Sky Lantern

When I was ten or so, I discovered the library in my grandmother's house.  Among the volumes, almost hidden, there, there was a set of encyclopaedias, The Book of Knowledge, dating from the 1920s.  Its entries were written as are none of the articles in contemporary encyclopaedias.  They were more narrative than statements of fact.  Many were written to engage rather than to simply inform.  Any given article might require the reader to interact with the narrative, much as does a video game in the hands of a child now.  The order of entries complied with a logic that would be foreign to any encyclopaedia published since the 1940s.  Their order seemed almost random.  They, along with other tomes in her library, and together with her perversely delightful habit of tearing out the last few pages of the novels, were enchanting.

One of the narratives that held my interest was on lift.  Mind you, the aeroplane was still more of a curiosity than useful invention at the time these volumes were published.   This particular article invited the reader to experience lift by building a hot air balloon, which it called a "sky lantern".  My imagination, perhaps because I had never built one, burned as brightly as the tea-light that heated the air inside the lantern to produce lift.

It is late here, as I write.  The dogs and I have just returned from the evening's last walk.  The moon, nearly half full, is still waxing.  The sky remains dark enough to afford full view of the stars in the night sky.  And, it is a lovely night indeed.  It's the good weather and the light of pubs that seem to draw people this weekend night.  As music and crowds spill out onto the street, the mood is intoxicating.  I return feeling as though I've travelled through time, to islands further south in the Caribbean jet stream.  Memories of evenings spent in places in the sun have become enmeshed with being here now.  Perhaps, as dusk settles into the light on the Eastern seaboard of America, or, still burns brightly over the West, it is more appropriate to say that I am sensing timelessness.

This evening, among the stars, there burned a light bright enough though still distant to be taken for a planet.  A sky lantern.   As I puzzled out what it might be, it too was magical.  It's yellow and orange glow signalled as might the lights of a jet bound for Tokyo - lights stilled in space, frozen on a plane that the ancients used to describe as a "crystalline sphere".   Then, it's fainting light seemed a memory of a fuller moon, as its light passed through a cloud of volcanic ash several weeks past.  No sooner had I recognized it as a sky lantern, its light had burnt out - as though knowledge had killed it.  I wondered if the anniversary that it likely was set adrift to celebrate might have ended unfortunately, perhaps even in an untimely death.

For a moment, as we passed beneath a street light, I'd lost sight of the falling craft.  It had been stolen from me.  Then, overhead, it spiralled, circled silently.  If air were water, it might have been a jellyfish above me as I swam through the cloudy confluence of north Florida's Saint Mary's River, where it meets the Atlantic, not far from where the French first attempted to settle the New World.  On closer approach, it seemed a fish taken from the sea, its jaw swung open at an angle, and, its gills simultaneously gasping for and losing breath.  In the dark, transfigured as it was, it was no longer a falling star.

I never imagined it.  The death of a sky lantern.  The article that enchanted me this long had never mentioned either what became of the lantern when the engine of lift had surrendered itself on the night.  There are sky-lights over the bed in the guest room.  I'll sleep there tonight and dream on it.

(originally published on my now defunct blog, 21 May 2010)

Gab o'May

A cold north wind drives toward the English Channel.  May, in retreat, shall soon be declared March, leap-frogging April.  The petals of cherry blossoms that only yesterday, themselves, invaded every doorway with a message of cheer, have taken to the roads leading on to Dover.  While overhead, storm clouds occasionally let fall their brilliant, explosive bombs.

Though not yet rainin' auld wives and pipe staples, the dreich an' the droukit are a new language for the lashings of Spring as the Anglian fens 'come a moor for much as we may desire the glaise o'Summer.

      

English for Americans:

"rainin' auld wives and pipe staples" - Scottish phrase meaning a heavy downpour (auld men, I presume, are a contradiction: heavy but a trickle; they just don't work) -- when the Scots transplanted themselves to North America, they revised the saying somewhat, preferring to say "when a cow comes a pee'n on the flatrock o'the ruff" -- quaint isn't it.

   

"dreich" - Scots English: the wet; dismal conditions -- in the United States, the Scots English becomes "in the drench".

   

"droukit" - Scots English: a drenching; a soaking - probably from old Norse "drkkyr" meaning something closer to "drink" - here as drunken. You can begin to see the connection, yes?

   

"a new language" - Scots English refers to this kind of seasonal weather as the "Gab o'May" -- as if May has a language all its own.

