You know you live in a rural area when your phone rings at 8:30pm and the caller, a woman you've never met, introduces herself as 'your mail lady' and asks do you still have that catalog she delivered in your mailbox today because - she hopes this doesn't sound like it's totally off the wall - she really liked that fleece jacket on the cover and she has been trying to find it on the internet but she can't for the life of her remember the company name for the catalog and - she really hates to ask you - but do you know the catalog she's talking about?
And you do know the catalog she's talking about and you go get it and tell her the company name and - after apologizing that you're making her wait because you need your reading glasses - you read and spell for her the name of the jacket and find the page in the catalog where it gives the colors the jacket comes in and before hanging up you tell her it really does look like a pretty good and warm jacket and you wish her satisfaction with her purchase.
Showing posts with label downeast. Show all posts
Showing posts with label downeast. Show all posts
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Arrestingly Beautiful
Coming back into town from a client meeting yesterday I slowed to pull into the market to drop off a whole bunch of plastic bags for recycling. Because I knew my client visit was going to be mostly a lot of driving with a fairly short time on-site, I had Lucy with me. She loves to ride. I tilt my driver's side mirror so that I can watch her muzzle flap in the wind when she sticks her head out the window. She slays me.
I wait for a local police vehicle traveling west on Route 1, signal my intention to turn, and pull into the parking lot.
The police vehicle pulls behind me into the lot.
I proceed to troll the lot for a parking space - which are much fewer than is normally the case because (1) it's blueberry raking season and (2) it's August on the coast of Maine.
The police vehicle stays right behind me.
I finally find a parking space and pull in. The police vehicle pulls adjacent and stops. OMG. A light out? No seat belt? That adventure in Alaska finally, after 35 years, results in charges?
I get out of the car and the officer walks around in back of my Honda. "Hello there, officer!" I say, smiling broadly, a huge very full plastic bag full of other plastic bags in my hand. "How are you doing today?"
"Great!" he says. "Hey I don't mean to hold you up or anything but I absolutely HAD to ask: Is that a Griffon you have there? I used to have one and they are THE BEST dogs! Well, actually, it was my wife's dog. It came with my wife. They are just the best. Is that a Griffon? I don't mean to hold you up..."
Ignoring my impulse to snicker at his insistent use of the words 'hold up' I explain Lucy's Labradoodle heritage while she decides if she is going to stick her head out the window and deign to let someone in uniform pet her. She decides to growl.
"Now honey," I say. "Don't be mean to the nice policeman." She changes her mind, sniffs his hand, and pants while he pets her. "She sure is pretty," he says.
"People often take her for a small Newfoundland or a Portuguese Water Dog," I say. "She's almost five years old and she gets more wonderful everyday."
"Well she sure is pretty," the policeman opines. "I just had to ask. Don't mean to hold you up. You have a good day, now."
I'm in the market for three seconds with the bags and I remember I need olive oil and it would be nice to get some Maine Ginger Root Brew. In the aisles I see a friend, a new lesbian in a new relationship. We talk. She's trying to understand the mind bending / heartrending turmoil she went through with her very first lover a beautiful trophy girlfriend who was probably also a borderline personality. Yeah, I say. Been there got that t-shirt. We trade stories which mostly boils down to 'no, you're not crazy'. I suggest that, since she and the trophy have been broken up for over a year, she might program her phone to reject this woman's daily calls. That and other stuff. Ninety minutes later I still haven't started looking for Goya olive oil. We move to that aisle and happen upon another friend, a dog person, who has recently found a little lost collie. We're all dog people. The new lesbian and her new partner, with whom she moved in after four months, have eight dogs between them. We commiserate.
The market in my town carries neither Goya olive oil nor Maine Root Ginger soda.
I go out to my car empty-handed to find the battery dead. Apparently I'd been so freaked about the policeman that I'd neglected to entirely turn off the car.
Open the hood. Within seconds there's a woman pulling into the next parking space says hey what's the problem I have jumper cables. We hook them up. Nothing. I'm visualizing many many many dollars flying away to repair alternator trouble. A few more seconds and some guy comes over and says sometimes you have to wiggle them. He reaches in and does the wiggling with the jumper cables. My car starts. Everyone cheers.
On the drive home I explain to Lucy about how I'm so deeply grateful that I'm past the place in my life where I'd be prey to another trophy girlfriend and that if she, herself, wasn't so beautiful none of that in the parking lot would have happened.
She sticks her head out the driver's side window. I watch her muzzle flap.
I wait for a local police vehicle traveling west on Route 1, signal my intention to turn, and pull into the parking lot.
The police vehicle pulls behind me into the lot.
I proceed to troll the lot for a parking space - which are much fewer than is normally the case because (1) it's blueberry raking season and (2) it's August on the coast of Maine.
The police vehicle stays right behind me.
I finally find a parking space and pull in. The police vehicle pulls adjacent and stops. OMG. A light out? No seat belt? That adventure in Alaska finally, after 35 years, results in charges?
I get out of the car and the officer walks around in back of my Honda. "Hello there, officer!" I say, smiling broadly, a huge very full plastic bag full of other plastic bags in my hand. "How are you doing today?"
