FlyingSquirrel

hey, remember me?

2007-04-01T15:32:00.000-04:00

cos at the moment, i don't. i know i haven't blogged in ages, and i've been flickring instead, but a good friend of mine just started a new blog, which got me thinking. i miss writing about everyday shit. moods. things i see on my way to work. overheard conversations. and it doesn't always need to be with a pic.

so fuck it.

let's give this a try again. not for any anticipated or assumed reader, but for me. sort of like a diary, a journal -- which another friend of mine is trying. i remember when i was a little girl, i used to try and keep a diary, cos it was the little-girl thing to do. i'd get these fabulous little books with plush pink covers, all faux-leather-like, with tiny little brass locks. and i'd be more fascinated with the fucking key, than with the thing itself. i'd start a few hopeful entries, but invariable, the book would get lost in the entropy of my childhood.

and that is precisely how i feel right now. lost. floating. unmoored. i drift from good days to bad, not quite sure how each day will unfold, in which direction it will go. i fear i've become boring, like my sense of humor got caught on a tree branch about a mile back, and i don't know how to find my way back. the notion of impending unemployment is freaky to me. i don't do well with change. but then, who does? well, some people see it as opportunity, an open-door thing. but fuck, man, tell that to my heart, my gut, which is terrified of the unknown. the notion that the people i love will tire of me, as i seem to be tiring of myself. is this what depression looks like? fuck if i know. it is what it is, and i am so tired of it.

i don't want to be that girl, lost in a cloud of smoke and stale food. how does one stop the cycle of entropy and get off?

what's that in REAL money?

2006-03-15T17:00:00.000-05:00

i work in an office with thin walls. a very dapper gentleman with a healthy crop of snow-white hair and a courteous demeanor has just moved into the office next door. (he doesn't work for the same company i do.) several times a day he stops by asking to borrow scissors, a pen, directions to the water cooler. very sweet.

he's american. he spends his day on the phone. speaking in spanish. with an american accent. AND I CAN HEAR EVERY WORD HE'S SAYING, ALL DAY LONG. the spanish rolls off his tongue, but his accent is so incredibly american, i cringe every time i hear it. which, like i say, is ALL DAY LONG.

it reminds me of two stories:

1) when i moved to germany and took a german class, there was a woman from texas, named henrietta, in the same class. she tried so hard to lose her texan accent, but every time she tried to say "das ist ein kugelschreiber" it came out "days eeest ayn kyuuugillshrayber." (i guess you have to know some german to see the humor in this.) her name? "eeeeech hyyyse hayn-ree-ayta." trust me. it was hee-lay-ree-yus. but you know what? henrietta's husband, a soldier based in munich, had forbidden her to learn german, so she was taking this class on the sly. props to henrietta.

2) when my parents visited paris (back in 1971, i think, not long before they divorced), they heard a fellow american tourist ask the concierge, "what's that in REAL money??"

so i listen to this incredibly kind coot next door slashng his way through spanish. and though i cringe, i can't help but be impressed. learning german was one of hte hardest things i've ever done, and doing it all day long is exhausting. i don't speak spanish but from his intonation i can hear this guy asking about people's kids and making jokes. props to the suit next door.

i'm just looking for a new england

2006-03-14T08:00:00.000-05:00

yesterday was an odd day. my boss (with whom i share an offce) is away all week, so i sat alone in a small, windowless room for 8 hours. i worked, i listened to the radio, i took a picture on my way to get lunch. but the best part of the day? the best part of the day was after i left. my car was in the shop for routine maintenance, and i had a loaner from the dealership. instead of going my usual way home up the palisades, i took the thruway up to 84 (since the dealer is in wappingers falls). i know, you don't know where these places are. but still. so ANYway. i'm driving up the thruway, passing these beautifully empty yellow fields, dotted with very dated billboards, and my favorite radio station starts to fill with static. so i set it on scan.

and then i hear a few seconds of an acoustic guitar, and something about a union.

the car swerves as i find the scan button, to keep this. and sure enough, there he is -- billy bragg, singing about unions. billy bragg, the political brit i first discovered back in 1987, when he played at my college. he was just starting out, very few people knew who he was, and he blew me away. (so did his unknown opening act, a wisp of a woman clad all in black, flaunting her army boots and hairy armpits like badges of honor; her name? michelle shocked.)

i can't believe my luck, taking this unusual route through counties as red as the stripes in the american flag. as the song ends, the deejay starts speaking to someone -- and it's billy bragg. she's got him in the studio. i feel like i've transported back 20 years. he sounds older, wiser, but just as cheeky. she asks him to pick a last song to play. he says "how about the one you were going on about. you know, new england."

my heart skips a beat. the song starts. now, i haven't heard this song since i was an english major trying to make sense of kate chopin's "the awakening." but somehow i still knew EVERY WORD, and sang along at the top of my lungs, until the static took the song away from me just as it ended.

i can't describe how happy this made me. it was like running into an old friend, and my heart filled with joy, surprise, gratitude, and pure appreciation.

the newish band feist has a great song called "mushaboom" which i hear a lot on the radio right now. it has this line: "we collect the moments one by one, i guess that's how the future's done." indeed.

days of socklessness and wonder

2006-03-13T12:29:00.000-05:00

ok, ok, i'm back. forgive me for indulging in flickr, this new giant pink elephant in the living room of my life. my husband's patience is waning, my eyelids are drooping, and yet i cannot deny the call of the flickr. even the cats have had it.

but enough. there are other things going on worth noting.

like what i saw on my way to work last friday. at 8 a.m., it was warm enough to go without socks, the sun was out, the sunroof was open, and the air smelled like loam and pine. crossing the bear mountain bridge, just as the second turret wires curved back down to the road, a hawk landed right in the wire. an odd spot to perch, i thought, susceptible to the winds of the hudson river. and as i stared, slack-jawed, another hawk landed on top of the first one, spreading his wings for balance. and they mated. i saw this passing at 40 miles per hour, my camera tucked tightly away in my bag, so all i had were the lenses in my face. and the vision is seared there forever. if i could draw, i'd draw it. it was exquisite. and intense. to create life in such a precarious, traffic-laden spot -- that's survival. do they have a nest somewhere? is this their first season together? did it work? he flew away just as i finished passing, and she stayed on the wire.

as much as i want to be taking pictures of every single thing right now, some things are better witnessed without the gnarling mass of glass and plastic between your face and the thing.

so... very... tired...