   

"fen" - old English: wetland; a marsh; a bog - before they were tamed, the fens were swamp-like, though a Floridian or coastal South Carolinian or Georgian would have better related to them as a sawgrass marsh.

   

"moor" - old English & Scots English: wetland; a marsh; a bog - and, yes, sadly, the double-entendre of the French "amour" is intended (why pass up a good bilingual pun).

   

"glaise" - Scots English: a warming - probably from the French "glaise" meaning "clay" as in the English "glazing" of clay. Never hurts, when hoping, to be redundant. Well, redundant in the American sense of repetitious -- I dare not put archaic words forever out of employment.

This was originally posted to BUZZ on 3 May 2010.

For the Love of Bull

Have I mentioned that my dog, Max, is overjoyed?  Here in Cambridge, the return of warm weather brings cattle to Midsummer Common?

On our walks there, he pulls me toward the cattle, or, more precisely, the bulls – they’re all, 20 something of them, bulls.  My other dog, Maya, ever fearful of them, pulls me away.  From any distance, our walks across the Common must seem rather comical.

I have to admit that, personally, I have a healthy respect for cattle.  When I was young, my father used to farm me out to a friend who owned a dairy herd in southern Indiana.  There, I was a prized summer hand.  The cattle loved me.

Dairy cattle you may know have to come in at the crack of dawn for a regular milking.  This particular herd was ruled by a matron.  Bossy, she was called for obvious reason, refused to budge toward the milking stables until she felt appropriate respect.  Bossy would move for no one, on no amount of prodding and for no temptation.  But, she would move at the sight of me.  Some people move heaven and earth.  Others part water or walk on it.  Some levitate.  I once had an odd power over a peculiar cow.  Hell-bent, Bossy would come running for me.  She’d usually pin me up against a fence or barn wall and gently – you might say, lovingly - head-butt me.  It was always a pretty frightening experience.  I lived in fear that I’d end up in a shot-gun wedding to a cow.  Once the farmer’s wife realized what was happening that was the end of it.  Mornings there after usually began with yells of “Run, kid. Run.” with Bossy in hot pursuit; the both of us running toward the milkers.

The other day, Max pulled me right through the middle of the herd.  One curious bull took an interest in him.  Before we’d made our way through the herd, Max and the bull were nose to nose.  Max decided that sitting was in order at that very point – probably fearful that a wagging tale might be too encouraging of the bull.  Then, Max did what Max always does when he comes nose to nose with another creature.  He stuck out his tongue and licked.  The bull seemed to be only slightly surprised.  The expression, if bulls can be said to have expressions, seemed to be one of mild amusement followed by curiosity.  For the rest of our walk across the Common, that bull followed us, pursued in turn by his entire herd.  Max seemed both fearful and proud of his adoption into the herd.  I was having flashbacks to Bossy.  Maya, fortunately for all of us, was with David that day, and, lagged behind everyone … including David, who seemed to be dragging her across the Common.

Our most recent foray across the Common portends - augers, even, if this repetition can be said to trend – the coming summer’s fun.  On this walk, Max spied the cattle through the long grass, from the far end of the expanse.  They were lounging beneath the walnut tree that, come Fall, will gather humans straining to pick its fruits before they fall.  It was a mad dash – I should emphasize, mad: crazy, insane - as Max dragged Maya and me across the flats in the direction of cattle with nothing better to do than to watch grass grow.  And, what did my honorary brother of the bulls do, having come to the cattle?  Why, he threw himself down beside one of the bulls, and, refused to be budged for the longest time.  He was in his element.

On the walk home, we had the conversation that every boy and his dog have sooner or later.  You know where your din-din [canned food] comes from, don’t you?  I asked.  He didn’t seem to care.  I’ve long suspected that grains and vegetables replaced meat in those cans.

(originally posted to person [now defunct] blog in 2010)

What Time is It, There?

I have no sense of time. So, it came as no great surprise yesterday that I lost an hour. It had been 3 p.m. (15:00 hrs) when I last looked at the time on my computer. I'd stayed awhile longer to finish a segment of database design. Then, I set it aside to take Max for his late afternoon walk. By the time I had reached the front door, the time on the home alarm was reading 16:15. "Time flies!"

