclipse.

Except that I didn't think we'd get to see any of the eclipse, since it rained much of yesterday afternoon. But at about 7 o'clock some of the clouds cleared away. Since the sun was pretty low, we went to the nearby park and stood on some of the playground equipment. It was still hazy, but even so a slightly clipped Sun was just visible through the glasses for a few minutes, before dropping below the trees.

The transit is near sunset, too. We're going to have to find a place with fewer trees, or a higher elevation.

Late '60s Postcard Relics

Ahead of our family's move to San Antonio in the summer of 1968, my grandmother took me to her home in Alamo Heights, mostly (I realize now) so I wouldn't be in the way of moving preparations. During that visit, I went with Grandma to the world's fair -- HemisFair '68, it was called. She got this card for me, and we sent it to my mother and brothers back in North Texas. "We had a good time at the Fair," my grandmother wrote. I signed it with my name.

I don't specifically remember going to the fair with Grandma, but I suspect that any memories of that visit have bundled with a later visit with my mother and brothers, after they'd moved to town. I don't remember the September 15 monorail accident at all, but I must have heard about it.

The card isn't dated, but it is postmarked July 12, 1968. The cancellation mark on the stamp mentions HemisFair. The front depicts the Institute of Texan Cultures, a worthwhile museum that's still in operation.

In summer of 1969, so famed for Apollo 11 and Woodstock's crowd control issues and the murderous doings of the Manson family, we headed out on the comparatively new Interstate system for a drive around the South: Texas to Oklahoma to Arkansas to Tennessee to (briefly) Georgia to Alabama to Mississippi to Louisiana and back to Texas. Chattanooga was as far east as we got, and we stayed here.

On that trip, we'd previously stayed only in one- or two-story properties, so a five-story motor lodge was positively enormous. When you're eight. Again, my memories of the place are sparse, though there was the thrill of staying on the fourth floor, and I'm pretty sure a vending machine at the Chattanooga Howard Johnson's cheated me.

Cursory investigation reveals that there's only one Howard Johnson's in metro Chattanooga these days, in Cleveland, Tenn., which isn't the property on the card. If the structure is still there, it's flagged by another brand, and probably renovated beyond recognition. HoJo is a Wyndham Hotel Group brand now, incidentally, and I can't remember the last time I saw one. I never did associate Howard Johnson's with ice cream or food; for whatever reason, we didn't eat at them much when on the road. Mainly, they were the motels with orange roofs where we occasionally stayed.

According to Wiki at least, the brand is a b-school example of how not to deal with an adverse economy, especially if you're in the customer service business. The spikes in the price of gasoline beginning in 1973 cut into U.S. car travel, and so the company "attempted to streamline company operations and cut costs, such as serving cheaper food and having fewer employees. It proved disastrous as guests were finding this new era of Howard Johnson's restaurants and motor lodges unsatisfactory, compared to the services they had come to know for years." Oops.

Christkindlmarket Chicago '11

I visited at the Christkindlmarket Chicago on Friday as an appendage to a longer visit downtown, as during previous years, since it isn't something I would make a special trip just to see. The ornaments are pretty and all, but not so dazzling that I'd drive to a Metra station, ride an hour on a train, and walk six or seven city blocks just to gaze upon them.

Nice baubles.

It might be a misapprehension, but it seemed like there were more food vendors at the market this year than before. Such as this purveyor of pretzels.

It was a fairly cold day, though not actually freezing -- been a strange December that way so far, with little snow or ice. But it was cold enough for pigeons on Daley Plaza, site of the Christkindlmarket, to seek out warmth wherever they could.

That's Daley Plaza's Eternal Flame, dating from 1972, whose plaque says, Eternal flame in memory of the men and women who have served in our armed forces. Army, Marines, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, National Guard, Reserves and Merchant Marines. In Pigeon, it might be called "the Warm Place Always."

Burn!

The main event for us at the recent fire department open house were the room burns. I'll bet a lot of other people at the event felt the same way. Firefighters set up two three-sided "rooms" built of plywood and furnished with (no doubt) donated items. One room had an automatic sprinkler system installed. But I didn't take any pictures of that one, since the efficient dowsing of a room fire isn't nearly as photogenic as an out-of-control fire.

So without further ado, up goes the unprotected room. It burned for about three minutes.