"Great!" he says. "Hey I don't mean to hold you up or anything but I absolutely HAD to ask: Is that a Griffon you have there? I used to have one and they are THE BEST dogs! Well, actually, it was my wife's dog. It came with my wife. They are just the best. Is that a Griffon? I don't mean to hold you up..."
Ignoring my impulse to snicker at his insistent use of the words 'hold up' I explain Lucy's Labradoodle heritage while she decides if she is going to stick her head out the window and deign to let someone in uniform pet her. She decides to growl.
"Now honey," I say. "Don't be mean to the nice policeman." She changes her mind, sniffs his hand, and pants while he pets her. "She sure is pretty," he says.
"People often take her for a small Newfoundland or a Portuguese Water Dog," I say. "She's almost five years old and she gets more wonderful everyday."
"Well she sure is pretty," the policeman opines. "I just had to ask. Don't mean to hold you up. You have a good day, now."
I'm in the market for three seconds with the bags and I remember I need olive oil and it would be nice to get some Maine Ginger Root Brew. In the aisles I see a friend, a new lesbian in a new relationship. We talk. She's trying to understand the mind bending / heartrending turmoil she went through with her very first lover a beautiful trophy girlfriend who was probably also a borderline personality. Yeah, I say. Been there got that t-shirt. We trade stories which mostly boils down to 'no, you're not crazy'. I suggest that, since she and the trophy have been broken up for over a year, she might program her phone to reject this woman's daily calls. That and other stuff. Ninety minutes later I still haven't started looking for Goya olive oil. We move to that aisle and happen upon another friend, a dog person, who has recently found a little lost collie. We're all dog people. The new lesbian and her new partner, with whom she moved in after four months, have eight dogs between them. We commiserate.
The market in my town carries neither Goya olive oil nor Maine Root Ginger soda.
I go out to my car empty-handed to find the battery dead. Apparently I'd been so freaked about the policeman that I'd neglected to entirely turn off the car.
Open the hood. Within seconds there's a woman pulling into the next parking space says hey what's the problem I have jumper cables. We hook them up. Nothing. I'm visualizing many many many dollars flying away to repair alternator trouble. A few more seconds and some guy comes over and says sometimes you have to wiggle them. He reaches in and does the wiggling with the jumper cables. My car starts. Everyone cheers.
On the drive home I explain to Lucy about how I'm so deeply grateful that I'm past the place in my life where I'd be prey to another trophy girlfriend and that if she, herself, wasn't so beautiful none of that in the parking lot would have happened.
She sticks her head out the driver's side window. I watch her muzzle flap.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Easter Sunday
So, at about 1:30 on Easter Sunday Lucy and I set out for Jasper Beach in Machiasport - one of the only beaches in the world made up of the semi-precious jasper stone and which is recognized by National Geographic Traveler as one of the world's best wild beaches.
Lucy starts to go a little bat shit when I flip the blinker off of Route 1 out of East Machias because she thinks we are going down to the Point of Main, my family land. Or maybe she goes bat shit because she knows we're going to Jasper Beach. Who the hell knows. She's a dog and I'm a human and, unfortunately for humanity, we can't really read each other's minds.
I pull into what passes as a parking lot at Jasper Beach. (Anywhere else this would be a circle dried mud where it's level on the edges but here it passes for a parking lot.) As a city person in a previous life I recognize the leavings of other visitors: fast food wrappers, tampon casings, and two 5-gallon buckets off the trail about fifteen feet which are too suspicious for me to investigate.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
In real time I don't actually get onto the beach for about an hour because there's a mom and a kid about three years of age and this dog. They are returning to their car which is also a Honda Fit. I think, "Jeez. What are the chances of THAT?" Their dog senses Lucy in a way that only other dogs can understand and both their dog and Lucy go bat shit. To make matters worse, their dog is the semi-little variety that always acts, in the presence of other canines, like they are at LEAST three times their actual size.
I wait in my car. The littler dog barks and barks and barks and barks, circling my car and Lucy is returning all the bravada. Their dog shows NO interest in getting into their car. The mom is clearly embarrassed. "He was just perfect for the last two hours but now...." I try to help her but a half hour later I give up and leave the the parking lot.
Long story short: Lucy and I drive down to Starboard, the speck of a village where I grew up. We drive up to Bucks Harbor and down to the boat launch. Wasting time. In my mind I'm getting less charitable about the fact that a dog is keeping us from our walk. On our way back to Jasper Beach I am relieved to see the mom and the kid and their little dog heading outta there in their car and that, finally, Lucy and I can go for our walk.
It's not until I get out of my car that I see that the fucking little dog has scratched up both the driver's side and the passenger sides of my car. Curses. Curses. Curses.
Lucy and I hit the beach. There are sticks to be thrown. Incoming tide in which to swim. Things to in the wind and on the beach to smell. There is lots of running. On Lucy's part. There is nice meeting up with a poker buddy and her golden lab, also walking one of the world's best beaches. A much, much, much more civilized exchange. Very quiet, actually. I observe that canines have their codes - just like us. My poker buddy and I catch up on the news of the day, mutual friends, observations about canines.