Now, my computer had corrected for British Summer Time (BST). I was certain of it. And, I could be sure that time hadn't had a second government-authorized "Spring forward". I apologized to Max for my preoccupation, my tardiness, leashed him up, grabbed the Flying Squirrel toy, and flew out the door. I thought nothing more of it until today. A few moments ago. Well, a few moments ago, when I began writing.

Max is in his post walk coma. Playing with Flying Squirrel can be tiring. I've noted the time as 16:15. "Deja vu!" It will kill me. Deja vu! I'll have a vision of my death; and, I'll die straight away. I know that the sense of having experienced something before proceeds from the likely fact that I have indeed done some precise thing before. Exactly as I'm doing it now. Whatever it may be. Having no sense of time ... Well, it plays tricks with time. But seeing the digits 16:15 two days in a row was putting the lie to this surety of Deja vu. Time was giving me a before and an after. Max eager to go. And, Max tired from having gone.

Nonetheless, it reminded me of yesterday's puzzle. How could I have lost an hour? It was then I found myself opening the database I'd been working on. I noticed that my backup was a bit old. -- Only 15 minutes, but I'm paranoid ... thanks to the cheeky tricks Microsoft Access had been playing on me before I dumped in to build in MySQL. So, I made a fresh back up. I noted that the time of both my working and backup files was the same. A sense of relief settled up me,

... Until I looked over at the computer's time clock; and, I was unsettled. The computer's clock was running an hour ahead of the time just marked in the file directory. It's odd -- isn't it? -- that the clock should have sprung forward with BST, whilest file directory time remained on Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). Whereas yesterday's ripple in time took an hour, today's seemed to be giving it back ... at 16:15 precisely!

The paranoid instinct wants to assert that I've probably been hacked. It's had that feeling recently ... though I know it to have been the result of a laser-mouse as it was dying. Before it was retired and replaced, it seemed to be possessed, moving where and doing what it pleased. One of the last things it did was to enter my photo-storage and execute a slide-show. As my life was flashing before its eye, I allowed myself to dispense with paranoid suggestion. Instead, ...

The poetic instinct offers a physics lesson. Ockham's razor, it suggests, is swinging. One hour to the East. Then, one hour to the West. Since my sense of direction, here, is 90 degrees off-cant, that's more likely one to the South and one to the North. As we embark upon British Summer Time, sun rises ever earlier, seemingly extending time. Max, who is my time-piece, threw himself in bed and began his morning "Get-out-of-bed-and-walk-me-now!" ritual when the clock -- the bed-side clock at least -- was reading 5:24 a.m. The sun, brightening the room as though it might have been the 10:24 a.m. of a Winter's day.

"Didn't I just go to bed three hours ago?" I asked him. "Let me sleep a while longer!" I added, pushing him off the bed. We'd stayed up late to catch an episode of The Walking Dead, consigning our last walk of the day to the black hours after the closing credits rolled. England and the dead of night go together like hand-in-glove. And, together, they do Zombie in the Night better than is done on the animated streets of Haiti after dark. (I know, I've walked the darkened night-streets of Port-au-Prince long after the US Embassy there advised would be safe.) England, as the night air warms, gives us the Living Dead, the homeless alcoholics who've missed the closing of the hostel-for-those-on-the-dole doors. They shuffle along aimlessly oblivious to the hour, some singing ditties slurred, sounding like the drowning man pulled to shore, coughing up the breath of fishes. 28 days. 28 hours. 28 minutes. Give me even 28 seconds of forethought later, together with the sounds of the house settling, ... and the fear that just one of them might have been a real Zombie left me long into the night unable to find sleep.

What time is it? Does it matter? If my computer desires to support two distinct but simultaneous frames of time, I don't care. BBC World Service radio does it. At the time of posting, it is 17:42 and 18:42 all together where I am. And, Max is hungry. It's (his) dinner time.

This particular Saturday in Cambridge, the UK2011 June 04

Thinking of you.  It's been too long since I've dropped you a line. 

Here are just a few snippets of my Saturday:

     At the wine merchant: Professor Fauxpaye, have you had trouble with this card before?  The Professor, in a Spanish accent, No, I never have had before.

     Odd a Spaniard with a French name meaning "false payment" having trouble buying wine.  The merchant, generously, did not make note of it.

     At a traffic light on the way to the wine merchant's shop, a Dolly Paton look-alike jumps out of a cab, runs over to me on my bike and gives me a big hug, then runs back to the waiting cab.