The demonstration also completely demolished the dangerous Hollywood myth that you can see what you're doing in a burning building without special equipment. A pair of firemen in full turnout gear and SCBAs (self-contained breathing apparatuses) then put the raging fire out in about two minutes.

Ann left the open house with some public safety tchotchkes.

Her favorite was a police backscratcher, pictured here.

Rollover Test Dummies in Action

This is National Fire Prevention Week, per presidential proclamation, as the week including October 9 has been since the Coolidge administration, though President Wilson inked a National Fire Prevention Day proclamation in 1920. But fire's serious business, so it soon got a whole week.

Driving by a local fire station recently, I spotted "Open House" on its marquis. The hours indicated right then. I had to see that, so I turned around. Ann was the only other person with me at that moment, and she whined about the prospect of not getting home for a while, but eventually she decided to humor her dad. Later, she admitted that she'd had a great time.

"Don't say I told you so," she said. So I didn't. But I'd known she would like it, and I had told her so.

State and local police were participating in the open house too. Before the fire department did its demonstration, more about which later, we saw this device in action.

It resembles a state police truck and simulates rollover accidents. The passenger cabin rotates, as if on a spit. Dummy passengers without seatbelts spill out and suffer gross bodily harm or death. Dummies with belts stay put.

It's a fine demonstration that only dummies don't wear seatbelts.

Graduation in the Park

Heavy rains with some thunder last night, though not an especially violent storm. The real violence yesterday was being directed at Joplin, Mo.

On Saturday morning in downtown Chicago under threatening spring skies, we attended the graduation ceremony of the School of the Art Institute Class of '11. Patti Smith, godmother of punk, gave the commencement speech. Or rather, a speech and a couple of songs. Mainly it was a "don't worry, follow your art" pep talk, and the songs were more the poetic Patti than the punk Patti. After all, the '70s were a long time ago.

Any outdoor event risks being rained on, and at one point fairly late in the event, sprinkles came down. Remarkable how fast the audience whipped out umbrellas at the first hint of water.

Pictured here is the stage of the Pritzker Pavilion, with an alphabetical-by-last-name line of undergraduates waiting to receive their diplomas. A lot of master's candidates had proceeded them. I was able to spot my nephew Robert as he moved forward.

Almost no one in line was wearing a cap or gown, which was optional for the ceremony, according to the school. All kinds of clothing were on view, including a woman who appeared on stage in her belly dancing costume -- or maybe it was, as graduate seminar participants might put it, a distinctive Middle Eastern style of dress, paying homage to a dance by and for women that serves as an expression of women’s empowerment -- and another woman in rollerskates, or maybe rollerblades.

After all that was done, I took a picture of Robert with his SAIC diploma-holder.

The actual diploma, as a note inside the diploma-holder said, would be mailed to him shortly. Meaning that the entire alphabetical line-up was unnecessary, strictly speaking, since everyone got the same empty holder with a note. It would have been more fun, and certainly less traditional, to pile up the diploma-holders and have the students rush the stage to get them. Prevailing paradigms can be smashed in so many creative ways.

Another Friday the 13th Graduation

Last Friday I attended a graduation ceremony at Strahan Coliseum of Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas. As the mass of graduates started to leave after it was over, they looked something like this down on the coliseum floor.

My nephew Dees, TSU Class of '11, is in there somewhere. But he's a lot easier to see in the pic I took outside of the coliseum a few minutes later.

As I pointed out to Dees, and will say here again, I'm happy that he graduated not only on a Friday the 13th, but 28 years to the day after I graduated from VU, which was on a Friday the 13th. The last time I went to a graduation was in St. Louis, when my nephew Sam graduated from Wash U., Class of '05. (My prediction then about Richard Gephardt is so far still true.)

The TSU event was pretty much what you'd expect, minus a long-winded commencement speech, though the president of the university did say a few words. There was no special guest, maybe because Kinky Friedman was unavailable.

A number of graduates had decorated the tops of their mortarboards, mostly with glittery designs, but a few with feathers or other 3D decorations, possibly inspired by Princess Beatrice's headgear at the recent royal wedding. I'd never seen the likes of decorated mortarboards before. Also, at the beginning of the event, the audience was asked not to use air horns celebrate. That was a new one on me as well.

