Maybe I should shovel

Although the hefty batch we got just before Christmas was all the snow I needed this winter, today’s is at least picturesque, without the dubious promise of 2 feet lingering on the ground for weeks on end. No, it should be well and completely dispatched by Tuesday, so today--a Saturday--I’m not minding it. In fact, I’ll pop a log or two in and sit facing the fireplace once Gabe has ended his marathon shower, and I’m certain the exhaust fan is off. What I don’t want to do, when it’s 17〫F outside, is suck smoke into the house and have to open windows.

Jeff wants coffee. He pulls a random bag of rock-hard beans out of the freezer and waves it at me. “Do we have something high-test to use?” he inquires. I take the frozen bag and put it back, then make him a 4-cup pot. It’s not that I’m trying to make the coffee-making procedure arcane but, even at its simplest, it’s got too many steps for Jeff. At the moment we have a freezer shelf well-stocked with various bags of ground fair-trade beans, brought back by Katherine from her last business trip to Central America. So, my usual protocol--mix equal parts caffeinated and decaf, store in ziplocs, grind just before brewing--has been temporarily disrupted to allow for grinding the decaf, then mixing with the El Salvadoran, or Panamanian, or Mexican pre-ground, and pushing “go.”

The fire has started, its cooperation finessed by use of a mini java-log starter, and now I suspect that the Estonian timber will not last long. The bread machine is rattling along through its first knead cycle in the kitchen, and the dog is gazing dolefully out the front window, wishing someone would take her out to play “Balto.” Perhaps this afternoon, mukluks strapped in place, I will.

The next chapter of my story awaits, ready for me to fill in the details of a new setting. It’s a tower, at the top of which lives and works a wealthy eccentric...but the devil--as they say--is in the details, and Clarence my muse seems reluctant to take him on.

Gabe is proposing Candid Camera-style scenarios. “What if a family is in the kitchen, and a person they don’t know walks down the stairs, and casually asks if they have any milk?” I’m supposed to have a good answer to this sort of question. I wonder about Gabe’s roommate for next year. Will he dig a discussion about the relative merits of being able to control dust with your mind versus having the power to enlist the assistance of every lightning bug in the vicinity? Meanwhile, Gabe has selected a phase B plan--he’ll ask for deferred admission to a school in North Carolina which has accepted him. Then, after a preparatory year in Connecticut, he can stay or transfer. There are hurdles--for instance, I still have to take him driving until I get him licensed--but I feel, at least, like I’m clearing them, one at a time, without too many skinned knees.

No fowl.

How much of a nuisance can a scruffy thing weighing in at about 7 pounds be? Somewhat. As we returned from morning errands, Hazel’s bid for attention took the form of bopping sundry items--from pens to a stack of newspapers--off the kitchen table, maximizing their splat value. She did not catch on, until I set one of the bags down, and she stuck her small, slightly scabby head inside, that one of our calls had been to the purveyor of fowl-free kitty foods, otherwise known as “Crunchies Natural Pet Foods.”

You’d hope that a kitty you rescued as a desperate and homeless six-month old, 10 years ago, by tossing a hoodie over her and taking her home, would have the courtesy to not be an unnecessary expense. But, for reasons known only to her mast cells and basophils (and they’re not talking,) bird in her diet will provoke her to lick herself into a bald, gooey, pink thing.

It took some time to completely figure this out. Several years ago, when this all started, the standard-issue “hypo-allergenic” food for cats, purchased through the veterinarian, was made of duck and green peas. I thought I was doing all I could, yet I still had to cart her in every 3-4 month for a steroid injection when the bald pink patches appeared. Clearly not a healthy choice. A couple years into this protocol, the vet informed me that now duck was considered to have similar allergenicity to chicken. At this point I turned to Crunchies, 15 minutes down the road, to seek alternatives.

Chicken-free cat food at the grocery store would be a rare find but, at Crunchies, I can come home poorer in cash, but well-stocked with small cans containing venison, rabbit, lamb (Forest Friends, Becca calls it,) and seafood of assorted stripes. Each new variety must be put to the test. When you open a can of food that your cat doesn’t like, she doesn’t say “Thanks for trying, but it appears that somebody put the bass-o-matic on 'chop’ instead of ‘puree.’” No, she leaves off the “thanks” part altogether, and just stares at you the way the aliens at the end of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull stare at Cate Blanchett just before they make her head combust. So you say “Aha...‘Outback Grille’ is out, eh? How about some nice ‘Polynesian BBQ?’” Actually, you rarely offer a second choice. Once a variety has been established as “acceptable,” subsequent refusals will nix it from a position on the “buy” list, but my on-the-spot response will be more along the lines of, “Fine then. Looks like it’s nothing but fishy kibbles for you today.” So far my head has not exploded from the glaring.