On my return to the car - where I have fresh water for Lucy, there is a couple with their chocolate lab and a kite. The same couple who got married on the beach yesterday? They appear engrossed enough. They are on the wrong side of the berm to get the wind but I don't tell them that. Instead I make a mental note to bring my kite the next time Lucy and I come to Jasper Beach.
It's Easter. We return to the house, twenty minutes away at 30 miles an hour. Perhaps the sun is warm enough to support time on the deck with recent New Yorker magazines and a drink. Lucy and I are out there for about 30 minutes in the watery late afternoon sun. On the next hill a neighbor surveys garden plots accompanied by a little child and three dogs - one of which is a Newfoundland that looks as big as a calf. Their turkeys gobble gobble gobble every minute or so. Lucy sleeps as I read about a new Director at the Metropolitan Opera: Tosca having been "a disaster". I loved their Tosca production. What does that make me? A prototypical example of the next wave of opera lover? Or something else?
Lucy starts to go a little bat shit when I flip the blinker off of Route 1 out of East Machias because she thinks we are going down to the Point of Main, my family land. Or maybe she goes bat shit because she knows we're going to Jasper Beach. Who the hell knows. She's a dog and I'm a human and, unfortunately for humanity, we can't really read each other's minds.
I pull into what passes as a parking lot at Jasper Beach. (Anywhere else this would be a circle dried mud where it's level on the edges but here it passes for a parking lot.) As a city person in a previous life I recognize the leavings of other visitors: fast food wrappers, tampon casings, and two 5-gallon buckets off the trail about fifteen feet which are too suspicious for me to investigate.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
In real time I don't actually get onto the beach for about an hour because there's a mom and a kid about three years of age and this dog. They are returning to their car which is also a Honda Fit. I think, "Jeez. What are the chances of THAT?" Their dog senses Lucy in a way that only other dogs can understand and both their dog and Lucy go bat shit. To make matters worse, their dog is the semi-little variety that always acts, in the presence of other canines, like they are at LEAST three times their actual size.
I wait in my car. The littler dog barks and barks and barks and barks, circling my car and Lucy is returning all the bravada. Their dog shows NO interest in getting into their car. The mom is clearly embarrassed. "He was just perfect for the last two hours but now...." I try to help her but a half hour later I give up and leave the the parking lot.
Long story short: Lucy and I drive down to Starboard, the speck of a village where I grew up. We drive up to Bucks Harbor and down to the boat launch. Wasting time. In my mind I'm getting less charitable about the fact that a dog is keeping us from our walk. On our way back to Jasper Beach I am relieved to see the mom and the kid and their little dog heading outta there in their car and that, finally, Lucy and I can go for our walk.
It's not until I get out of my car that I see that the fucking little dog has scratched up both the driver's side and the passenger sides of my car. Curses. Curses. Curses.
Lucy and I hit the beach. There are sticks to be thrown. Incoming tide in which to swim. Things to in the wind and on the beach to smell. There is lots of running. On Lucy's part. There is nice meeting up with a poker buddy and her golden lab, also walking one of the world's best beaches. A much, much, much more civilized exchange. Very quiet, actually. I observe that canines have their codes - just like us. My poker buddy and I catch up on the news of the day, mutual friends, observations about canines.
On my return to the car - where I have fresh water for Lucy, there is a couple with their chocolate lab and a kite. The same couple who got married on the beach yesterday? They appear engrossed enough. They are on the wrong side of the berm to get the wind but I don't tell them that. Instead I make a mental note to bring my kite the next time Lucy and I come to Jasper Beach.
It's Easter. We return to the house, twenty minutes away at 30 miles an hour. Perhaps the sun is warm enough to support time on the deck with recent New Yorker magazines and a drink. Lucy and I are out there for about 30 minutes in the watery late afternoon sun. On the next hill a neighbor surveys garden plots accompanied by a little child and three dogs - one of which is a Newfoundland that looks as big as a calf. Their turkeys gobble gobble gobble every minute or so. Lucy sleeps as I read about a new Director at the Metropolitan Opera: Tosca having been "a disaster". I loved their Tosca production. What does that make me? A prototypical example of the next wave of opera lover? Or something else?
Monday, November 2, 2009
I have voted NO on Question 1
I have voted NO on One. Here's why:
- This question is fundamentally about equality;
- All tax paying, law abiding citizens should have the full, unadulterated benefits of citizenship;
- All citizens should be able to direct and receive inheritance, decide who visits in the hospital, and how their end of life transacts;
- No citizen should be forced to take on considerable financial expense to obtain legal contracts that, essentially, finesse the benefits and assurances granted to same-gender commitments;
- In the history of our state and our nation "Separate But Equal" has consistently failed to fulfill its original intentions. Consider: School segregation, the Tuskegee Airmen, and women in the military. Better yet, consider Washington County's status in relation to the rest of the State of Maine.
This I know and this I believe.
I encourage all who have not yet voted to take these considerations into your hearts.
Then join me in voting NO on One.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Storm
Here I am, up with Lucy at 4:15 as she shivers and pants her way through the storm that's plowing through here this a.m. It's raining cats and frogs and there's nearly continual thunder and lightening.
The power is out.
I'm hoping that the stuff I gave Lucy will take effect some time soon. I am beginning to wish I hadn't stopped work on that ark. And forget the equivocation on the "nearly continual" thunder and lightening. It's an all the time thing.