Chicago Christkindlmarket, Kristkindlmarkt 2010

I made it downtown on Friday to the Christkindlmarket Chicago. So did a lot of other people.

If, for some odd reason, Google has referred you to this page for information about Christkindlmarket Chicago, go to this page on eHow instead. I wrote that too, and the more hits, the more I get paid for it.

Last year, I spelled it Kristkindlmarkt, which may or may not be more German, but it isn't how the event is styled in Chicago. In any case, that entry got hundreds of hits, even though I provided scant information about the festival itself, and more about a guy getting arrested during it.

Friday's crowding wasn't a fluke, though it probably helped that it was above freezing. It's a very popular event. People come to look at the ornaments, of which there are many, from Germany and a good many other places besides.

Beer and other refreshments were served, of course. At least one booth specialized in beer steins.

This web site claims there was a Golden Age of Beer Steins. I had no idea. Naturally, we've all missed it by a century.

The Rent is Always Too Damn High

This time I marked a paper ballot for voting. Each election, the method is different. I noticed that the Rent is Too Damn High Party didn't field any candidates in Illinois. Or as it says on the New York ballot, Rent is 2 Damn High. Seems to be only New York. In other parts of the country, the concept could also be repositioned as the Mortgage is Too Damn High.

In fact there weren't too many minor parties or independents represented on my ballot, just a scattering of Libertarians and Greens and a handful of independents. Not a single neo-Whig that I noticed, and the Natural Law Party seems to be just another organization in the dustbin of third-party history. I vaguely recall that in the late 1990s, Natural Law was able to field a few candidates and even buy a little radio air time.

Once again, the polling officials at my suburban polling place were paragons of rectitude. I wasn't even offered a doughnut for my vote, which goes against the spirit of elections in Cook County. Mostly they were sitting around talking with each other, since not that many people were there at 11 am to vote. They judiciously avoided talking about politics in favor of talking about old times, and their old times went back a little further than mine. I imagine community rooms at independent-living senior housing properties see a lot of socializing like this.

Sputnik

Fall is in the air. It better be, since it's October. Early Sunday morning, the heater kicked in, and did so again in the small hours this morning as frost gathered outside. The trees are now a mix of green with yellow and brown added, but yellow and brown are going to be the majority in a week or so. Late last week I even saw geese fly by in standard V formation, heading south. How much more autumnal can you get?

Naturally, at this time of year my thoughts turn to Sputnik. Apparently the 50th anniversary a few years ago inspired the creation of a documentary called Sputnik Mania, which has interesting trailer at least. Once upon a time, my eighth grade English teacher, Mr. Allen, challenged us kids to name a word that had come into the English language in a single day. Some smart aleck (maybe me) suggested "quiz," but he said that story of street urchins writing the word all over Dublin sounded like blarney, and I'll go along with that.

No, he said the word was "sputnik." On October 4, 1957 -- only 17+ years earlier, but impossibly long ago for 13- and 14-year-olds -- suddenly everyone knew what a "sputnik" was. Briefly, it seems, it was a synonym for "satellite." That can be seen in the Sputnik Mania trailer during a moment that shows English-language newspaper headlines reporting the explosion of the rocket meant to carry the U.S. Navy's Vanguard satellite into orbit on December 6, 1957. OH DEAR!!! screams the (UK?) Daily Mirror U.S. SPUTNIK BLOWS UP ON THE GROUND!!! Other headlines tell of Flopnik and Phutnik.

That usage didn't last, of course. English speakers weren't about to cede such an important word to the Russians, not when the Latinate satellite was available (note also that "artificial moon" has gone by the wayside, too). My American Heritage New College Dictionary tells me, curiously, that the root meanings of satellite and sputnik are about the same. The Latin satelles means "attendant, escort" (and is probably Etruscan in origin, of all things), while sputnik is generally translated "fellow traveler" -- of the Earth, not of the Communist Party -- with Indo-European roots ksun ("with") and pent ("tread," "go"). But let's not get too pedantic. No one is considering subscribing to sputnik TV as an alternative to cable these days.

In case that's not enough sputnik, there's always the unlikely combination of rockabilly and space in the song "Sputnik" by Jerry Engler and the Four Ekkos, which includes lyrics along these lines: "Oh! We're gonna get our kicks/ On a little ol' thing called a sputnik/I said spoo-spoo-spoot-a-nick-a-chick!" The song is here, complete with a video featuring of a rocket program unrelated to the first satellite. More (there's always more) about the song and songwriter is here, at a site promising "Cold War Music from the Golden Age of Homeland Security."

