Our anniversary is in fifteen days

Rain, here in Decatur where we've gone so long without, reminds me of our honeymoon in London. It rained in London but the temperature was the same as back home in Georgia. In this photograph you can barely make out Jami. She's standing next to a puddle that is near in size to the present holdings of the reservoir for Durham. We're on the south bank, walking past the Millennium Wheel, having discovered that the Saatchi gallery was closed, and making our way to the British Film Theatre. We watched two Bogart movies: Sahara and The Big Sleep. [spoiler alert] No one wakes up from the big sleep. Bogart had earlier made a movie called The Good Sized Nap in the Middle of the Day that was Interrupted by Routine Water Line Maintenance Outside on the Street. GSNMDIRWLMOS, as it was known, much as Gone With the Wind is known as GWTW, or Fellini's Eight and One Half is known as 8 1/2, or Costa-Gavras's Z is known as Z, detailed the story of a small time hood turned detective turned sous chef turned detective as he makes a journey through the Parisian underworld in post-Vichy France searching for a room with a private bath and a view of the street that he has found hinted at in telling clues left on the body of an ex-associate who was taking a nap in the back of a bootlegger's van that contained lost art works destined for a nobleman's lost artwork collection (a collection of artworks that is either unknown as to location, or if located, of unknown contents). GSNMDIRWLMOS is a gem and at the same time difficult to find. It was last screened in the US in the early 60s. I saw a bootleg version on video that had been partially taped over with an ELO concert. The odd thing was I think I was at that concert. I'd gone with some friends of mine in high school to hear them at the Omni in Atlanta: the cellist breaks a string in the same place while performing "Can't get it out of my head." I remember that it rained that night and traveling that night back on I20 we told many outrageous stories. At the time I drove a Ford Futura, a Falcon with chrome. I drove that car another ten years. At times I miss it. But not when it rains - towards the end of my ownership, it had become nearly impossible to start in the rain and I had to dry the points off many times to get it running. Now I drive a Prizm, which is a Corolla made for GM, and it's very reliable. I bought this car six years ago this month, after my previous car, a Celebrity I'd driven around New Mexico, was stolen from a parking lot at the FBI building here in Atlanta. My car was the only car stolen from the lot in the year I worked for the web company that operated on the 8th floor. It was stolen on a rainy day. I remember that it was rainy because I went down to the lot to get my umbrella out of the car. I wandered around for half an hour before I realized that I wasn't going to find it. That is: neither the umbrella or the car were likely to be recovered. I lost a good set of jumper cables too, as well as a wool over coat and some cds. I also lost a copy of Barth's CD IV.3.2, which I regretfully left on the back seat. The replacement copy I purchased was later water damaged when my cousin put a lunch box filled with ice on it. I was a little disheartened but I put my library training into practice and rehabilitated the book as best I could. I still have it. The damage is less annoying now and improves with use. You can see me reading this copy in this blog: at a ball game and at the beach. Jami took each photo, and I'm reminded on such a rainy night as this, thinking about walking in the rain with her in London, or considering that we'd be trading witticisms by the fire, how much I miss her and wish that I were up in Durham. Our chimney up there has no chimney swallows like the one down here does. Sometimes a swallow comes down the chimney and flies about our house, like the Holy Spirit in a pin ball machine. Jami, tender soul that she is, retrieves the errant bird and returns it to nature. I've seen her do this twice. The cats have seen her do it many times and express an eagerness to help. I remember Thelma one afternoon springing up from a nap, launching herself onto the sill of the dining room window, from where she espied a tiny peeping fledgling that had wandered onto our screened porch through an aperture in the mesh. The motherly concern in that cat's eyes was unspeakable. I went outside and opened the door for the plaintive piping chirping bird to go out on the patio. When I returned Thelma was back in her sunny spot, napping. You'd never know that she'd moved. What a time we had in London. I can't wait to return. As Johnson said, "when you're tired of London you're tired of life." That was easy for him, he lived there. Finish this phrase: When you're tired of Atlanta you're tired of --------.
We returned to Atlanta from London and thus began our first year of marriage, excited about life together.