Today I worked from 10:30 until 2:30, taking a break for a lunch at Furr's Cafeteria. I read Best American Poetry of 2002 while eating roast beef and wheat rolls, with turnip greens and green beans. Then I headed to a Family Dollar Store, and got a plastic 110 camera for 5 dollars. I stopped by the Spring Creek Trail off Renner Road in Richardson, where the shade of the tall trees surrounding the trails made up for the heat. I snapped pictures. My favorite one was of an immature hawk, on a branch roughly 20 feet off the ground, just above the trail. I started snapping when I was 30 feet from under the branch, and kept snapping when I was perhaps 10 feet from underneath him. I hope the lo fi camerawork nonetheless bears hawk fruit. I also saw a huge black lizard with yellow stripes, but he scuttled away before I could instamatic him. I think I forgot to tell the photo folks to make a disk, so I may have to get them scanned in to post them.
We went tonight for steaks at the nearly deserted Ranch House and to see the Italian Job at the moviehouse. The film featured great 60s style stylish action, more mini Coopers than a show room, and Charlize Thereon. I could watch Charlize Thereon maneuver in a mini any time. The film is light Summer entertainment, and it does not get cluttered up with too much in-depth characterization. It probably could use a cover of "It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City" by, say, Carlos Santana with guest singer Shakira, but apart from that it hit all the good Summer movie bases.
As we drove home, we saw fireworks from Richardson, Allen, Plano, Frisco and points unknown everywhere. Now we know which cornfield to frequent to see many shows at once. We got hung up in traffic when we went to check my vacationing brother's place for incoming boxes. We made it home safely, and I'll read an obscure PG Wodehouse and then listen to my shortwave tonight. Tomorrow I work and then attend a memorial service. Roughly 16 years ago I rode with my late friend in his small sports car (did he rent it or bring his out from Dallas?) in Los Angeles where he explained to me how the hills were sought after neighborhoods in Los Angeles. I remember his first wife, a gorgeous woman from southern California, a delightful fish at home entirely out of water in Dallas. I wonder what became of her? If I had a mini Cooper, I'd drive it on Topanga Canyon Boulevard to Sunset, taking sharp turns on the canyon roads. Then I'd head off on Sunset until I could jitterbug through West Hollywood over to Melrose. I'd stop at the Bodhi Tree bookstore, where men and women, some too attrative to exist on this plane, browse books on arcane faiths. I'd buy incense, drive up the 2 highway into the Angeles National Forest to the top of Mount Wilson, and burn it, remembering someone who was kind to me, and who's gone.