Observations

1. Waiters in Chinese restaurants wear white socks.

2. Among the present incumbents in the United States Senate, the number of outright misfits and malingerers is so high that a panel composed of equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans would not be able to agree on a list of the ten worst. My list would begin with Lott, R, MS; followed quickly by Lieberman, I, CON; and Landreaux, D, LA; Kyl, R, AZ; McConnell, R, KY; Bunning, R, KY;Hatch, R UT;Reid, D, NV;Cornyn, R, TX;Sessions, R, ALA. Yes, I know I have betrayed a bias, nor will it account for much when I argue that party-line biases are at a lower plateau for me than my dislike of the guarded equivocations and strategies set forth each time a politician opens a mouth. Happily, UTube will continue to show them all at their most wretched.

3. Moving to the House of Representatives, I'd head the list with Sensenbrenner, R, WISC; then Harmon, D, CA; Issa, R, CA; Hunter, R, CA;Lewis, R, CA;Wilson, R, NM; Cubin, R, WY;Boehner, R, O;Blunt, R, MO;Gallegly, R, CA. I understand that there are those who do not appreciate Congressmen Conyers, Frank, or Waxman. Nothing is easy, particularly with Congress, which Mark Twain referenced when observing that if America had a criminal class, it would be Congress.

4. Blue jam is acceptable, marmalade on occasion is perfect, but red jam rocks.

5. The variety store next to Scolari's Market has had a run of displaying non-anthropomorphic and non-animal pinatas, forcing me a few blocks north for this one at a store with even more variety, using horses, giddy ones, from the look of them.

6. Last week, in a regrettable decision, I allowed myself to be directed for lunch to one of the most iconic of all tourist traps in the area, Stearns Wharf.

Bad move.

Worse because, unable to eat what passed for lunch, I passed what seemed like protein to Sally, who paid for it later on and was driven to eat much grass.

7. Many of my short stories are set on university campuses or involve persons who have reason to be on university campuses. This is in large measure because of my observation that the university is such a landscape of territorial imperatives. (I seem to recall it being Robert Ardrey who invented that term, and a good one it is given teachers whose subtexts are jealousy of subject and avidity of tenure.) Being recruited to become a part of a team to develop an MFA program complete with mission statement and curriculum, I had brought home again the familiar pigeons of jealousy, assertiveness, divisiveness, and stubbornness. I've been told that such squabbling exists in law firms, hospitals, political parties, and newspapers. I've seen at first hand those pigeons in publishing houses large and small, to the point where I was once challenged to rationalize how I could wear a striped tie with a checkered jacket. But the university epitomizes for me the human condition writ large, with all its striations, its anthropology and its bureaucracy.

8. Since I am on the subject of observations, I will observe that this day, this eleventh day of August, has seemed magically charged in spite of being undershot with the threat of a fire growing out of control, the after effects of a messy driving misadventure, a number of misadventures with tourists from hell, which is to say Beverly Hills.

Although these ladies may appear to have come from Beverly Hills, they were merely attending the variety store where the pinatas were displayed, and I became taken with the.