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.”