Or, you can listen to the beep-beep-beep.

Item From the Past: Beaches of the Florida Panhandle

I didn't spend much time on the beach in Florida in early October 2007, when I visited WaterColor and Seaside. (See Seaside, Florida, Part 1; Goin' to the Chapel; and Last Photo Series.) Maybe part of the reason was an unwelcoming attitude on the part of municipal officials.

I found a public access path not too far away and accessed the astonishingly white beaches of northwest Florida for a few minutes, without encountering Security Enforcement. This summer, I wondered about these beaches, and how many tar balls might have found their way onto the vividly white sands in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon's noxious gift to the Gulf of Mexico.

It's hard to know exactly what has happened on exactly that small bit of the Florida coast, short of visiting in person at the right time. Check the Seaside web site and there doesn't seem to be a peep about oil, which is no surprise, since the site has a chamber of commerce vibe to it, even if no actual chamber is involved. The site's motto: More than a way of life, a way of living! Huh?

This interactive map suggests that some oil visited the 30A corridor, Florida 30A being the road that runs next to the coast in this area. It was published by ESRI to show off its GIS software. This Facebook page, The Oil Spill and South Walton/Scenic Hwy 30A, also offers some clues.

In any case, I visited the beach along Seaside three years ago.

The place certainly had its charms.

But even if I'd had a trip scheduled for this year, I would have gone. To see tar balls for myself, if there were any to be seen.

Texas City, 1947

It might be a good read: "In 1947, Texas City was experiencing boom times, bristling with chemical and oil plants built to feed Europe's seemingly endless appetite for raw materials to rebuild its ruined cities. When an explosion ripped through the docks, the effect was cataclysmic. Thousands of people were wounded or killed, the fire department was decimated, planes were knocked out of the sky, and massive ocean-bound freighters disintegrated. The blast drove people to their knees in Galveston, ten miles away; broke windows in Houston, 40 miles away; and registered on a seismograph in Denver."

The book is City on Fire by Bill Minitaglio (2003), and that's a slightly edited version of part of the blurb, which needed a little editing. I hope that doesn't portend careless editing of the rest of the book, because I'm looking forward to reading another story of a generally forgotten yet enormous disaster, in this case an ammonium nitrate explosion in April 1947 that caused other explosions.

It wasn't something that came up in Texas History class in the seventh grade that I remember -- even though the teacher surely would have remembered the event herself -- nor in Texas History Movies, a collection of comic strips formerly used to teach Texas history that we had kicking around the house when I was growing up. (It's likely that the strips were published before 1947.) I forget where I first heard about the Texas City explosion, but it's always been a shadowy reference. Time to read a little more about it.

Things That Glow Briefly in the Dark

I was curious today if there were any statistics on the cancellation of municipal July Fourth fireworks displays in this aching year, but I was only able to find anecdotal evidence of the trend after a total of about five minutes at Google News, so I decided the question wasn't worth any more time. The first thing I put into the search was "fireworks" (instead of "fireworks canceled" or "fireworks cancellation"), so naturally all the fireworks accident stories from the holiday weekend popped up, including this ghastly one: "Long Island man blows off left arm while trying to light fuse on fireworks." It seems he was fooling around with an unforgiving mortar. As mortars tend to be.

Northwest suburban Wheeling, Illinois, canceled its Fourth of July fireworks this year. We went there last year and during the mid-2000s for good shows in a spacious park that has a nearby neighborhood in which to park your car. Last year's show was probably already in the Wheeling budget before the Panic of 2008, but when the time came to consider the expense for 2010, shooting off 'works lost out.

West suburban Westmont, Illinois, on the other hand, went ahead with its show at Ty Warner Park, named for the Beanie Baby mogul who donated $3 million for its creation in the late '90s. Ty Inc. headquarters is in Westmont, so maybe he ponied up to help pay for the display this year. In any case, the show was on in our former town, so we went.

We had our Coolpix S200 and for some reason Lilly was possessed to take pictures during the display. Maybe because, astonishingly, the camera has a setting for fireworks. Most of the images look like fuzzy pics of fireworks. But some of them are light traces that cry out for the addition of bogus captions. I'm just the man for that job.