2006-02-24T23:37:00.000-05:00

four sleepless nights in a row. maybe tonight's the night? it's cold out. that's good. so it's either sleep, or more hours surfing flickr.

(can't. stop. flickr. it's like crack, only not.)

let your garden grow

2006-02-23T19:20:00.000-05:00

I AM A WOMAN OBSESSED! forget my photo of the day feature -- i am now living and breathing at my flickr site.

i have two hobby-type obsessions: birdwatching and photography. birdwatching is a solitary event, and i don't need feedback or validation or anything other than my binoculars, my birdbook, and birds. you see a bird, voila! success.

with photography, it's different. by its very nature, it's interactive. as my friend joe recently asked, "does a photograph exist if no one sees it?" i have hundreds of photos, sitting in books and in hard drives, unseen by anyone other than me. but since i started posting my photos on flickr.com, i feel like i have released them into the wild, like seeds on the wind, and they are growing and forming their own garden, as they are fed with others' eyes. they are out there. getting seen. and they are basking in that light, like a cat napping in the one little patch of sun on an otherwise empty carpet.

and me? i cannot BELIEVE that, as of this writing, 368 people have viewed my photographs. (UPDATE FROM 3/13/06: 2,342 people!) sure, the site has more than a hundred million photos on it. but to me, i feel like i have found my compatriots. it's not about making money. it's about sharing, in the purest sense of the word. it may sound naive, but i swear, i feel like a little girl who's been sent to the candy store with a WHOLE DOLLAR in her hand. big picture, nah, it's not a lot. but to her? it's all she needs. she is the cat in the sun. the photograph, viewed, at last.

at the flickr of a switch...

2006-02-15T06:53:00.000-05:00

thanks to my friend richard, i have now begun posting my photos at flickr.com -- so easy! enjoy. (i'll keep posting pics here too, if you insist.)

photo of the day

convenience store clerk in scenic, south dakota, 2003 (yes, that is the name of the town)

busted

2006-02-14T20:45:00.000-05:00

on my way home from work tonite, i got a speeding ticket. first one in seven years. second one in my life.

:-(

in my defense, here's photo #2 of the day, taken while driving in the rain (yes, i was driving as i took this):

millwood, new york, 1/05

happy valentine's day to me.

it's tuesday. in case you were wondering.

2006-02-14T11:23:00.000-05:00

photo of the day

blackfoot indian reservation, montana, 7/03

it's valentine's day. i went to buy some roses for the office -- $6.50 a pop. i opted for the $3 gerbera daisies, which are my favorite anyway. i can't decide if this holiday is too commercial, or if i want to give in to it. hmmm. i can't complain about the chocolate, tho.

olympic fever, only not so much

2006-02-13T06:50:00.000-05:00

ok, i admit it, i get goose bumps every time i hear the trumpet call of the olympic theme. yes, i sat on the edge of the couch as bode flew down the hill. but then i got tired. so i went to bed. and now that it's monday, will i stay up every night to see what happens? nope. like a spoiled child with a new toy, the novelty has worn off. i'll check in now and then, and try to catch some figure skating, but overall? eh.

photo of the day

cold spring, new york, yesterday

the most politically incorrect post ever

2006-02-10T09:36:00.000-05:00

photo of the day

thelma and louise, sandy hook, new jersey, summer 2005

IM exchange of the day
(NOTE: this is not reality. it's instant-message silliness, nothing more. no offense intended to anyone.)

me: did you get the message i left you? i tried twice, not sure it took
deecers: yes, i got the message...it amused me greatly. will have the names and addresses for you soon
me: after i left it i wondered, if something actually happens to those people, and the guvmint is listening, i am skee-rewed!
deecers: i've sent a copy to the feds. expect a call soon
me: i was expecting cops at the house by the time i got home
deecers: whatchya gonna do when they come for you
me: that's me!
me: barefoot in the driveway, in my husband's torn flannel
me: screaming
deecers: with lipstick smeared over half your top lip
deecers: holding a baby
me: which isn't mine
deecers: and narrowly missing stepping on a syringe
me: and they find the vial of crack in my sweatpants pocket
me: (sweatpants with pockets - fancy!)
deecers: the pocket's actually in your thong
me: which isn't mine
deecers: and you insist you've never seen the crack before
me: despite the white smear on my lower lip
deecers: and that you really had just eaten a powdered donut
me: then florian comes out of the house with a shotgun
me: screaming "from my cold dead hands!"
deecers: and he spontaneously gives birth to a miniature drug cartel right there in the driveway
me: and is therefore granted immunity, after which he immediately rats me out and takes up with our neighbor's wofe
me: wife, too
deecers: who's a transvestite stripper
me: and the mother of the errant baby
me: who is also a transvestite stripper
me: (it runs in the family)
deecers: and eventually, the lot of you end up on the Jerry Springer show and live happily ever after. The end.
me: and we can now be seen on Fox's new reality show, "Prison Island"
deecers: where prisoners compete in weekly fashion design contests; each week's loser being executed by a method voted upon by a national audience
me: florian, the stripper, and i are the judges. the baby escorts the models down the runway.
deecers: to their deaths. Death by fabulousness!
me: pelted with lace and taffeta
deecers: and very small rocks

peace please

2006-02-09T06:49:00.000-05:00

photo of the day

"peace please," prague (8/04)

whatever

2006-02-08T07:24:00.000-05:00

lousy night, filled with lousy dreams. glad daylight is here.