She has not required a steroid injection in almost 2 years though, thanks to her bird-free diet. She’s still a bit of an itchier-than-average thing...I guess some of us just come into the world that way.

Chessie, on the other hand, is permitted a dish of chicken-based kibbles in the garage, where Hazel never goes. (Having spent her first winter alone, outdoors, and cold, Hazel does not trust outside, and will not go there.) Hazel and Chessie rarely have matching preferences in canned food, though they both favor rabbit. (I realize that rabbits must breed quickly, because they apparently taste too good not to.) They both universally panned this morning’s selection. So much so that Chessie crankily bopped Hazel on the head, and Hazel doubled the intensity of her laser-stare. “Marbella Paella” has been culled from the list. Another breakfast down.

I've neither a sent nor a kroon, but perhaps a Euro...

My dad collected coins when he was a kid. They lived in a box, in the upper reaches of my parents' closet, and one day--when I was about 12--he let me choose one. Maybe he hoped, since I'd been pretty much a wash-out in my half-hearted venture into his current hobby--basketball (he coached,) that an interest in numismatics might provide an intellectual diversion from my usual vague activities of tromping through the woods and neglecting to brush my hair. (My brother collected stamps and encyclopedic knowledge. My sister collected straight A report cards and horse-show ribbons. I collected dirt under the fingernails and dust under my bed.) 

As it happens, it didn't take. But I remember the coin I chose. It was an Estonian "1 sent."  (plural: senti.) It was tiny and cute, and that was the basis on which I'd selected it. I knew nothing about Estonia. I don't know what became of that coin. I kept it in a box of random objects, with a pearl from Sea World in Florida, and a small gold cross pendant of the sort people used to give babies, but babies never wore. I'm sure my mom eventually dispersed/dispensed, or otherwise dispatched those objects and that box, after I left home. 

Fast forward to the present. As I mentioned in another entry, I have a small stash of hardwood, purchased at Whole Foods Market, next to my fireplace. The wood, oddly, was imported from Estonia. I don't know why they'd sell Estonian firewood in Annapolis. The point is, though, that I thought of my firewood as I watched the opening panoramic vistas in the film The Singing Revolution, because there they were--the verdant forests and hills of the Baltics sweeping past--former home of the logs I've yet to burn.

The film is a documentary, tracing the history of Estonia's occupation by a succession of external forces, from the time of Czarist Russia, to the final--very recent--efforts to sweep away the remaining hold of the U.S.S.R (as it lost its grip all over the place.) I assume that the gaping hole in my familiarity with Estonia and its close neighbors--Latvia and Lithuania--stems from the fact that when I was going to high school, Estonia was a Soviet Socialist Republic, not yet enjoying the relative liberties of perestroika and glasnost, and the Iron Curtain was a barrier we rarely peered behind, even from the boring comfort of 10th grade European History. 

Childhood impressions are weird, and while I could have told you next to nothing about the nature of the nation of Estonia, I could have attached emotive words to my vague impressions of the Iron Curtain concept--cold, grey, metallic--most likely the very impressions our post-McCarthy curriculum would have wanted to impart to our young democratic minds.

Hence, if my guess about the Estonian people might have been that they were a drab and colorless lot, with drawn faces and dreary raincoats, huddled around the clanking radiator in a two-room apartment while dining on the solitary potato that was for sale at the market...well, I would have been mistaken. Not that the fear and chill evoked by the specter of Soviet occupation didn't feature in the story of Estonia's emancipation--it certainly did, and many if not most of the players interviewed for the film had spent time in Siberia, while the rest lived under the threat. But, still, the people portrayed in the documentary took me by surprise. 

So much blond hair. A Scandinavian-looking bunch, for sure. Now, I'm not going to argue that I didn't fail myself in obtaining a proper education, because I most certainly did...but I think it's all too easy for American schoolchildren (if they get a sense of Eastern Europe at all, and they might not,) to mix up things like Baltic and Balkan.

Thus, when imagining an Estonian, it is important to imagine an Estonian. And not, let's say, a Macedonian. Because the fact that Estonians are closely linked to the Finns in both language and ethnicity is quite obvious, once you begin to pay attention.

When you grow up in middle-America, thinking that your second grade textbook, Greenfield, U.S.A, gives a reasonably accurate picture of what life is like, you tend--at least as a child--to extend such assumptions about life (safety, comfort, friendliness, plenty,) to encompass the folks on that continent over that-a-way...Europe. (You have no such illusions about the other continent over that-a-way...Africa...because that's the one they always use to illustrate how things aren't always so great.) 