Deep in the Tonga Trench lives a eerily bioluminous Narcomedusa Jellyfish -- only its hair-like protrusions glow against a pitch-dark body -- believed to be a new genus and species discovered and photographed by Japanese scientists in 2002 by remote submersible but not seen since. Jellies happen to be among the least understood groups of animals on Earth.

Captured at the Very Large Tevatron Collider near Stuttgart, Germany (Größtenpartikelgeschlammer), is this image of two Higgs bosons, types W and Z, colliding in a recent test. A supercomputer turned the invisible tracks of the particles into a color-coded graphic representation for further study.

Another computer enhanced image, this one is of X-ray emissions from Eta Carinae, a Peculiar star, taken by NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory. Other stars are in the background.

Hot Enough to Drive You Berserk?

Summer-like yesterday and today, though if it doesn't hit the mid-90s° F. for a week or so running, you can't really call it summer. That's the way it is in South Texas and the feeling lingers with me still.

Oops, I missed the finale of Lost, which I read was yesterday. In fact, I've missed the entire series. But of course I've heard about it: people stranded on a Pacific island; lots of unbelievable things happen to them. I think I absorbed all the entertainment I need along those lines by watching Gilligan's Island as a wee lad.

On Saturday, when it wasn't quite so hot, we went to the 20th annual Skokie Festival of Cultures. Yuriko, Lilly and Ann were participants.

I went to take pictures of the clothes. For example, here's the Assyrian contingent. It's hard to see, but they're carrying an Assyrian flag.

And the Swede.

A lot of people were taking pictures of that fellow. I hope he has more than one opportunity a year to wear his horns. We didn't stay around long enough for his berserker demonstration, unfortunately.

Item From the Past: The Chilly Kentucky Derby

Good thing the Kentucky Derby was on May 1 this year rather than yesterday, which saw a high of only 63° F. for that city. Not too bad, but a little chilly for that kind of event. The last time I went to the Derby, however, it was even colder than that.

May 1989

This year I drove to Louisville on the morning of the race. The night before I'd stayed out with friends eating hot Indian food. It was something of a trick to fall asleep after midnight, my system still processing a jiggerful of spices, and wake at 4:30 am and pack and get on the road.

It was cold in Chicago. Later I learned that it snowed in Chicago that day, dusting the May blooms in cold white. I had heard that it had been colder than usual all week in Louisville, but I set out optimistic anyway. Not optimism anchored by good omens or agreeable weather reports, but simply that kind that whispers in your ear, "It can't be that cold in Louisville in May."

During the drive down I periodically put my hand against the windshield to check the temperature. Down through northwest Indiana, it was cold to the touch. Into and out of Indianapolis, still cold. South toward Louisville, into the home stretch along I-65 on which Indiana state troopers prowl in force to ticket the unwary -- still cold. The airwaves offered no hopeful weather reports.

I got to Churchill Downs just before the fourth race, about the same time as last year and the year before. It was about 45° F. in the infield, a mean little wind blew now and then, and the clouds looked pregnant. The climate had driven the shorts, bathing suits and bare flesh under sweaters, coats, hats and umbrellas, and so the crowd looked ready for a November football game, not acting decadent or depraved. Garbage bags were a popular item on the infield that day, either as improvised body wraps or one of the building blocks of jerrybuilt tents in which to huddle. In more ordinary Derby temps, infield cops destroy anything remotely like a tent.

MA and her party were, as usual, near the Kentucky flagpole, and I found them without too much difficultly... just before the seventh race, she and some of the others went to their box seats. I decided to take a walk by myself, and before long discovered the warmest spot available to the infield crowd, maybe even in all of the track, under the grandstands. There were hot-air blowers at work under there, and hordes of people giving off heat.

I looked at the odds tables for the Derby -- always the eighth race -- and made a snap decision. The favorite, at nearly even odds, was too much of a favorite. The next horse in the standings was No. 10 at 3-1. That was my horse. I stood in line a long time and bet him $5 to win and $5 to place. Then I found spot to watch the race on a monitor, since I was growing fond of the relatively warmth under the grandstands. The countdown to the race was delayed by some loser of a nag that threw a shoe, but at last they were off. For all of two minutes the crowd was of one mind, absorbed in the event. People who ask, "All this hoopla for a two-minute race?" don't get the quality of the moment, which make the quantity irrelevant.