photo of the day

(garrison, new york, 4/05)

good advice

2006-02-07T09:38:00.000-05:00

a very good friend said this to me yesterday, and she is right:

"we need to do what we want to do, and screw everyone else"

i need to go birding. hang out with my friends. watch movies. cook. take pictures. speaking of which, i'm starting a new feature -- photo of the day (or photo of the day for as long as blogspot will host them for me):

(ogunquit, maine, 1/06)

squids, whales and raisinets

2006-02-07T09:18:00.000-05:00

[this is a repost of what i wrote on friday, february 3, which seems to have vanished in the ether]

---

so we just saw "the squid and the whale." the movie is about a family in the 80s going through a divorce, with parents (brilliantly portrayed by jeff daniels and laura linney) who are clueless at how they are using their children as tennis balls, volleying them back and forth with anger and hurt. it brought back so much -- mainly, the instinctual need for a child to align herself with one parent in order to survive, only to learn later (in the case of the movie, a few weeks; in my case, 30 years) that there are two sides to every story, and kids shouldn't have to pick (or be picked). by the end of the movie, as all the local white-haired arts patrons streamed out of the recently renovated theater, i sat there bawling like the 4-year-old i used to be. and i just sat and cried and cried, my raisinets spilling into the aisle -- crying from sadness, yes, but also from pure relief. the movie ends with one of the children coming to the realization that he doesn't need to take sides, that he can be his own person. i saw myself in this boy, and saw my own sweet, sweet salvation.

damn.

coincidence? i think not...

2006-02-02T20:33:00.000-05:00

in reading a sad cnn.com story about pet remains found in the woods in virginia, i found this, which made me laugh out loud (which was surreal, given the tragic nature of the story):

"The U.S. Forest Service is also taking part in the investigation. Woody Lipps, a spokesman for the agency,..."

what the hell kind of name is that? and of all things, he works for the FOREST service? um, NO.

spam, "lost" and the news

2006-02-01T09:08:00.000-05:00

continuing the thread of tasty spams, here are some more tasty treats:

TruGenix Hoodia
Capt B. Carbohydrate
Hugo Reyes (thank you, deecers)

and, oddly, an email i sent to myself ended up in my spam folder. i hate getting unsolicited email from myself, it's such an invasion of my privacy!

on a completely separate note, am i the only one on the planet who hasn't watched "lost" yet? a friend gave me some to check out, but i haven't been able to bring myself to do it yet. i suppose i'm afraid i'll get sucked in, never to see the light of day again.

in today's news, it struck me that this headline from cnn.com looks like it came right off the onion's home page:

Official: Postal killer had 'psychological problems'

cats

2006-01-31T06:41:00.000-05:00

now that i have figured out how to post photos, i'd like to introduce you to my cats. we have three of them.

this is smilla. she is sitting in front of the monitor as i post this, desperate for love and fame and power. we found her at the north shore animal league nine years ago. like a dog, she knows when i pull into the driveway, and comes flying down the stairs to greet me.

this is harvey. our bastard cat from hell, as described here. we bought him for ten bucks at a shady pet store ten years ago; he was living with two siblings in his own litter box. he's terrible. he's beautiful. he's ours. like a dog, he howls at the moon in the middle of the night, marks his territory by peeing on things, bites until you bleed, and fetches.

and this is isabel, the day after she found us two years ago. she showed up in our back yard the night of a hurricane (yes, hurricane isabel). she was a tiny thing. we brought her food; she wolfed it down. we decided if she was still there the next day, we'd take her in. this photo was taken that next day, after another filling meal. turns out she wasn't a kitten, but a half-starved two-year-old who'd literally lost half her weight trying to survive. needless to say, she won't have to want for anything ever again. like a dog, she has fur.

ferretting out the truth

2006-01-30T19:56:00.000-05:00

rather than go outside and enjoy this freaksihly beautiful weather we're having, i stayed glued to my computer, waxing creative with my friend deecers on the comings and goings of the ever-growing ferret population. check it out.

on that note, i'm off to do the New York Magazine puzzle. mmmm. easy. finishable.

p.s. in looking through deecer's blog, i came across this, another of our IM exchanges. we seem to have a history of, how you say, creative communication, going back to 7th grade. hosers unite!

headlights in the rain

2005-10-26T20:41:00.000-04:00

well today, for the first time in what seems like weeks, the sun blazed for more than a five-minute stretch. the air was crisp and clear and dry, smelling of leaves and snow. i needed a scarf. and while too many days of sunny weather can depress the hell out of me, i was happy to see blue behind the yellow-turning leaves, instead of the staple steel grey.

but before i leave the wet weather behind, let me ask you this: how come some drivers don't turn their headlights on when it's raining? didn't that become, like, law and whatnot? i want to stop each and every one of them and make a citizen's arrest, and slap them on the cheek.

now that i've got that out of the way, let me move on to the cats. yes, harvey is still with us. maybe we'll let him out on the spring. in the meantime, isabel (a cat, not a child or a great-aunt) loves to stalk him at every turn, and smilla is for the most part left alone. which is good, seeing as how she's currently in an anesthetic stupor from having had two teeth extracted. poor thing. but i'm relieved she's well; the mysterious lump under her chin seems to have disappeared. keep your paws crossed it's gone for good.

on a penultimate note, won't someone please tell the movie-theater managers up in dutchess county that movies like "capote" and "good night, and good luck" are just as worthy of screen time as "doom" and "in her shoes" and "dreamer"? is it too much to ask? and miss dakota fanning, consider yourself on notice -- you are dangerously close to spontaneously combusting from your own cuteness. you need to take on an indie role, something that stretches you, a tween crack whore or an autistic artist savant. no more horses and tom cruises!

and finally, "death cab for cutie"? i like the music. but the name? i don't get it. was there a cutie? and did she die in a cab?

hmm, might this be a two-quilt night?