I presently live about 2/10ths of a mile from where my grandmother used to live when I was a kid. I used to stay with her a lot in the summer. I never had any fear of thunder and lightening but I guess she must have had some. Whenever there was a thunder and lightening storm she used to wake me up, get me more or less dressed (like, I'd have a coat and socks and shoes plus my pajamas), and she'd get us out to the car, having unplugged everything in the house. Then she'd drive around - my grandfather never went with us on these drives - until the storm had passed.
She drove around town, what there is/was of one; we never stopped to watch the storm action and we almost never talked during the drive. She just drove. Then the storm would be over. She'd drive back home, fix some Lipton tea with milk, and we'd go back to bed.
This storm is moving off as I write. Sounds like to the northeast. It should be quiet enough in less than an hour, if it continues to travel at its current speed, for Lucy to settle down and for me to go back to bed.
Ah geeeez. Another rain band barreling through.
I've unplugged my computer and the other electronics. The sky has lightened and morning is here.
'scuse me while I go make some tea.
The power is out.
I'm hoping that the stuff I gave Lucy will take effect some time soon. I am beginning to wish I hadn't stopped work on that ark. And forget the equivocation on the "nearly continual" thunder and lightening. It's an all the time thing.
I presently live about 2/10ths of a mile from where my grandmother used to live when I was a kid. I used to stay with her a lot in the summer. I never had any fear of thunder and lightening but I guess she must have had some. Whenever there was a thunder and lightening storm she used to wake me up, get me more or less dressed (like, I'd have a coat and socks and shoes plus my pajamas), and she'd get us out to the car, having unplugged everything in the house. Then she'd drive around - my grandfather never went with us on these drives - until the storm had passed.
She drove around town, what there is/was of one; we never stopped to watch the storm action and we almost never talked during the drive. She just drove. Then the storm would be over. She'd drive back home, fix some Lipton tea with milk, and we'd go back to bed.
This storm is moving off as I write. Sounds like to the northeast. It should be quiet enough in less than an hour, if it continues to travel at its current speed, for Lucy to settle down and for me to go back to bed.
Ah geeeez. Another rain band barreling through.
I've unplugged my computer and the other electronics. The sky has lightened and morning is here.
'scuse me while I go make some tea.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Letter to the Editor: Transport Stim for SoME - Ditches a'brim with money and jobs
Editor:
Re the Blaine House announcement that Maine's $162 million share of the transportation portion of the stimulus package will be used to upgrade roads, railways and waterways, primarily in southern Maine:
I'm so thankful I live in Washington County where all our highways, byways, and bridges are in the same pristine condition now as when they were laid. I'm glad for our transport infrastructure that speeds commerce to and from our towns and villages with 21st century efficiency.
And, oh yeah, while I'm at it, I'm moved to note that I'm grateful that all our homes and businesses in Washington County are wired with 3G broadband and that our cell towers are strategically distributed so that we are blessed, in every regard, with connectivity to the globe which enables the engine of industry to chug away 24/7 - bringing good fortune and prosperity to every citizen here in our little piece of heaven.
That's GOT to be the reason that decision-makers in Augusta have determined that all $162 million dollars of Maine's share of transportation stimulus - and the jobs the work will create - will be apportioned entirely to southern Maine, right?
What other reason could there be?
Re the Blaine House announcement that Maine's $162 million share of the transportation portion of the stimulus package will be used to upgrade roads, railways and waterways, primarily in southern Maine:
I'm so thankful I live in Washington County where all our highways, byways, and bridges are in the same pristine condition now as when they were laid. I'm glad for our transport infrastructure that speeds commerce to and from our towns and villages with 21st century efficiency.
And, oh yeah, while I'm at it, I'm moved to note that I'm grateful that all our homes and businesses in Washington County are wired with 3G broadband and that our cell towers are strategically distributed so that we are blessed, in every regard, with connectivity to the globe which enables the engine of industry to chug away 24/7 - bringing good fortune and prosperity to every citizen here in our little piece of heaven.
That's GOT to be the reason that decision-makers in Augusta have determined that all $162 million dollars of Maine's share of transportation stimulus - and the jobs the work will create - will be apportioned entirely to southern Maine, right?
What other reason could there be?
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Insidious
It's like being a figure in an O'Henry story: Tiny, tiny particles of ice falling and falling. If you are out in it for a minute or two you hardly notice it. If the particles land on something warm, something that's alive, they melt immediately. But if they fall on something inert, like pavement or windshield or wood pile or porch it freezes and becomes another tiny, tiny particle in a layer that builds and builds and takes on weight and form. A sheen gathers on everything.
During the big ice storm of whatever year that was I was living in California in the Bay Area. The place that personified The Idea of California. Our storms, then, consisted of wind and rain that inspired me to wonder if my car could be randomly flung through the spaces between the Bay Bridge supports. To wonder if I and my 1965 VW Bug, which could be repaired with a screw driver, would land in the deadly waters of San Francisco Bay. Many scary commutes on that bridge that winter. But I had faith in the bridge. It had, after all, been put back together after our earthquake and had, somewhere on the structure, at least one protective gargoyle installed by the welders of 1989.
