Tuesday 17 July 2007

Meanderings of a mind adrift in the universe

Since the Security Services have upped the alert to “Maximum” I have noticed security guards at the entrance to the Mega Mall and Marjane’s checking packages and doing sweeps with the metal detectors. On Saturday at Moving there was a guard with a dog sniffing the cars in the car park. Also at intersections in the New City and Agdal I have noticed the traffic policemen who normally stand in the intersections or on the street corners were stopping cars seemingly at random and asking for papers. I have no idea what papers, as I would NEVER drive in Morocco. It seems they are on top of things. I didn’t really consider us in any danger as we live in the Oudayas and don’t move with crowds of tourists or even local westerners, but seeing the guards at Marjane gave me some pause. Ah yes for the heady days of the terrorists who called ahead. One did have to evacuate the tube stations, and the train terminals, but at least they called ahead, considerate that way the Irish…


Q and I have had an idea: a tour of the world’s great libraries. It would not be not restricted only to rare books and scholarly treatise though those will be included, but also for the beauty of the building itself. We are thinking we must restrict the number to six plus the guide. Everyone who goes must have individual recommendations to submit both to the guide to approve and to the individual libraries to ask for permission to enter. This is the preliminary list, whom would you add or delete?
Oxford, Vatican, Florence, Venice, Louvre, Yale, Penn, Cambridge, MIT. In China, India, Cairo, and Turkey, and Damascus for private collections.


Our garden is DEAD, really really quite dead. Just look to the right. The neighborhood cats decided we had set out a decorative litter box in six parts, and they made good use of them. “Ug” and “oh well”, we still have the lovely table and umbrella. I shall think of some other decoration for terrace – suggestions welcome.

PAUL’s, the wonderful restaurant in Agdal of which I have spoken, is the best hospital cafeteria in the universe as it sits just across from the Clinique des Nations Unis where I had treatment for my “episode”. Moroccan waiters (street food to finest restaurant0 do not appear flustered which is relaxing even if the food is a bit slow. A most splendiferous corner of Rabat – you can have a fabulous lunch and get your head examined before dessert across the street. You really can’t beat that kind of service can you?

I was watching the workers on the new highway just below the Kasbah planting the seedlings by hand in the (to me) devastating heat next to the workers on the sidewalk drilling to make way for the new sidewalk, and it started me thinking – like you do. Is there a certain sort that is attracted to a career or job in the fields of gardening or being a florist vs. a butcher or highway worker? Or is it just the way things fall out. You know you wake up; need a job, look at the classifieds, and take what’s there? Does it depend on the country? I know when we had a house in Belgravia gardeners were prized, that horrible woman on the corner was always trying to steal our man! Whereas in no country is being a jackhammer operator prized is it? But then everyone wants a good butcher, but does he enjoy the work?

I also see the “royal gardeners” at work over on the palace grounds and wonder if they enjoy their work. Is it a prestigious job here? Does it pay well? Do they feel like they are practicing the art of creation vs. the art of destruction practiced by the jackhammer chap? But then isn’t destruction part of the cycle of creation? Do they think of that while the dust is billowing about them and the noise must drown out everything but the sound of their own thoughts? I was just thinking…


Quotes from Q:

“There’s a kind of awe about it, of the someone, that can escape the lions and live with the unicorns.”

“It is very hard not to make fun of most men.”

29 comments:

jenny said...

I think it is the same everywhere when it comes to needing money-- you take what you can get. If money was not an issue, I would spend my days thrift store and yard sale hopping and sell my finds for more than I paid.

I have an aunt that was a CPA and was up to level 15 (or something) and couldnt seem to get any higher. Then along comes some new hires with a degree in something OTHER than the job calls for and they get in on level 18. Auntie would fume and rant at the injustice of it all and finally retired before she burst that throbbing vein in her temple. She loved her job but not the people around her.

Lovely post as always, Lady M.

xoussef said...

in Morocco, at least one of the gardener's sons will be a gardener himself, a jewellery makers or a doctor likely have been raised by a jewellery makers or a doctor..
it's not an absolute rule, but in many cases it's true.

jmb said...

I do hope the extra security measures are effective and nothing occurs to upset your world there.

I think touring the world's great libraries is a splendid idea. You should start the tour company to do it. Some of my best experiences have been perusing old books in some museum or another, through the glass unfortunately since I wasn't a scholar allowed to touch with white cotton gloves.

How about some cactus in pots for the balcony, that should keep the cats out and they do flower very occasionally?
Enjoyable post as usual Lady Mac.
regards
jmb

I Beatrice said...