My horse won. Sunday Silence came from behind. It was worth a $28 payoff to me, which I spent about 28 minutes in line to collect.

The Halsted Pershing Business Center

Not all buildings get to be Italianate mansions or steel-and-glass creations by starchitects (see last week and the week before). In fact, very few do. Much more common, and arguably more useful, are ones like the recently completed industrial structure I visited on the South Side of Chicago last week.

I drove through heavy rain to get there early in the morning. I stepped inside to attend a breakfast event, and saw this.

It isn't what you'd call beautiful, and doesn't reflect innovative design, but it's got muscle. Steel to give the box shape, concrete panels to keep out the elements. Wiring to bring in electricity for useful tasks, and HVAC to make sure the box doesn't get too hellishly hot or cold. Blue-collar work is going to happen here.

The only part of the structure not yet complete are the tenant buildouts, mainly the ultra-smooth floors. Highly smooth floors are very important in the scheme of things for industrial buildings, especially if the building is being used in any kind of warehouse or distribution capacity. If you need to move around items that weigh a lot using machines that weigh a lot, and move them quickly and without mishap, you're going to need really smooth floors.

Anyway, this particular building is 104,800 square feet but expandable to 200,000 square feet; built on 6.96 acres; has ten exterior docks and four drive-in docks; ten spots for trailer parking; ESFR sprinklers (trust me, that's the kind you want); and 30-foot clear ceilings. About a third of it is slated to be leased so far. But I'm sure that the leasing agents will be able to lease the rest before long, since the facility has good highway and railway access, as well as proximity to the Chicago CBD.

About 100 people came for the breakfast. Some probably wanted a look at the building, but more probably turned out for the breakfast speaker, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois. That helped get me out of bed, since I knew I could quote the Senator for an article. Looking at the map of Chicago beforehand, I realized I would have the opportunity to see two Illinois Senators on the same day if I went to the event, and that clenched it. More about that tomorrow.

Lilliputian Earthquake

So that's what that was. This morning the AP reported: "A small earthquake has hit northern Illinois, waking up scores of residents before dawn but causing no major damage. The 4.3-magnitude earthquake hit near Virgil, about 50 miles northwest of Chicago, at 4 a.m. Wednesday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey."

I woke up for it. As far as I could tell, no one else in the house did. The bed shook and I thought Huuuuh? (In as much as I can express it in a word.) I don't think "earthquake" came to mind. I concluded that a salt truck had driven by and given the house a rattle. Very large trucks have done that before.

But no. Gaia herself shook my residence. Just because she can. Disaster isn't just for distant people. You know that foot of snow on your roof? It could be on your head, instantly. And don't forget, tornado season is coming soon.

That Old TB

At 5 p.m. today it was still twilight. I noticed that because I arrived home from an errand around then, and in noticing that I realized that the days are indeed getting longer. Not that that means the ground is any less buried in snow, the earliest layers of which go back to the last week of 2009.

Last Friday morning, Yuriko and I made our way to a small public health clinic in the northern suburbs, a little far from our part of metro Chicago, but the closest place to receive the swine flu vaccination for no extra charge. "Free," you might call it, but I do support the Cook County public health system through various tax payments. In any case, no out-of-pocket expenses.

Maybe the term "public health clinic" evokes drab waiting rooms, dingy corridors, surly employees and flocks of poor people waiting around for hours: the DMV of medicine. This particular public health clinic fit none of those stereotypes, though it was plain in the way that public buildings often are, say schools designed from the 1950s to the '70s.

A pleasant woman behind the main desk checked us in, we did a little paperwork, and then we waited for about five minutes -- not long enough, since I wasn't able to finish a magazine article that I started -- in a small waiting area with about ten other people. Once we went in, we were shown to a small doctor's office, and minutes later had H1N1 deposited up our noses. And that was that.

"What other kinds of services does this clinic offer?" I asked the desk woman on the way out.

"This is a TB clinic," she answered.

Swine flu, then, is just a temporary sideline. With any luck, I won't need the main services of the clinic, though in our time we can't quite be sure that a disease beaten back by dint of prosperity and antibiotics and public health initiatives will stay beaten back. Still, North America seems like a reasonably good place to stay TB-free.