2005-09-28T20:54:00.000-04:00

let us bow our heads and thank zeus above for bringing autumn. proof of why this is a good thing:

- pumpkins
- apples from the giNORmous tree across the street thwapping to the ground throughout the night
- smilla beginning her annual attempts at burrowing under the covers, fleeing within seconds because she forgets she's claustrophobic
- the smell of dead leaves
- halloween decorations
- hot mulled cider
- sweatshirts, jeans, clogs (without socks!)
- more pumpkins

(feel free to contribute to this list)

on a separate but equally important note, if you have not yet investigated the world of infinite felinity, please do so at your earliest convenience. (if you find that first page a little overwhelming, skip directly to the cats.)

thank you.

update, take 2

2005-09-26T09:22:00.000-04:00

i actually tried to update this blog last week, i even had a carefully crafted missive just the way i wanted it, and the server told me there was a "fatal error." why are errors fatal? did some poor IT help-desk drone keel over in his task chair, as blogger.com's server decided to step out for a cup of coffee? regardless, my missive is lost in the ether. no chance in trying to recreate it now. (EPILOGUE: found recovered post, see below. who knew?)

so yes, harvey is still among us. it's been a couple of weeks since he's peed on the door, and we've begun showering him with affection. he seems to like it. (hell, he gets more love than we do!) he's still a bastard towards isabel and smilla (our other cats), but that's to be expected. think of him as a vagrant, unemployed and living in his sister's trailer, sitting in a tattered beach chair, covered in tattoos and stubble and dirt, throwing empty beer cans at kids as they pass by on their huffys, scratching his nuts and not giving a damn about anything except how to score his next bud. let's call him vern. i mean really, what's not to love?

as far as my own health is concerned, i did go back for the second mammogram, to see what the deal was with these so-called "asymmetrical densities." the technician was so young, she should have been off somewhere babysitting, not taking radioactive photographs of my breasts. after she took the x-rays off to the radiologist, she came back and said "well, the spot on your left breast is nothing, that one's fine, but there's a spot on your right breast he wants to get a better picture of." um, excuse me? since when did an asymmetrical density become a SPOT, an actual thing? more pictures. more waiting. then the babysitter again. "the radiologist says it's benign, but he wants you to come back in six months, so we can monitor it." spot? monitor? BENIGN? never had a word that is meant to connote goodness sounded so bad.

but i've decided not to worry about it. there's nothing i can do, and i'm sure i'll be fine. right? right.

so now i'm at work, with today's personal to-do item next on my list: namely, calling a jeweler to find out why the diamonds in my anniversary ring are chipping (and one even fell out). these are diamonds. aren't they supposed to be the things that chip everything else? this weekend i got together with an old friend, her hubby and their fabulous new daughter, and she (the mom) was sporting THE most gorgeous celebration ring from tiffanys. so my goal is to magically turn my turncoat, traitor ring into that. but i have to say, there is something eerily fateful about this situation. when my husband and i got engaged, we bought a ring together, whose centerpiece stone, a small emerald, fell out twice. so i stopped wearing it, and we designed a new ring using the same stones -- and got engaged again. so maybe this was meant to me. that, or i am horribly materialistic and i want the FUCKING BLING.

on that note, i must return to the world of work, to earn the cash to fund these materialistic tendencies. (hell, i just put a down payment on a new volvo, so i's gots to be earning the cash so i can pick it up before the snows come.)

actually, before i sign off, let me rant for just a second about parents. most of you out there have relatively good relationships with your parents. they love you, they support you, and they are there for you, in most cases, unconditionally. me, i get to be the mom. my birthday is in a couple of weeks, as is my mother's -- hers falls 4 days before mine. for 2 months now she has been asking me about what we'll do to celebrate her birthday. it looks like i'll be working late all that week, and i told her that early on, so she could "prepare." and she has made it clear she is extremely disappointed. and she wants me to decide whether she should make other plans (tho i told her we should leave it open, since i won't know until then how busy i will be). last night on the phone she said "so you're taking that week off, right?" i said "um, what week?" "my birthday week!" "um, i can't, i have to work..." "i know, SILLY, i was kidding!" "oh." "it was a joke." "oh." "well if you had GOTTEN it you would have found it FUNNY."

god help me.

so of course i've decided to throw myself a little pity party (to which you are all cordially invited): has she asked me once what i might want to do for my birthday? (um, no.)

ok, enough. picking myself up, dusting myself off, tipping my hat to vern, and getting on with my day. but if you're out there, my friends, my family of choice, tell me something good, cause the parental crap lately is making me feel almost invisible. being the admittedely, gloriously materialistic girl i am, i keep loading up the image of the volvo to remind myself that yes, i work hard, and have become my own adult. it's an easy thing to forget, sometimes.

massively, astoundingly overdue update

2005-09-20T22:53:00.000-04:00

SHORT UPDATE:

- harveycat is still alive and living in our house
- i myself am still alive and living in our house

LONG UPDATE:

yes, harvey has suceessfully reigned in his rapid demise in our esteem. we've met him halfway, cleaning the litter boxes every day instead of every other day, and throwing out the rug near the door where he peed. we've also showered him with positive attention, and when he's not reaching around behind him and sinking his teeth into our forearms, he seems slightly grateful.

the bastard.

as far as various medical tests are concerned, i haven't had the uterine ultrasound yet. i did have the followup mammograms, and there is a "spot" they want to keep an eye on, so i have to go back in six months. good news. not great, but good. i've decided not to worry about it, except when i happen to write about it in my blog.