Definitely the new British Library in London! The largest building to be built in London in modern times; its books housed in a magnificent glass-walled 'bookcase'- the sort of bookcase that looks as if it had been designed for giants; rising out of the central atrium, and soaring upwards from basement to roofs....

A beautiful exhibition space, several restaurants - and the famous Reading Room now very much more accessible than it used to be.

And if you also include the humble bookshop, there's a very beautiful one called 'Daunts Books', on Marylebone High St, London...

Drunk Mummy said...

I agree with Q about it being hard not to make fun of most men. Tell her not to bother trying too hard!

scarlettscion said...

Ummm...I have zero recollection of ever having said that first one...

scarlettscion said...

unless it was some poem I wrote in 8th grade or the like, in which case I think using it is cruel and unusual...

Kim said...

Sometimes chicken wire barely below the soil will keep the cats from using a lovely pot of flowers for their litter box. I've also read/heard that citrus and cayenne will keep cats out of plants, but neither one worked for me.

Men are exceedingly hard not to make fun of. They are quite silly. I make fun of hubby in some little way most days. He's a very good sport.

lady macleod said...

jenny

poor auntie!

thank you for the comments and thank you for coming by.

lady macleod said...

xoussef

Much like it was in America and Europe at one time, and I think still to some extent.

Thank you for the informative comments and thank you for coming by.

lady macleod said...

jmb

Q suggested cactus as well, but I have had some 'unfortunate' experiences with cactus so I think not.

I would love to head a tour company that toured the great libraries of the world! Do you think there is a market for that?

thank you for coming by.

lady macleod said...

i beatrice

Excellent suggestion! That goes on the list. I like the bookshop on Marylebone as well, then we can stop in and see Sir Arthur Conan Doyle!

thank you for the excellent suggestions and thank you for coming by.

lady macleod said...

drunk mummy

I don't the warning is really necessary. hmm hummm.

thank you for coming by.

lady macleod said...

scarlettscion

you were about ten or twelve actually and I wrote it down because I thought it was brilliant. :-)

thank you for coming by dearest.

lady macleod said...

kaycle

Yes,I think I have given up on anything that requires soil...

nice hubby.

thank you for coming by.

The Good Woman said...

Trinity College, Dublin. The Book of Kells is something I would love to really have a good look at. But I don't know which of the others I would drop...

Sparx said...

I know it's just the architecture but the rebuilt library at Alexandria?

Sorry to hear about your garden. Something is eating my herbs... not slugs or caterpillars... I susupect my cat, in fact...

@themill said...

You've obviously educated Q well!

Greedy McMoneyless said...

I Beatrice is quite right re the British Library - but of course, the original reading room is in the British Museum, and would be a must-see on your tour - this is where Virginia Woolf, E.M Forster and countless others researched and wrote. Besides the fact that its blue and gold dome is incredibly beautiful. Plus, and this may be bias, Senate House at the University of London - the library is incredible, particularly for periodicals, but the building itself is very striking, even though fascistic architecture may not be everyone's cup of tea.

Greedy McMoneyless said...

Sorry, must just add...the library at Cambridge is nothing much at all compared to the Bod at Oxford or the British Library in London.

lady macleod said...

the good woman

Excellent addition. No dropping I think, we are just adding.. it is at this point a fantasy trip.

thank you for the excellent addition and thank you for coming by.

lady macleod said...

sparx

Sounds good. I'm embarrassed I didn't think of that one myself.

sorry about YOUR garden.

thank you for the great addition and thank you for coming by.

lady macleod said...

@themill


he he :-)

thank you for coming by.

Greedy McMoneyless said...

Ugh, sorry, I'm taking over. But I just had to say, in response to Q's last quote, that at least some of the time it's equally hard not to make fun of most women.

lady macleod said...

antarctichousehusband

check on the British Library. I love the British Museum but I don't know if we want to put that on the Library tour? even with the Reading room, but at this juncture I am eliminating nothing only taking suggestions for additions as it is a fantasy trip.

I have never been to the the Senate House at the University of London. As the organizer I shall have to do some recon there (oh joy and rapture).

other suggestions noted. Thank you for your most excellent input and thank you for coming by.

Maude Lynn said...

On my way to class each day, I used to drive by a store that sold nothing but mattresses. It always made me wonder, did someone grow up dreaming of selling mattresses of did it just happen? I was in college at the time, but I've never forgotten it.

Great post, as usual!

marymaryquitecontrary said...

Lady mcL:- It was not the Irish who planted bombs in London or elsewhere. It was an illegal organization called the IRA.

Whispering Walls said...

The Vatican library's about to close for restoration until 2010 so you'd better hurry if you want to go there.

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

Lady M, you seen Marymary's blog today?