Penelope

Penelope Cruz (36) and Javier Bardem (41) are parents for the first time. The grandma, Pilar Bardem (71), can take a long breath as finally time has ripen and born a grandkid. Don't know the name of the boy_ they wouldn't say in the first place. I heard that few days after the birth, they sent a press note to the Spanish media without given out the genre of the offspring. The note said instead, I am not quoting, "the baby is fine, their parents are fine". Yea, of course, we would expect the father to be fine... That's hilarious, made me laugh.

The boy was born in Cedars Sinai medical center, Los Angeles Metropolitan Area. One night costs roughly $6,000_ Not bad for the Bardem family, recalcitrant and wild communists. Why not bringing the baby to life in Spain? Top clinics are excellent, probably better than the former, places for the royalty. Nevertheless, Spaniards always praise the foreign before the own... Or perhaps, it can bring some advantage to the boy since, as far as I know, he is now an American.

***

Years ago, ten or fifteen, there used to be in the Chemical Engineering Department of the University of Salamanca a big column (maybe an absorption or extraction column, I don't remember), used for Ph.D. students as a pilot rig for their experiments. It has written in some color, I don't remember either, all across it, from one side to the other, the name Penelope. Never asked why, never knew why.

I'd like to baptize my Ph.D. rig now (a blue, old enclosure with a stainless steel mesh inside, so-called separator oil-water) Penelope and bestow upon it the virtue of faithfulness. Faithfulness to me, naturally, all through these up-coming years.

As today, I've been incapable of cope with the Odyssey. However, the story of Penelope is sort of familiar, though I am afraid I can distort it somehow. I can picture in my imagination Ulysses turning up in Sparta to compete for Helen's hand and, within few hours, meeting Helen's cousin in the corridor, Penelope, and falling in love with her. A movie could be shot just out of this (Ulysses, 1954, tells a whole lot more): the contender gives up the struggle to marry a second-line figure and, even more, takes personal interest in making the rules for Helen's selected suitor (finally, Menelaus) to comply with, as to easy up matters for the king, Tyndareus. 

After that, Penelope's waiting for Ulysses to come back from Troy and adventures. Elements are juicy: the struggle to keep aside myriads of wooers, the story of the do and undo of the burial shroud, the actions and deceptions of Atenea to break her faithfulness, the evil, wicked maid who unveils Penelope's trick, and the last test of her resistance: the ordeal of bending Ulysses bow.

Nice story, nice symbol, nice encouragement.

Penelope at the Loom and Her Suitors - Pintoricchio,1509 - National Gallery, London.

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