other than that, i'm just sitting here, WAITING FOR FUCKING FALL TO GET HERE. it's september. not early, not mid. it's LATE september. and summer won't end. it's like the seductive strain of a meniscus on a too-full glass of water. you know the tension of the water is there, waiting to burst through and collapse in happy exhaustion. but something is holding it back. for weeks now, driving home from work i can see the leaves on the trees hanging in wait, with just a hint of non-green at their edges. i know that one perfect day will come -- a high of 67, clear blue skies, a healthy gust of wind -- and BOOM the leaves will be perfect for approximately 2.6 minutes. with the next gust of wind they will all fall down, and humpty will suffer from seasonal affect disorder.

if this isn't proof of global warming, i don't know what is -- not to mention hurricane rita heading for n'awlins, like some jealous bitch having a hissy fit because she wasn't invited to katrina's party. i swear, we should all live in cabins in canada, foraging for fruit, growing beards and drinking elderberry wine.

will that stop me from buying a new car? nah. is it a hybrid? nah. am i a hypocrite? in the words of homer simpson, "wooo! a bird! tee hee hee!"

there was something else i wanted to tell you all, but i forget.

ode to a pocketbook

2005-08-25T14:27:00.000-04:00

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS ANECDOTES OF A DECIDEDLY FEMININE NATURE. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

so, last week i had my first mammogram. a friend had warned me that i'd be squished like a pancake, and sure enough, all that was lacking was the butter and syrup. all was well, until i got a call from the technician. "we need additional views. you have some asymmetric densities." what the hell?? so at my obgyn checkup today, it was a bit surreal when my doctor said, "it's really nothing to worry about. if they do see anything unusual, though, we'd do a biopsy."

um, hello.

after the regular annual exam (i'll spare you the details, except to say that, in this day and age, you think they'd move beyond cold metal tools), my doctor then said i need a uterine ultrasound to get a baseline view of possible
fibroid tumors, as evidenced by enlarged uterus. if removal was warranted, either surgery or a catheter-based procedure would be required. but, of course, "not to worry."

um, hello.

i know fibroids are very very common, and sized according to the fruit they most resemble (my mother's hysterectomy was due to grapefruits; i'm hoping for raisins, frankly). but to hear the words "biopsy" and "tumor" and "catheter" in the same visit? i needed a drink at 10:45 a.m.

but then came the bizarre part of the appointment. the gruff, unfriendly nurse who took my blood pressure stopped in her tracks mid-exam and said to the doctor, "LOOK AT THAT BAG." she was pointing to my new coach field bag on the chair with my clothes. then the nurse went over to it (with me still in stirrups, thank you very much) and FLIPPED OUT -- she insisted on looking at it, trying it on, asking where i got it and how much it cost. it ain't cheap, and i was thoroughly embarassed -- so i explained that i had been laid off earlier in the year, and when i got a new job recently, this was my consolation prize to myself. she said it was the nicest bag she had ever seen, and "ah, fangoul, i have to go and get this now. shit!!" then, after i was all done, i went to the bathroom one last time before leaving, and the same nurse was lying in wait for me -- as i came out of the bathroom she grabbed me by the arm and brought me over to reception, because she had to show the bag to all the other nurses, since they didn't believe her. so there i stood surrounded by 5 exuberant women who ALL flipped out about this bag. they all had to try it on, admire the pebbled mahogany leather and salmon-colored lining, and they all said it was the PERFECT bag, that i'd have it for 20 years, it goes with everything, "hold her down while i run to my car with it." it was hysterical! i was embarrassed at first -- i am not one who is ever fawned over, and instead am used to jealousy and resentment (from family members, no less) about stuff like this. but these were all mature women who enjoyed being women, with no apologies for admiring things that make us feel, well, feminine. and worth it.

it made me smile so hard, all thoughts of pancakes and catheters had vanished.

crickapella

2005-08-24T23:43:00.000-04:00

it's night. everyone's asleep but me and smilla, but she's curled up in that feline fetal way that's a precursor to an insta-nap. beyond the heavy hum of the computer's fan, i can hear a chaotic, complex jumble of sound. i keep thinking there's a radio playing, but when i listen, i literally hear crickets. but it's not just your garden-variety, tumbleweed-town crickets. these are classically trained, professional crickets chirping in time with other night creatures to some ancient rhythm. after a while, it somehow cohesively comes together to sound remarkably like a song, some avant-garde form of cricket a capella (or, crickapella). is there an audience out there of attentive "listener" crickets, sitting patiently in tiny little folding chairs in some nocturnal amphitheater, their offspring fidgeting and fussing at their feet? is it accompanied by an elaborate stage production, with owls or fruit bats or possum doing an interpretive cricket dance, as they all commune in their nocturnal glory?

it seems so tame, sitting here at my desk, alone (but for a now wide-awake cat), typing in tune to this insect staccato chorus.

sturm und drang

2005-08-14T21:06:00.000-04:00

so i'm sitting in our office upstairs, fans and AC's raging, as the world outside rages too. it's like thunder, like lightning, the way you love me is... no wait. ahem. yes, the storm. it's loud. and wet. and... raging. like harvey, actually, who is lying at my feet. still here. still alive.

we've pretty much decided to simply let him out. what will be will be -- yes, the chances of him getting hit by a car are greater, but if it means he will be happy, then hey, only the good die young. (what's with the song references tonight?)

my hubby's brother and sis-in-law are here from the homeland for two weeks, and tomorrow are off to see the NY botanical gardens. i like having them visit. they're the good kind of guests, helpful but not overbearing, laid back. it's unfortunate that we've been cooped inside for three days to escape the 95-degree heat, but it should break soon. (tho the sis-in-law doesn't mind the 105-degere heat index, lazily languishing in the hammock.) please tell me it will break soon. i can see clearly now, the rain is...