     A John Cleese look-alike thinks that she has abandoned the cab.  A small scuffle ensues.  Certainly, we are all on film, now being processed for TV.

I should note that I have seen this motion-picture before.  My last cab ride from Atlanta's airport toward Emory University.

The cabbie turns to me in the back seat, pointing out the window to our right.  That's Ted Turner's building, he says proudly.  There's a commotion outside.  There's Ted Turner, himself.  He has Dolly Parton in a bear hug.  Strange. I think, What mama-bear wears a sequin dress?

Then, I have a flashback to a Christmas party at my step-parents house.  One of the guests, the then food editor at USA Today, a woman who looks as though she's truly enjoyed all of the food she's written about, has elected to wear a red sequin dress.  It fits like a latex glove.  In it, as she waits beneath the mistletoe, she's more Betty Boop than Dolly Parton.  All evening she's popping out of the dress; or, rather, the sequins are flying from it with an explosive force comparable to the seeds from an impatiens' pods.  Over the course of the next month, I count as many sequins as she must have had on the dress.  I don't recall having seen her leave.  And, I'm wondering now:  IF, . . . If I had sown them back together, might she have reappeared?

     From my home-office window, I can see my neighbour returning home.  She leaves the cab wearing a Dolly Parton outfit.

     The Strawberry Festival — more strawberry fields than strawberry fruit — is on.  Cambridge is exploding with character(s).

If this were a postcard, the tag line would read, Wish you were here!

Hope your weekend is as odd as mine . . .

And, just when Pantomime season should have been over!

 

Pocket Changes: the UK’s 2012 Olympics 50p Athletics& 2000 50p Libraries Coins

In the United Kingdom, the 2 pound and 50 pence coins — perhaps because of their size — are used as bill-boards for commemoration.  Today, I point to two coins.

     

A COIN FOR THE LONDON 2012 OLYMPIC GAMES

   
I am amused by the UK’s 50 pence coin commemorating Athletics, one in a series of 2012 Olympics coins.  Olympic coins have started to show up in my change.

This coin, mind you, comes from a country that amuses itself with the irony of hosting the games despite its poor chances of medal winning, or, at least its poor showing in recent past games.

I presume that the depicted athlete is to be seen in motion, rather than simply upside down.  The still depiction, however, … the open mouth, the wide eyes make it seem that this athlete is in trouble.

It should be noted that this design was selected from among designs submitted children.  Other 50p Olympic coins have more realistic, more heroic designs.

More to my amusement is the symbol of London 2012 resting over the wobbly kneed athlete.    Some Iranians have suggested that the symbol spells out the word "Z I O N" and that London 2012 is the Zionist Games.  Art, particularly abstraction, is in the eye of the beholder, I say.  In abstraction, it reminds me of the Chinese (both simplified and traditional) character for the English word “Mix” ( 混 ) as in the Chinese word 混乱 meaning “Chaos” or literally “a random mix”.

I hope neither the image nor the symbol foretell the UK’s medal winning chances in 2012.

This coin is part of a series of London 2012 coins available from the UK’s Royal Mint.  Please buy the coins.  The Games are costing the UK a mint in a time of austerity.

     

THE PUBLIC'S LIBRARIES

   

Also appearing in my change is the 2000 50 pence coin celebrating 150 years of British Libraries.  I am less amused.

Who could have imaged that 11 years later, in the face of deep deficit reduction measures, the UK’s Public Libraries would be facing MASSIVE, nation-wide closures.

More than 80% of the UK’s Public Library circulation is to children learning to read with the aid of literature for children.  Closures will leave the children of the poor without assistance.  It is the children of the poor who most need Public Libraries to become literate, to reinforce reading, study and research skills, to subsequently sustain if not grow the British economy.  Without access to literature, It will be more difficult for British children in future, to secure a good education and a job that keeps them and Britain off the dole.

I know that everyone must be austere in a time of austerity, but this is false economy.  It pains me that no austerity has been spared forward thinking here.

This is going to come back to bite British society in the ass . . . as surely as change in my pocket when I sit down.

Now Back to our Regularly Scheduled ProgrammeLIFE IN CAMBRIDGE

An odd collection of September days.  Awaiting fall like a leaf on a planetree.

On this 29th day of September 2011
(Cambridge, the United Kingdom)

   

Another freakishly hot day here in the UK; and, with the autumnal sun low to the horizon, it feels as though a miracle’s about to happen …     this can’t be good.