Anyway, The Ice Storm. My experience of it consisted of listening to NPR broadcasts from The Bluebird Restaurant in Machias - where they had a generator. And getting updates from my mother and her husband who kept their wood stove going and who urged the repair people, on the 9th day, to go help someone else because - after they got two hours of electricity - they were getting along fine. And second-hand reports of my father and his wife who were living off the grid and who were vaguely aware that the rest of Maine was having a really hard time.
This is no Ice Storm. (The Bluebird Restaurant now has a sandwich named after The Ice Storm. It's a comfort food classic: real turkey and lots of gravy on top of white bread plus cranberry sauce and a roll or two. It's a meal to warm the needy heart of any local Calvinist. I don't eat out much now but this sandwich is what I order when I'm at The Bluebird these days. It's predictable.)
But the way the particles fall and fall from the sky, slowly building up, while my lights are on and I'm listening to music and talking with my community on the internet...it's insidious.
During the big ice storm of whatever year that was I was living in California in the Bay Area. The place that personified The Idea of California. Our storms, then, consisted of wind and rain that inspired me to wonder if my car could be randomly flung through the spaces between the Bay Bridge supports. To wonder if I and my 1965 VW Bug, which could be repaired with a screw driver, would land in the deadly waters of San Francisco Bay. Many scary commutes on that bridge that winter. But I had faith in the bridge. It had, after all, been put back together after our earthquake and had, somewhere on the structure, at least one protective gargoyle installed by the welders of 1989.
Anyway, The Ice Storm. My experience of it consisted of listening to NPR broadcasts from The Bluebird Restaurant in Machias - where they had a generator. And getting updates from my mother and her husband who kept their wood stove going and who urged the repair people, on the 9th day, to go help someone else because - after they got two hours of electricity - they were getting along fine. And second-hand reports of my father and his wife who were living off the grid and who were vaguely aware that the rest of Maine was having a really hard time.
This is no Ice Storm. (The Bluebird Restaurant now has a sandwich named after The Ice Storm. It's a comfort food classic: real turkey and lots of gravy on top of white bread plus cranberry sauce and a roll or two. It's a meal to warm the needy heart of any local Calvinist. I don't eat out much now but this sandwich is what I order when I'm at The Bluebird these days. It's predictable.)
But the way the particles fall and fall from the sky, slowly building up, while my lights are on and I'm listening to music and talking with my community on the internet...it's insidious.
Friday, May 23, 2008
The Continuing Chronicles of a Lesbian and Her Dog
Last night the Lady of the House came home with her dog, Lucy, who had spent the previous several hours running at top speed with her sister, Peggy, in and out of semi-dry clay puddles left in the yard on family land, about 15 miles from where I live, by the well drillers working to put in running water there.
When I got home I checked my email, as I always do I hate to admit, and, as always, Lucy flung herself down at the foot of my chair while I was at the keyboard.
It having been near dark when I corralled her into the back seat of my car I hadn't seen the extent nor the density of the clay which was clinging to nearly every inch of Lucy's body and I continued to be oblivious until she got up from near my chair and left a measurable oval of clay dust and grit in the spot she had been dozing. Then she shook herself. A veritable cloud came off of her six feet in every direction. Nothing to do but give her a bath.
So into the tub we both go, one of us more instinctually than the other. I turn on the water which, if I was a dog, might sound like Niagara Falls what with the sound bouncing off the closed bath stall doors. Lucy's shaking like a leaf and panting up a storm and I'm telling her that she's going to be just fine and the grit is pouring off of her and she's trying to keep her feet dry which, given the circumstances, is of course impossible and anyway why the hell didn't she think of keeping her feet dry when she was barreling through those puddles earlier?
If only I had had some Poop-freeze I might have sprayed the puddles of mud and hair, waited a moment for the liquid to turn to solid slab, simply lifted the chunks into a dustpan, tossed, and wiped my hands on my apron.
Alas. Life is more complex now than it was when Ladies Of The House wore aprons. This is true even in the speck of a town where I live, never mind the mere nanosecond of a place where the well drillers were working. Nothing is simple anymore. This is lavishly illustrated by the fact that when someone sends you a joke email about Poop-freeze, and you Google the product, you get 22,300 returns.
Lucy lost about 70% of the grit in the tub. Another 10% came off on the three white towels I used in my feeble attempt to dry her off. (I only own white towels which, in most circumstances, fulfill my every need.) An additional 5%, + or - 2%, is on the bathroom floor, the dining room floor, the kitchen floor, the rug in the living room, and the two spots on the carpet where she slept in my bedroom. The rest is still on her and will need to be gotten off by, perhaps, a swim in a lake. Or perhaps, if there was such a thing, the rinse and spin cycles of a doggie washing machine. Now THERE'S an invention that's waiting for American ingenuity.
Since Lucy wouldn't have any of my ideas about using a blow-dryer, she went to bed damp. The well drillers, on the other hand, were successful. So, eventually, one will be able to turn a lever and have water come out from a faucet, automatically, where now one applies muscle power at an ancient hand pump. Miracles.
When I got home I checked my email, as I always do I hate to admit, and, as always, Lucy flung herself down at the foot of my chair while I was at the keyboard.