can i just say here that summer SUCKS? i know there are people out there who love the heat, who seek it, who don't use ACs, who don't mind what i collectively refer to as "the sticky" (be it old sweat on skin, softening finishes on old wooden banisters, virgin acrylic car seats, etc. etc.) -- but week after week, enough already! i want the smell of rotting leaves, that bitter crispness in the air that means it's snowing in the next county, that first rebellious branch of screaming red leaves in the maple tree across the street. dry skin.

may the hum of an AC lull you into a pleasant slumber, and may your night be free of power outtages.

inconsolable

2005-08-01T19:05:00.000-04:00

what started as a peaceful day working from home has turned into a nightmare.

the LCD panel on my laptop is damaged. apparently i did not choose the correct warranty option when i purchased it, and i must mail it in for repair, which will take about a week (this after an hour on the phone with 4 different people from Dell, one of whom had me open the top and remove the keyboard -- during which i promptly dropped a screw, irretrievably, into the guts of the laptop).

annoying, but i'll survive.

it that's nothing compared to what had transpired an hour before this.

we took our cat, harvey, to the vet. as you may know, i have jokingly (and not so jokingly) referred to him as our favorite beast from hell, named after harvey keitel, not the cutesy rabbit. harvey is beautiful. but harvey sprays on our front door daily. harvey moans at 3 AM. harvey knocks things off of shelves at 3 AM. harvey attacks visitors, drawing blood. harvey attacks our other two cats, once even drawing blood. harvey also poops on the bathroom floor, never in the litter box. we've tried everything. we've tried changing the litter more often. new litter boxes. things with his scent left by the front door. we even tried a kitty shrink. next up is kitty prozac, but after seeing what he did today at the vet, not even that is an option. he was so hard to handle -- hissing, growling, screaming, thrashing so wildly the syringe for his rabies shot went flying and hit the nurse in the forehead. it was so scary i started bawling and had to leave the room.

the vet said we'd tried everything, and given that he is 10 years old, she would understand if we decided to... jesus i can't even type it. but you know what i want to say, so i don't have to.

we'd let him out, but we live on a main road. we'd try and find a farm, but he'd be just as miserable, attacking the other cats and probably starving to death.

we are slowly wrapping our minds around the inevitable, and i can't stop crying.

anyone have any alternative suggestions or ideas? please!!!....

tasty spam

2005-08-01T10:15:00.000-04:00

rather than have my bulk email folder empty automatically, i tend to scan it occasionally, to ensure no real emails are floundering there amidst offers for V!&G%@RA and christian dating services (those pics in jesus's profile have to be at LEAST ten years old). lately i've started to take note of the truly creative Sender names that these spam engines are generating. i now keep a running list, and welcome you to add your own favorites:

Enid Vela
Laverne Ott
Sara Bear
Huff Babbette
Linwood V. Boleros
Foxy G. Grossing
Touch H. Farrow
Shelton Holcomb
Tellered B. Soundproof
Dolly Berry
Kerosene C. Ghats
Elba Voss
Overfull U. Maxwell
Vesta Qualls
Pronghorn C. Zest

ADDED 8/10/05:

Blandness C. Teepee
Alba Crum
Unnerving V. India
Turboprops P. Antimatter
Apotheosis R. Perforation
Messing F. Damns
Uncovers S. Perth
Xerxes H. Fitfully
Hollands D. Unsnarls
Ram Kent
Apposition K. Stringers

wild kingdom revisited

2005-07-23T17:40:00.000-04:00

just got back from a week away. checked the nest. EMPTY! my heart sank, as i deduced from some tear marks on our front-porch pillows that some critter had yet again gotten to the baby finches. the evidence was circumstantial at best -- no evidence of destruction in the nest, so spots of blood or clumps of feathers anywhere, no geranium leaves scattered below. just... an empty nest. that was enough for me.

so today i went about my day: ran errands, sat in the adirondack chairs out back trying to get into "the intuitionist," chatted on the phone, made a sandwich, watched the shadows move across the back yard, read some more, watched crows lining up on a branch atop a giant norwegian pine across the street (much like the one that dominates our back yard), sat in the hammock, and just relaxed. eventually i wandered inside, and as i poured myself a glass of water and looked back out the window at the pastoral scene i'd just abandoned, i saw some activity at the bird feeder. not a sparrow. not a male house finch. smallish, a little unsteady on its feet. kind of brownish with a streaked breast. and those eyes -- those pure black eyes i had seen before, peering up at me as i invaded its world to make sure it was alive. this bird pecking at seeds had to be one of the babies! they must have fledged while i was away. soon a second joined it, and after researching juvenile house finches (i obsessively collect birding guides), it was confirmed -- these little guys were babies no more. they made it.

you know, it doesn't get much better than that in this frantic, fucked up world.

wild kingdom

2005-07-06T09:48:00.000-04:00

we have been in our house for six years now, and every year this persistent pair of house finches attempts parenthood in whatever flower basket we hang on our front porch. the first couple of years, they abandoned the nest mid-construction. i assumed this was due to the basket's unsteady nature -- it hangs. wind blows. it rocks. you can imagine the impact of this on an egg-filled nest.

but these guys won't give up. years 4 and 5 actually saw the arrival of eggs -- about the size of a red grape (not green), with a clear white shell. year 4, in fact, yielded actual babies. i know this because i would risk getting dive-bombed by the momma bird in order to water the plant -- if the plant dies, the nest loses its cover. (of course, i feel inordinately guilty every time i do this, with urban legends of birds quick-to-abandon-anything-touched-by-a-human.) but i do it anyway. and last year before last, i saw the babies, in all their hairy, scaly, starving splendor. and a week later, i took down the basket to water it again -- and NO BABIES. no nothing. it hadn't been long enough for the babies to mature and fledge, so something must have happened -- wind, a hawk, who knows. and last year, despite the laying of eggs, they never hatched, and the parents gave up.