    

People are already leaving their clothes behind.  Granted, they’re sunning themselves on Parker’s Piece, where it’s like Miami Beach in the Winter  —  the Dutch descended, as a nation, upon the sands.   And, some folks are already rising toward heaven.  Yes.  Of course, they're only playing football (uh, soccer), doing headers, whilst others are straining to catch Frisbees.  As signs go, I take what I am given.

      

I haven’t seen any wolves lay down with lambs.  But, my dog pulled me into the shade of a plane-tree on the banks of the River Cam.  There he laid himself down, panting, beside the bulls that normally feed on the fen grasses.  No, and nor have I seen four horsemen.  But, the schools have just ended the day’s sessions; and, their munchkins are travelling in packs on bicycles in the spirit of emissaries of Mongolian Khans.   — No one is safe!

   

And, this being the United Kingdom, I can attest: everyone is speaking in tongues, the tongues both of these isles and those of their commonwealth together with those of the continent over which many Britons despair.

   

No, this cannot be good.

   

There is not a cloud in the sky.  And, come nightfall, Jupiter will again herald the hour when the NBC and CBS World News programs are broadcast.  They'll be carried live, like water from a well.  ... Broadcast well beyond bed-time, suggesting that the working day is done.

     

I bet that tomorrow will be hotter, still.  Hotter than bright.  Hotter than hell!

   

      

On this 28th day of September 2011
(Cambridge, the United Kingdom)

   
[while out walking the dogs, Max and Maya]

   

It’s a scream bloody murder night in my neighbourhood.

HELP ME! can be heard as I round the corner from City Road, which is less urban than the name might suggest, onto Fitzroy, a shopping street.  The call is loud.  It is persistent.  Oddly, it is male.

Fitzroy, by the way, is archaic English meaning son of a king; its translation, this evening, is somewhat closer to son of a queen.  Neither is exactly what I’m hearing as I approach the young man.  He’s speaking a bit of English mixed with Russian.  He is accompanied by three friends: one male, one female, and the other is a bottle of vodka.  In Russian, he’s asserting that his male companion, who has him in a headlock, is a Nazi.

We travel in proximity until we reach New Square, where Max has a rendezvous with the lawn.  The Russians continue on, loudly.  One of the young men will punch the lights out of a road sign, literally.  It is an internally lit road sign.  Regardless, the sign takes it well and fights back like a Weeble.

(I think Weebles, here in the United Kingdom, are known as “roly-poly men”, or, since the days of Noddy on kiddie TV, “wobblymen”.  But, that’s beside the point.  In Russian, they’re known as “tilting dolls” or “candidates not-named-Putin" in a Russian presidential contest.)

A bit later.  From the direction of the city centre.  Screams of RAPE! from a young woman and HELP ME! from a young man can be heard coming upon us as we head home.  I remind myself that Yob (that’s Boy spelled backward, an English invention, meaning poor wayward lad) … that Yob only sounds like a Russian word.  These are American voices.  They’re probably travelling with a silent friend, Jack Daniels; but, I can’t see them yet.  They’ll overtake us soon enough; Maya is taking forever to find just the right tree to fertilize.  It’s amazing how loud people, regardless their nationality, can be here after dark.  Anyway, the speed with which they are approaching suggests that the only rape presently occurring is that of a peaceful night.

The voices, Russian and American, are odd book-ends for what is heard on the return approach to Fitzroy.  English accents, this time.  No, you sodding arsehole! a male voice screams.  The English have a lovely way of intoning the word No, of elongating it to demonstrate insistence, as if in this case “sodding” didn’t lend enough support to the word "arsehold".  It’s followed by Get your own tree.  The sound of it is, well, incongruous without recalling childish conundra (erm [um], conundrums) such as Does a tree fall in the forest, if … and Does the Pope shit in the woods, if …  As I round the corner onto Fitzroy, I spy them. 

Three young Englishmen, plus one, the sodding one.  Each of them, lined up like Elgin Marbles.  Each of them, minus the sodding one, standing stolidly beside one of the line of trees fronting the Waitrose grocery store.  The sodding one seems aimless, like a just-fired pinball, banging about.

