Overheard in Raleigh (and a correction)

Correction first: I made a most embarrassing typo yesterday and wrote "Patterson" rather than "Watterson" for the creator of Calvin and Hobbes. My apologies to the genius, Bill Watterson. I've fixed the error in the blog, but I still feel obliged to apologize.

Now to the main topic for today.

We were at dinner in a very upscale, long-established, extremely nice Raleigh restaurant. I'm a compulsive people watcher; others fascinate me. At a table near ours sat a couple somewhere in their thirties or forties; another couple joined them not long after they took their chairs. As we were eating, a few loud words caused me to tune into their table, where I picked up this conversational snippet. The speakers were the original man and woman at that other table.

He: So she's gotten us these two strippers.

She: They were hookers, dear, hookers dressed as strippers.

He: They were wearing stripper clothes.

She: Garters, g-strings, and tits-out bras.

He: And these tall shoes.

She (with a theatrical sigh): Stilettos.

He (now looking exasperated but continuing): They started doing these sort of dances.

She: They're called lap dances, dear. That's why they were playing with you.

At this point, the other couple leaned closer, the speakers lowered their voices, and the rest of the conversation was lost to me.

I enjoy our group's discussions, but I have to admit that rarely have I been party to one that was quite so unusual, particularly in a rather conservative restaurant.

I'm sorry I didn't get to hear the rest.

The smell of rain in the air

As I was preparing to get into the shower late this morning (well, okay, technically it was well after noon, but on a Saturday that counts as late morning), Sarah came and told me it was raining and the air smelled wonderful. I decided to risk offending the neighbors, wrapped a towel around myself, and headed downstairs and out into the rain. Sarah walked out with me.

It was glorious. A light drizzle softened the air and made moist the world. Ozone and storm smells permeated everything. Odors both electrical and alive enveloped us.

As I've said many times before, Watterson was right in Calvin and Hobbes: There's magic everywhere. You have only to see it.

Learning from Calvin and Hobbes

You can learn a lot, maybe even build a simple life philosophy, from some of the titles of the collections of Bill Watterson's wonderful Calvin and Hobbes comic strip. (If you don't already own the immense complete edition, start saving now for it, put it on your Christmas list--just find a way to get it.)

Consider: It's a Magical World. The Days Are Just Packed. There's Treasure Everywhere.

We're talking serious California-style, watered-down Zen, but in a good way.

Okay, ignore the titles with words like "homicidal" and "deranged"--or build a different philosophy with them.

The others spring to my mind at times when life presents me magic in the midst of the mundane (or worse).

Today has been a reasonably hellish interval, with plane flights and crowds and work issues and non-stop work work work. I stopped for the first time at 9:00 p.m. to take a brief walk to a shop to buy some Diet Coke and bottled water. (Portland's water is fine; I bought bottled because drinking one reminds me to stay hydrated.) I emerged from my hotel into...

...magic. Almost the longest day of the year. Perfect blue sky. Perfect temperature. Light so bright that you could read comfortably. The air tinged with the energy of summer, of growth and play and green and young and immortal.

It's a magical world.