It having been near dark when I corralled her into the back seat of my car I hadn't seen the extent nor the density of the clay which was clinging to nearly every inch of Lucy's body and I continued to be oblivious until she got up from near my chair and left a measurable oval of clay dust and grit in the spot she had been dozing. Then she shook herself. A veritable cloud came off of her six feet in every direction. Nothing to do but give her a bath.
So into the tub we both go, one of us more instinctually than the other. I turn on the water which, if I was a dog, might sound like Niagara Falls what with the sound bouncing off the closed bath stall doors. Lucy's shaking like a leaf and panting up a storm and I'm telling her that she's going to be just fine and the grit is pouring off of her and she's trying to keep her feet dry which, given the circumstances, is of course impossible and anyway why the hell didn't she think of keeping her feet dry when she was barreling through those puddles earlier?
If only I had had some Poop-freeze I might have sprayed the puddles of mud and hair, waited a moment for the liquid to turn to solid slab, simply lifted the chunks into a dustpan, tossed, and wiped my hands on my apron.
Alas. Life is more complex now than it was when Ladies Of The House wore aprons. This is true even in the speck of a town where I live, never mind the mere nanosecond of a place where the well drillers were working. Nothing is simple anymore. This is lavishly illustrated by the fact that when someone sends you a joke email about Poop-freeze, and you Google the product, you get 22,300 returns.
Lucy lost about 70% of the grit in the tub. Another 10% came off on the three white towels I used in my feeble attempt to dry her off. (I only own white towels which, in most circumstances, fulfill my every need.) An additional 5%, + or - 2%, is on the bathroom floor, the dining room floor, the kitchen floor, the rug in the living room, and the two spots on the carpet where she slept in my bedroom. The rest is still on her and will need to be gotten off by, perhaps, a swim in a lake. Or perhaps, if there was such a thing, the rinse and spin cycles of a doggie washing machine. Now THERE'S an invention that's waiting for American ingenuity.
Since Lucy wouldn't have any of my ideas about using a blow-dryer, she went to bed damp. The well drillers, on the other hand, were successful. So, eventually, one will be able to turn a lever and have water come out from a faucet, automatically, where now one applies muscle power at an ancient hand pump. Miracles.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Terrorists and Angels
I bought the Weekly World News today for $1.89 just so I could own the picture.Plus I get to learn how blowing your nose makes you stupid (page 21) and whether the Vatican will make the three stooges saints (page 47).
Rome better work fast because on page 10 there's a story - dateline Washington - about how angels have been declared an endangered species - so it sounds like they have vacancies to fill.
The feds arrested Ted Sargo, a duck hunter who allegedly lives in Jackson County Alabama, for shooting an angel - one of the over 200 cases reported to authorities so far this year.
They think that another 1000 such accidents have gone unreported because people keep mistaking angels for ducks, deer, and wild pigs. Some angels have even been killed by lawnmowers and trash compactors.
An insider has been quoted as stating, "You better believe President George W. Bush is going to get personally involved."
I sure hope so. Or better still, maybe they could add him to that saints list, too.
Haying
You stand in a field where there's been hay mowed and bailed and tied with a machine that has not had to be improved upon since it was invented during the Industrial Revolution. Most people have shown up to the field at about 4:00 p.m. not because it's a job or anything but because they're just helping the hay provider because he's helped them in the past or they know him or some reason like that.
Hopefully you have gloves. (I had forgotten mine but no one else was wearing them either so even if I'da had them I wouldn'ta worn them. This is just a point of toughness on my part - seeing as I'm a city kid returned to the village I feel like I should take every opportunity to show that I still can take the pain just like all the folks who live there all the time. In that neck of the proverbial woods, for example, no one wears sunglasses. They just squint. It's like umbrellas - they're a sure sign you're a tourist - people who have lived here for generation just get wet and figure the weather will change in a while....)
So you're in the field. Some guy drives a big flat bed up and you throw the bales (which weigh about 30 pounds each when you start but by the time you're done they weigh at least 50) head-high onto the bed where some other guy stacks them according to a method only he knows about. The point is to do it in such a way as to prevent to hay from falling off the truck when it's on the road in traffic and there's about a mile of cars behind it and everyone in each car in hoping that the truck will pull off into the next driveway.
After the flat bed is loaded you stand around for about 45 minutes telling
stories about each other and horses and the weather and other fields you've hayed and fishing until finally, on some invisible signal, everyone just stops talking and heads to the assorted cars and trucks and you pull off onto the highway behind the flat bed and head to the destination barn.
Once you're at the destination barn some guys set up the conveyor belt from the ground near the flatbed to the loft in the barn while more stories are told. Then you throw the bales down from the flat bed and up waist-high onto the conveyor which takes the bales up to the loft where four or five people stack them according to a plan only they know which allows as many bales as possible to get tucked in there while still leaving room for the owner to get at them throughout the winter efficiently. This is done simultaneously with still more stories offered about each other interspersed with discussions about the design of the barn loft and praise or derision for the guy who built it.
When the loft is about as full as it can get some guy who's been keeping track of the total number of bales supplied (on this night it was 748 - a rather small load) calls out to stop, the number of bales is yelled down to the provider who strolls over to the livestock owner and works out payment.