Inside the store, a sixth friend is buying a fifth friend for the evening; it looks like Lamb’s Navy Rum — amongst rums, a rather rough tasting liquor but very English.  It’s a pity that the sixth friend emerges from the store with a puzzled look on his face.  He doesn’t get the classical reference.   Athena Parthenos! shouts one of the tree men.  We are about to play a game of “See no evil.  Hear no evil.  Speak no evil.” with these cheeky monkeys.  Athena was the goddess of the forest! shouts another.  It's obvious; they've escaped from a classics degree for the evening.  And, the final of the three tree men, staring into the eyes of the emerging friend with his fifth of Lamb’s, screams Parthenos! … She was the VIRGIN, to which the fourth man — pin-ball man, the sodding one — adds sheepishly Parthenos.  That’s Greek.

Ah, college men.  I wonder if they know the old British naval saying.  Would it be too crass to remark upon it here?  I’m oddly tempted to scream it out, You need a cork at night to get any sleep!  Disappointingly however, I believe that the trees are London Planetrees.  Americans call them Sycamores.  No cork there.  And, none for The Night of Loud Voices either.

 

On this 25th day of September 2011
(Cambridge, the United Kingdom)

   
Max is developing a new habit.  On walks he pulls toward the Veterinary Surgery (that's "the vet’s office" in American English).  Max seems to have developed a fondness for the vet since his last check-up when sweet nothings were whispered, in German, into his ears.

It’s a curious development, as Maya has been known to run home from the vet’s office.  (It’s only three blocks away; and, she hates needles.)

Walks in the direction of the office are becoming painful.  Both Max and Maya are amazingly strong.  I often have one dog pulling me toward the vet, the other pulling me away.

[Meanwhile]

I’m trying to suppress cravings for German and Polish pastry, dairy-rich morsels that threaten early death by coronary.  (The English have never, apparently, mastered the dark arts of death by deserts.  English pudding, for example, is just under-baked cake.)

I’m wondering how a pastry run to Munich or Warsaw will look on my application for permanent residency in the United Kingdom.  The application requires one to state where one has travelled outside the UK, for how long and to what end.

    

On this 3rd day of September 2011
(Cambridge, the United Kingdom)

A well dressed, immaculately groomed older woman called to me from the coffee shop across from the Indian ladies news outlet this morning.  It took me a while, speaking with her, to realize that she was speaking well formed gibberish.

The coffee shop owner told me that she used to drop in irregularly.  She’s now become a regular.  Forced retirement pushed her over the edge.  He said that he doesn’t mind.  She drinks the coffee and draws in customers.

The shop is something of a mixed bag.  In the morning, it’s a French pastry and coffee shop.  It makes its own croissants and pastries each morning.  The shop normally draws a crowd of older men in casual-ware with nothing better to do.  They drive up in their expensive sports cars and park them on the pedestrian mall.  Come evening, it’s a traditional family style Chinese restaurant, drawing the mainly Chinese students of the English language school next to the Indian ladies news outlet.  Mid-day, it is a little French-colonial era Hanoi.

       

On this 1st day of September 2011
(Cambridge, the United Kingdom)

   
The Indian ladies at the news store have decided that I should learn Gujarati.  That’s one of the squiggle languages.  Fortunately, they’re not making me write.  Speaking it is quite enough.

I’ve had to take a rather bizarre approach just to wrap my head around it.  Just so: I made the Urdu-speaking Pakistani delivery men laugh — nervously, but laugh — when I gave the Indian women a very polite greeting, Jeshi Chreshna — literally, May God be with you.  I felt rather like a trained monkey, what with the bounding voice with which I spoke the words.  Their laughter actually followed my response to their question, How you know that?      Jesus Christ, I said courtly, It kinda sounds like 'Jesus Christ'.  I've a motion-picture in my head, playing a video of the Hare Krishna devotees back in Gainesville, Florida.  Everyone is happy, swaying to the beat of cymbals and drums.

Knowing that they were Urdu speakers, and likely Muslim, I then greeted them with Allah Ismarladik (which to me, in my quirky world of language-learning sounds like "Is-Marla-a-Duck?") — that’s Turkish actually, for God be with you usually meaning "Goodbye" rather than "Hello" — what can you do in a pinch?!, … anyway, since Turkish is close (geographically if not linguistically) to Arabic, I figured that Urdu would be close as well.  It was.   Or, at least the delivery men pretended that it was.

Fortunately — perhaps wisely — they didn’t ask, How you know that?  I might have told them something my mother loved saying, Lord (Allah) … Lord, love a duck!  That probably would have been a big no-no.  But, I’m learning.

Anyway, may God be with you too!