well this year, i dutifully hung a geranium basket in early may, and had no takers for at least a month. then i started to ehar the finches sing their song, a seemingly random string of notes sweeter than any nectar. and sure enough, at the next watering, i saw as bunch of twigs scattered among the flower roots, in a loosely circular pattern. a week later, we had achieved official nestosity. a week after that, 2 eggs. and about 10 days ago, i saw 5 eggs! every time we opened our front door the mamma bird would bolt from the nest, and i felt terrible. (when she's there, we don't even do our sunday morning coffee/paper routine on the porch -- she may be a squatter, but i'm just a lowly human, and she can have the whole damn house if she wants it!)

well this morning i decided to water the basket, since it had gotten hot and muggy again. i hadn't seen the mamma in a couple of days, and wanted to be sure all was well.

the eggs hatched! i saw at least four tiny, tiny beaks, and all the babies were sleeping curled and twisted around each other. (this nest is about as big as a teacup.) i watered around them ever so carefully, and one of them lifted his tiny head, stretched his neck a bit, and collapsed back into himself in sleep. i knew the parents were nearby; their unholy racket gave them away. so i returned the basket to its rightful place, and let the babies sleep.

let's hope the weather stays calm, the hawks stay sated, and the babies can fly away.

on slacking

2005-07-05T10:56:00.000-04:00

Responding to my old friend Steve's blog about not working got me thinking about the art of slacking.

So, it's 10:57 am, and my boss isn't here yet. It's just him and me, so I've been alone here since about 8:30. Which is fine by me -- I've been able to fit in some perfectly admirable slacking, mostly related to e-commerce (looking for a new rug for our bedroom) and communications (reading friends' blogs). But it's not the kind of slacking that feels righteous or earned. I hear a door close down the hallway (past several other offices occupied by other slackers I don't know), and I immediately jump to another tab (thank you, Firefox). I am terrified of getting caught, even though I know he doesn't care. How does one stop being so conscientious? And yet I slack on, braving the (perceived) storm and surfing my heart out.

Which reminds me of a list my old work buddies and I made YEARS ago about all the usages and declinations of "to slack," most notably in a nickname for a particularly useless HTML coder: Slackagawea. Hence the list began:

Slackagawea
slacker
slackage
slackitude
slackster
slackonomy
slackotomy
slackousness
slackitudinosity

(Tip of the hat to Woody Allen's "Play It Again Sam.")

I can't recall the rest, so if you have any to proffer, the more the merrier.

Slack on, dude!

people on the train

2005-05-27T12:22:00.000-04:00

i had an interesting train ride home last night.

usually when i take the train, if it's light out, my face is glued to the window, looking for signs of wild and human life. but at night, there's nothing to see (except the reflection of bridge lights in the hudson river, which is beautiful, but sporadic). no, at night, you have the commuters around you to assess.

with two minutes to spare i caught an aisle seat in a three-seater. to my left, at the window, was a young man in his early 20s, close-cropped red hair, plaid shirt, wireframed glasses, sensible navy windbreaker, hands rubbed raw. he was reading a religious pamphlet about jesus. no bag, no knapsack, just this little book. at one point his cell phone rang, so i paused my ipod so i could eavesdrop. (i figured bob dylan could wait.) he was discussing religion and catholicism with the person on the other end. "yeah. he asked me what i was reading, i said i was reading ratzenberger. he said, 'that's pope benedict to you,' ha ha. then he asked me if i was studying for a theology degree or something. i told him no, that i just liked reading this stuff. i want to better understand my god." i decided not to wait to see how it turned out for jesus, and put dylan back on.

across the aisle from me was a typical suit. for the trip home, he had taken off his blazer and laid it carefully on the overhead rack. he then proceeded to spend his entire ride, from grand central to croton harmon, pecking away at his blackberry. his gaze never wavered, not for the little hotties who got on in yonkers and off at peekskill (shaking their groove thang all the way), not for the conductor, not for anything -- his blackberry had his undivided attention. and i couldn't help but think that he was held captive by his tiny keyboard, pecking fruitlessly like a sparrow at stray seeds.

for a brief stint from 125th street to yonkers, another young man took the aisle seat in front of me. he too was listening to music, but whatever he was hearing was moving his soul to such a profound extent, he literally could not help but dance in his seat. and let me tell you, this boy could MOVE. his cornrows curled up at the edges, and they too danced as he undulated back and forth, doing backstreet-boy hand movements as his shoulders moved to the rhythym. he moved with such fluid ease, it was as if his head was attached to his shoulders via a ball joint, rolling back and forth, up and down, with the precision only a truly heartfelt groove can produce. his apparent joy was so infectious i found myself smiling openly, my own foot tapping to whatever folky tune was playing in my ears. when he got up to leave i was genuinely disappointed -- but his parting gift was the sight of him dancing down the platform, finally free from the constraints of a commuter-train seat.

the last person of note caught my attention when i first got on the train. i had spied an empty two-seater but some wench beat me to it, so i doubled back and found the empty aisle seat. as i hoisted my backpack to the luggage rack, i looked back at the faces in the train car (like you do in a movie theater, a la Amelie). this one gruff, stocky, not unattractive, Bud-drinking guy in a worn baseball cap had a sad look in his eyes... but it was the gigantic, two-pronged scar dissecting his entire right cheek that made me look twice. after i had settled in and we had passed a few stops, he got up to (i imagine) use the men's room in the next car. on his way back, our eyes met again and he gave me the littlest of smiles -- genuine, and just for me. and i smiled back. it was a perfect moment.

creature comforts

2005-05-04T02:10:00.000-04:00

It was early evening in late spring, and I was sitting at my computer gleefully arranging playlists on my new iPod. Stacks and stacks of CDs lay around me, begging one of the cats to come and topple them in a symphony of muffled scratchy plastic. The windows were wide open, and I could hear the dripping of the birdbath in the back yard. Florian was downstairs watching American Chopper. As I was dragging and dropping my Lucindas and my Jeb Loys and my Bruces into road trip mixes, afternoon nap mixes, and more road trip mixes, I heard a loud THUNK behind me. Immediately sensing something was wrong, I looked out the window, and sure enough, lying on the grass next to the towering Norwegian spruce that commands our tiny back yard with a shady fist, was a birdbox.