Now the job is considered done and the only thing to do is to break down the conveyor and while offering some guesses about what tomorrow's weather may be so that everyone can gauge about showing up if it's going to be a dry day. No one is asked directly whether they'll show and no one makes any commitments but since no one says they won't be there, it's assumed that everyone will be.
By now it's about 11:00 or midnight or 2:00 a.m. so everyone's out of stories and besides, most of these people also have their own jobs to go to in the morning so everyone calls it quits and piles into the various cars and trucks and leaves down the road home.
I got a huge blister on my right ring finger, chaff cuts all up and down my arms, and hay dust in my nose, hair, and clothing but l loved every minute of it.
Hopefully you have gloves. (I had forgotten mine but no one else was wearing them either so even if I'da had them I wouldn'ta worn them. This is just a point of toughness on my part - seeing as I'm a city kid returned to the village I feel like I should take every opportunity to show that I still can take the pain just like all the folks who live there all the time. In that neck of the proverbial woods, for example, no one wears sunglasses. They just squint. It's like umbrellas - they're a sure sign you're a tourist - people who have lived here for generation just get wet and figure the weather will change in a while....)
So you're in the field. Some guy drives a big flat bed up and you throw the bales (which weigh about 30 pounds each when you start but by the time you're done they weigh at least 50) head-high onto the bed where some other guy stacks them according to a method only he knows about. The point is to do it in such a way as to prevent to hay from falling off the truck when it's on the road in traffic and there's about a mile of cars behind it and everyone in each car in hoping that the truck will pull off into the next driveway.
After the flat bed is loaded you stand around for about 45 minutes telling
stories about each other and horses and the weather and other fields you've hayed and fishing until finally, on some invisible signal, everyone just stops talking and heads to the assorted cars and trucks and you pull off onto the highway behind the flat bed and head to the destination barn.
Once you're at the destination barn some guys set up the conveyor belt from the ground near the flatbed to the loft in the barn while more stories are told. Then you throw the bales down from the flat bed and up waist-high onto the conveyor which takes the bales up to the loft where four or five people stack them according to a plan only they know which allows as many bales as possible to get tucked in there while still leaving room for the owner to get at them throughout the winter efficiently. This is done simultaneously with still more stories offered about each other interspersed with discussions about the design of the barn loft and praise or derision for the guy who built it.
When the loft is about as full as it can get some guy who's been keeping track of the total number of bales supplied (on this night it was 748 - a rather small load) calls out to stop, the number of bales is yelled down to the provider who strolls over to the livestock owner and works out payment.
Now the job is considered done and the only thing to do is to break down the conveyor and while offering some guesses about what tomorrow's weather may be so that everyone can gauge about showing up if it's going to be a dry day. No one is asked directly whether they'll show and no one makes any commitments but since no one says they won't be there, it's assumed that everyone will be.
By now it's about 11:00 or midnight or 2:00 a.m. so everyone's out of stories and besides, most of these people also have their own jobs to go to in the morning so everyone calls it quits and piles into the various cars and trucks and leaves down the road home.
I got a huge blister on my right ring finger, chaff cuts all up and down my arms, and hay dust in my nose, hair, and clothing but l loved every minute of it.
When I Lived in The City
It's summer in Chicago.
Driving out of the neighborhood where I'm staying and where I never see another white person (other than my house mates - urban 'pioneers' - and the occasional bevy of parents in Dockers and cargo shorts, and their peewee softball kids in their uniforms, carrying picnic baskets behind the fence at the high school), I see a guy and his two friends hanging on the corner outside of the liquor and grocery. He's shimmying to something I can't hear but the python around his shoulders doesn't seem to mind. It's an affordable model that's only about four and a half feet long and he has to shift it around several times while I wait for the light. Maybe he's new at owning a snake. His friends are all looking directly into his face as they talk, way too cool to acknowledge about the python or even look at it.
Traffic starts to move again and I continue down to this cafe to work and be on the WIFI and on the way I spy a woman and this guy who's pushing her against a car, his forearm at her throat, and she's crying so I drive around the block and by the time I get back to where they were she's there by herself still crying. I pull over: her former boyfriend...she called him lots of times today so he stomped his phone, tried to strangle her, took money from her to get a new phone, and took her car. She's worried about her dog. I tell her to get some phone numbers from the police when they arrive for some battered women's hotlines. She acts like it's the first time anyone's suggested "battered woman" to her. She says, "I'm a graduate student and I work hard for my money."
Driving out of the neighborhood where I'm staying and where I never see another white person (other than my house mates - urban 'pioneers' - and the occasional bevy of parents in Dockers and cargo shorts, and their peewee softball kids in their uniforms, carrying picnic baskets behind the fence at the high school), I see a guy and his two friends hanging on the corner outside of the liquor and grocery. He's shimmying to something I can't hear but the python around his shoulders doesn't seem to mind. It's an affordable model that's only about four and a half feet long and he has to shift it around several times while I wait for the light. Maybe he's new at owning a snake. His friends are all looking directly into his face as they talk, way too cool to acknowledge about the python or even look at it.
