(mid-August 2021)
While out on a recent bike ride, I came across a real antique automobile.
********
The census
numbers are in and they say Madison now has a population of 269,840. Or did as
of the middle of last year, up from 233,209 in 2010. The county we reside in,
Dane, went from 488,073 to 561,504 and this represents about a third of the
population growth in the entire state. While these are not Sunbelt numbers, they're not bad for the Upper Midwest and our
growth will engender many changes. For instance, from what I've read, another
seat will be created in the State Assembly to accommodate the increasing population of our county while
our Congressional District will have a chunk of it chopped off and merged into
another District to help keep things even-steven.
Unfortunately,
the Republicans in our legislature are happy to screw over Madison & Dane
County whenever the opportunity presents itself. Just this summer they cut public transit funding to Madison and
Milwaukee by 50% each. They justified the cuts by saying that Wisconsin's two
biggest cities/Democratic strongholds were getting money from the federal
pandemic relief plans. However, other transit agencies around the state are
also getting federal relief money but the Legislature didn't cut state
aid to them.
For now, we
await the state's redistricting process which will surely end up in court. If
that goes well – i.e. – fairly – we will turn bluer and theoretically have more
sympathetic politicos at the Capitol.
********
I left off
last entry having decided to bike east on Femrite Drive out of Madison and see
what I could see since I don't think I've ever been on it east of the interstate. Femrite Drive in on the southeast side of town and the stretch of it I'd been on before is largely
warehouses and industrial businesses. For instance, DuPont has a facility on it plus a coffee
roaster, electric contractors, a sheet metal fabricator, and an intercity bus operator all call the street home.
Near one of
the buildings, I saw a couple of turkeys taking a leisurely stroll.
Luckily for
me none of the hills were particularly steep so I was treated to a nice,
easy-going ride. Well, mostly. One uphill stretch ran alongside a farm and I heard
barking as I slowly pedaled my way up the slope. There was a pudgy dog that
looked like an overweight foxhound standing between a barn and another outbuilding scowling at me as it sounded its canine klaxon. Then it bolted.
Crap.
It made a
beeline for me and, for a hound that was a little on the portly side, it didn't take long to reach me. If it wasn't bad enough to be struggling to pedal up the hill, I now had an angry sounding hound at my
ankle. Like the dog, I am overweight and out of shape to boot, so there was no way I could get up that
incline quick enough to outrun my canine pursuer. I could feel its fur brushing
against my ankle and its breath as well with every bark. I downshifted and gained a little more speed but not enough
to outrun this creature in its dogged pursuit. I mean, it had 4 legs and I had only 2 wheels, after all.
Fortunately,
the Madonna del Ghisallo was smiling upon me that day and the hound got tired and/or bored as I finally reached the top of the hill and it gave up its pursuit.
I found
myself at the intersection with a couple state highways, my ankle having emerged from the encounter bite free. After crossing, I
discovered that I was now on Siggelkow Road, a classic German name if there ever was one, which meant I was likely a bit east
of McFarland, a town that abuts Madison to the southeast. As before, there was
some absolutely lovely scenery.
The problem was that there were some rather steep hills and I could feel my heart thumping in my chest as I struggled to bike up a couple of them. "Was this what it was like for that guy in that Edgar Allan Poe story?" I asked myself between wheezes. I thought I was going to die so I dismounted and walked my bike up these monsters. When I hear my heart in my chest, I get paranoid. Heart disease is rampant in my family and I think I am just going to keel over and die like the old man did.
Despite my cardiac concerns, it
was a beautiful ride and I discovered a new orchard for my trouble. Two or 3 miles later I was in
McFarland on the Lower Yahara River Trail, just a few miles from downtown.
On one stretch of the trail, I ran into a muskrat – out of water.
********
I have seen
a couple movies recently. The first was Annette, a musical, albeit a
very odd one.
It involves
a raffish stand-up comedian, played by Adam Driver, who marries a charming opera singer, played by Marion Cotillard, after a whirlwind romance. They have a daughter,
Annette, that is portrayed by a marionette(!!) for most of the movie. The story takes a turn towards the Sophoclean as a little uxoricide follows and
the child seeks revenge on her father.
The music
was good and the movie was a lot of fun all around. I was lucky enough to see it in a
theater but you can watch it on Amazon Prime.
My next
cinematic experience was The Green Knight, a retelling of the 14th
century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
Not unlike the Nixon tapes, the poem has a gap between Gawain leaving town to seek out the Green Knight and him finding the verdant cavalier. The poem doesn't specify what happened beyond our hero's little venture at the castle. The movie, however, fills in that time. Amongst other things, Gawain encounters a race of giants and has a run-in with one Saint Winifred. There was a historical Saint Winifred and she is reputed to have suffered from the same problem the one in the movie did: she lost her head.
Despite these
adventures not appearing in the source material, they have a genuine medieval feel to
them and don't stick out like a sore thumb as 21st century additions
to the tale.
The Green
Knight is not an
action movie. Instead, it is a character study. It's about Gawain becoming a
good and virtuous member of Arthur's Roundtable. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
********
The bonus
photo here is of one of our cats, Marilyn. She's about 13 and demands dinner by 5
o'clock, although she begins petitioning us for chow around 3:30 when she wakes up from her nap. If we get home late, she greets us in the window with a hangry look that is a mixture of sheer agony and disdain.
No comments:
Post a Comment