Birdboxes are not meant to be on the ground, on their side, with their lids half open.

I screamed and flew downstairs, husband and cats in tow. It was getting dark, that time of night when it's just light enough to see the bats starting to flit swiftly around the chimney, but not light enough to see the color of your hand. We crept up to the box, slowly picked it up and put it on the deck rail. (Harvey, cat #1, watched from the window, dripping drool.) We heard a soft rustling from inside, and my heart sank. Slowly, slowly, we opened the lid. Inside was a creature unlike anything I had ever seen. It was definitely not a bird. Not a mouse (bigger). Not a squirrel (smaller). Not a rat (yicch). But it was something with fur, a tail, and tremendous ears. Its huge, sad eyes stared back at us in abject terror. It sat in a bed of large, wet leaves, and hunched back as far into the box's corner as its haunches would allow. It trembled.

We decided to bring the box to the hedge at the far end of the yard, so it could get out of the box on its own (if it could). As we neared the hedge, we lowered the box closer to the ground. Before we had put it down, the creature FLEW out of the box, jumping a good five feet before landing on the ground and hopping back up, landing safely in the hedge. We could see him breathing hard, but his grip was firm, and we knew he'd make it.

We left him there, and flew back inside to check out our mammal guide.

Have you guessed by now what we saw, Dear Reader? Because we hadn't a clue, until we opened to plates 192 and 193, that we had seen a northern flying squirrel. Apparently, at least here in the Northeast, flying squirrels are more common than grey squirrels. But they're nocturnal, so we lowly humans never see them.

Unless they happen to roost in an old pine birdbox hung by humans on an old pine tree.

wee wee hours

2005-05-04T00:45:00.000-04:00

To be fair, this blog really must begin with an email post from a couple of years ago. Some of these references are dated, and I'm sure the URLs have since corrected themselves, though I suppose I'll leave a followup investigation for another sleepless night. (The Bruce concert deserves a review as well.)

And so it began:

--------------------
"wee wee hours"

march 13, 2003

florian's snoring away like a freight train, and smilla, curled up here in the office with me, looks like a freight train just hit her (it must have been the sudden addition of 75 watts of light).

so after reading 50 pages of harry potter (#4), playing with my palm pilot and adding colors and little birthday-cake icons to people's birthdays (there's a big L for loser next to my own name), reading harry some more, and attempting to sleep (which immediately brought on today's third, count it, third sinus headache), i decided to get up.

just went to look at cnn.com, to confirm something i thought i had seen on the news. yup, definitely something weird on ed smart's lip.

12:15 now. and the beat goes on. on a friend's recommendation, i looked up arihest.com, since as she says this ari hest guy is "the new john mayer." interesting. he has his own logo. he also has something called an "A-Team" where he asks people to talk about him (guerrilla-style) on other sites. going now to see what's at www.johnmayer.com, just to compare. his site features "Local 83: A Listener's Union," whose purpose is "to foster greater interaction between John Mayer and his fans." i'd like to invite him to my new site, stopbeingsuchacockybastard.com.

what else, what else. ah yes. bruce. as a concertgoing ticketholder, i would be interested in any tour info out there that is of import at 12:34 a.m.

ok i think i took a wrong turn somewhere.

i went to www.brucespringsteen.com, and got an unauthorized fan site. bruce's manager must have missed the first internet boat back in the 90s. he *must* have an official site out there. so i decided to check out www.bruce.com -- got "the world's largest hardwood floor manufacturer." ok. wonder what www.bruuuce.com would get me. oh no. "a one-stop resource for Bruce Hornsby material." like i need this? where's the boss when you need him? www.theboss.com is an internet service provider out of alberta. and believe it or not, the www.springsteen.com domain is apparently available for purchase from netidentity.com, where i can "make springsteen.com my email address!"

poor bruce. lost out there, just like me.

maybe he's at www.thunderroad.com. nope. something is "coming soon" but from the looks of this, it ain't bruce. www.borntorun.com gets me to a fan zine, whose list of cool sites starts off with "Great mobile homes of Mississippi." (i admit it, i took the bait. i clicked. "cannot find server." why am i not surprised.) maybe his "wacky patent of the month" link works. look at that! "the page cannot be displayed." the zine's home page lists tour dates for 2000. i'm stuck on a web dead end.

wait. what's that... a link that says "Bruce Springsteen -- the official Sony site." dare i try it? another dead end, or does the answer to bruce's webabouts really come down to a cheap plug for sony? let's see...

indeed --> http://www.sonymusic.com/artists/BruceSpringsteen/

but wait, there's a glimmer of hope. it looks like the real URL is www.brucespringsteen.net, hosted on the sony server. .net? who uses .net? (managers who miss 90s internet boats, that's who.)

eh. it'll do. it's got a nice "search the lyrics" feature. let's see. how many songs come up with the word "car"? 33. "girl"? 80. "radio"? 19. "jersey"? only 7! "wee wee hours"? 4. jeez, come on, i gotta top 80. it's 12:57 a.m. -- my alarm is set for 6:30. time is running out. "time." 64. damn. ok, cars, cars... "ride." 41. he has a song about 41 shots, maybe there's a parallel here. what else, what else. i got it -- "night." YES! 127.

whew.

on that note, good night.
-------------------------------