Traffic starts to move again and I continue down to this cafe to work and be on the WIFI and on the way I spy a woman and this guy who's pushing her against a car, his forearm at her throat, and she's crying so I drive around the block and by the time I get back to where they were she's there by herself still crying. I pull over: her former boyfriend...she called him lots of times today so he stomped his phone, tried to strangle her, took money from her to get a new phone, and took her car. She's worried about her dog. I tell her to get some phone numbers from the police when they arrive for some battered women's hotlines. She acts like it's the first time anyone's suggested "battered woman" to her. She says, "I'm a graduate student and I work hard for my money."
It's the driest summer here since the Dust Bowl - really. Lawns are burning up and probably the Lakes are thirsty but the humidity is lower than usual. The Saturday NY Times says that Sunday's NY Times will have an article in the Travel section about how the glaciers are melting in Alaska and tourists are flocking there in huge numbers to see them because maybe this is the last time. Bet only a few of them took public transit to the airports. This is what it's come to.
Went out to my car on Monday morning to find that I'd been hit-and-runned. Driver's door wouldn't open. There was a note on my windshield: "License plate that hit your car .... grey mercury villager." Called my ins company, the police, and Enterprise. The cop arrived and within fifteen minutes had determined that the plate number belonged to someone up the street - who left the van with paint from my car still on it parked outside their house. The tow truck didn't arrive until 3:00. Enterprise didn't arrive until 4:30 but in the end they did pick me up. At first it sounded like these geniuses weren't insured but now they've come up with they are insured with Allstate. Not for long, though, because when Allstate gets done with them - shunting them off to their high risk secondary market - they'll be paying so much for car insurance they'll have to get three jobs just to handle it. And when Allstate found out that I work at home office - well.... not so much push back on reimbursing for lost wages. So it'll be about $2K in insurance money to repair my car which I will have back, I hope, sometime next week.
Drove in the red Dodge Neon rental car to see a doc on Tuesday - a referral from my physical therapist. The doc, after about a half hour, says she's thinking that I'll need a right hip replacement and is referring me to another doc in her practice. I see him on Wednesday. Perhaps I don't need to indicate that this wasn't in The Plan. I'm practicing saying it just in case it really happens.
But let's look on the sunny side: (1) Chicago is the best place to have these things done; (2) the technology is such that perhaps I can have minimally invasive surgery; (3) my friend Rob says that all the defective hip replacement parts have already been removed from the market per this malpractice suit he's working on - so the parts are off the market re new surgeries but are already in 6 million people. (4) The chances of septic infection are only 1:100 - perhaps not a ratio that one could call part of the sunny side. (5) I'm likely too young and mentally active to have major side effects from general anesthesia that have been found in Alzheimer patients.
But let's look on the sunny side: (1) Chicago is the best place to have these things done; (2) the technology is such that perhaps I can have minimally invasive surgery; (3) my friend Rob says that all the defective hip replacement parts have already been removed from the market per this malpractice suit he's working on - so the parts are off the market re new surgeries but are already in 6 million people. (4) The chances of septic infection are only 1:100 - perhaps not a ratio that one could call part of the sunny side. (5) I'm likely too young and mentally active to have major side effects from general anesthesia that have been found in Alzheimer patients.
Opera
I am an untutored listener to opera. I enjoy it very loud.
Two opera memories:
(1) Splitting wood on a cool autumn day, before Ipods, the CD playing on my car stereo next to where I was set up with the ax and the woodpile.
(2) The day after Thanksgiving years ago, driving through flurries, leftovers on the back seat, with a close friend who lived in a log house on the lake to my village by the ocean where we'd met years before, We planned to have lunch overlooking a spot where my friend and I had spent, years earlier, memorable summer days and evenings. She was in her mid-60's then and evidencing early onset Alzheimer's Disease. No one but she knew that I was in the area for Thanksgiving week to see her. Three Tenors playing over the tape deck as I drove. My first exposure to opera. I'd known her all those years and had not been aware that she loved this music. It was still flurrying when we got to the village but the weather cleared a little while we ate our turkey and stuffing sandwiches. Suddenly my younger brother walked up the dirt road. We gave him a sandwich and a ride to where he was keeping his motorcycle. Music again on the drive back to the lake. Within ten years the Alzheimer's would ravage her and my brother would be dead.
That's opera.
Two opera memories:
(1) Splitting wood on a cool autumn day, before Ipods, the CD playing on my car stereo next to where I was set up with the ax and the woodpile.
(2) The day after Thanksgiving years ago, driving through flurries, leftovers on the back seat, with a close friend who lived in a log house on the lake to my village by the ocean where we'd met years before, We planned to have lunch overlooking a spot where my friend and I had spent, years earlier, memorable summer days and evenings. She was in her mid-60's then and evidencing early onset Alzheimer's Disease. No one but she knew that I was in the area for Thanksgiving week to see her. Three Tenors playing over the tape deck as I drove. My first exposure to opera. I'd known her all those years and had not been aware that she loved this music. It was still flurrying when we got to the village but the weather cleared a little while we ate our turkey and stuffing sandwiches. Suddenly my younger brother walked up the dirt road. We gave him a sandwich and a ride to where he was keeping his motorcycle. Music again on the drive back to the lake. Within ten years the Alzheimer's would ravage her and my brother would be dead.
That's opera.
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