Rain – now please now

“The best thing one can do when it rains is let it ran”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

We wake up to rain.

It may not seem like a big deal, but over the last two years, Dubai has had ten days of rain. Over the previous twelve months, no rain.

Everything is quiet and out of focus when you open the window. Warsaw is still asleep.

Never mind that it is 4.30 am and you slept poorly because the air conditioner was not working.

We lie in bed and think about breakfast for three hours.

“I decided to stay in bed until noon. Maybe by then half the world would be dead and it would only be half as hard to take.”

Charles Bukowski

I finish Black Spring. One of the things I love about Burroughs is the streaming consciousness of the insane. The Naked Lunch is page after page of bizzare ramblings of a genius author on an acid trip.

The last third of Black Spring heads in this direction. Brilliant writing.

Burroughs was an addict, hooked on junk. You can feel it in his writing. Miller found his genius without drugs.

“I remember that just as I was about to cross the border they asked me what I had to declare and, like an idiot, I answered: “I want to declare that I am a traitor to the human race.”

Henry Miller

Our place has umbrellas for us to borrow. It is a fifteen minute walk to Bułkę przez Bibułkę.

I am desperate for a coffee. After my third, I feel better.

Shell orders a bagel, and I get the omelet.

Bułkę przez Bibułkę is dog friendly. I prefer dogs to children. Europe is dog friendly. I have seen attempts in Australia to take café dining in the same direction. It doesn’t take long for the usual complainers to start whinging about allergies.

After breakfast, we stroll through the park toward the Museum of Natural History.

Shell loves a fossil. Can’t resist dinosaur bones, strange rocks, and meteorites.

She really should have studied archaeology, anthropology, or geology.

I find it interesting, but I don’t approach it with the same passion Shell does.

“I was a student in the Department of Anthropology. At that time they were teaching that there was absolutely no difference between anybody.

They may be teaching that still.

Another thing they taught was that no one was ridiculous or bad or disgusting. Shortly before my father died, he said to me, ‘You know – you never wrote a story with a villain in it.’

I told him that was one of the things I learned in college after the war.”

Kurt Vonnegut

There is an entire room dedicated to meteorites.

Shell’s wedding ring is made from the Gibeon meteorite, which struck Earth in 1836.

A part of this meteor is on display.

Across the road is an art gallery and the museum’s large mammal exhibition.

I am keen to see the work of Maria Waliszewska-Bendek, and Shell wants to see the mammals.

Our next stop is the Warsaw National Museum.

I am feeling parched, so we detour through the park to SoulMates Coffee. Next door to a skatepark.

Another coffee and a homemade lemonade.

I am not feeling myself. Scleritis is a symptom of an autoimmune response. Somewhere in my body is an issue that is presenting itself as scleritis. Scleritis clearing up almost immediately after we finished work indicates stress.

The evening of the last day, I slept for over 12 hours. I am tired and my hips are aching. I can walk without issue, it is not debilitating, but I fatigue quicker than usual.

Maybe I am just jet lagged.