And you assume that stuff you saw in old newsreel footage--Nazis, concentrations camps, the strafing of cities by small buzzing planes--is history. As in, distant history. (Maybe it was easier to be so oblivious as a 12 year old in 1974 than it would be for a 12 year old in 2010, who has to learn why she can only bring liquids in 3 oz increments on airplanes.) But, anyway...here's the remarkable thing about Estonia in the 20th Century--When the Allies routed the Third Reich, and the parts of Europe about which I knew the most returned to a way of life I would have more or less recognized--the Soviets marched right back into the Baltic countries. Estonia continued to experience a continuity of bad news until the last of the Soviet forces marched away in 1994. That's practically yesterday.

And here, on film, are sweeping scenes of a beautiful, wooded landscape, and the lovely singing faces of people who are neither drab, metallic, nor wearing grey raincoats. But who are both young, and still remember when singing was, maybe, a slightly risky proposition. 

konnichiwa and extra mushrooms, please.

Today I stepped, with minor trepidation, into room 205 for day #1 of 3rd semester Japanese. The misgivings had nothing to do with whether I'd be able to remember that the "te" form of iku is itte and not ite. Nor did I retain any lingering fear that Lizzie-san--with her plastic tiaras, fishnet stockings, and tendency to burst out in punk rock songs in the middle of class--would be sitting behind me, destined to be lumped with me for another group project. (Lizzie-san, no doubt, failed to make the 2nd to 3rd semester cut anyway, having run shrieking from the building on the day we were slated to deliver our group presentation. I mussed my hair a bit to play her role, and the remaining 3 of us got on just fine.) The new girl in class (well, new to me anyway,) wears a black trench coat and declares her name to be "Bouzu," which means something along the lines of "bald monk." In fact, she is not bald, but her hair is very short. I'm not concerned. Monks are not given, as far as I know, to singing in class.

No, I was concerned about Jeff, whom I'd left downstairs in the lobby, by the coffee bar, with a tall cup of joe and Accounting for Dummies. An hour and a half is quite a while to wait, and I knew that if he decided to hunt down a bathroom, or step outside to take the air, he could be tricky to relocate. I stuck the cell phone that he doesn't know how to use in his shirt pocket, having earlier scrawled across its back, in indelible black marker: Emily 555-555-5555. (Well, no...not really 555...my real phone number, for which the 5s are subbing. But you knew that.) And I changed the ring to something more shrill that he'd be sure to recognize as a phone-ring, and not a random jazz riff appearing in the air out of nowhere.

As it turned out, he waited just fine. And I realized, afterward, that a smaller solarium-like lounge, at the end of the hall on the second floor, might be a safer, less frenetic place to wait, should he keep preferring to come with me.

And as for Japanese class, I am glad I'm still at it. Apart from a few minor switch-ups in class roster, (Lizzie⇋Bouzu, as mentioned, being one,) the classroom was a mirror-image of last semester, with (this time) Paul-san to the left, Duane-san to the right, and several other pleasantly familiar faces. It's something my brain needs. Brains are like pizza dough. Real, handmade, Italian pizza dough that needs to be pummeled a bit before being tossed in the air, spun a few rotations, then stretched against its natural elastic tendency to shrink back on itself. Well, take that brain. 46 new kanji to learn this semester. Exactly the kind of abuse I need. And I guess, if worse comes to worse, I can sit Jeff in the back of the classroom.

zip

I did my best to keep Jeff's coat alive. The gray, puffy "Jim Whitaker" down jacket from L.L.Bean, which he'd had for roughly 20 years. It was dirty, stained, and beginning to sprout holes. And the zipper pull was a distant memory. But still, for inexplicable reasons, that was the zipper he could still fasten. Even without a pull. Not every time, but often. 

I enjoined him, occasionally, to switch his devotion to the equally gray, equally puffy, Sierra Designs Gore-tex jacket. But he insisted it was "too good." Not that it's at all good, really. I used to wear it, years ago, before I became enamored of all-black, all the time, in my outerwear selections. (well, except for my raincoat, which is raspberry.) And it is, in fact, older than the Jim Whitaker. And missing a zipper pull. Instead, it has a small o-ring, which I slipped on in lieu of the original pull.

But, I do what I can for Jeff, because he drew a crappy card from the deck, and I think he deserves small indulgences such as wearing an ugly old coat, if it pleases him to do so. So, I decided to fix the big hole in the sleeve which had begun spewing feathers around the front hallway. (Note: just because the material a coat is made of reminds you of the sleeping bag you fixed with an iron-on patch 10 years ago, does not mean it is the same material.) I tried to iron on a patch. Well, the hot iron had scarcely made contact with the coat, when fizzzzoooosh...where once there had been a ½" slit, there was now a 2" diameter gaping melt-hole. I gave up, and tossed Jim Whitaker in the trash. 

So now It's Sierra Designs, which should have as much beat-up old cachet as Jim Whitaker. But here's the problem: Jeff can't do the zipper. He also can't do the zipper on the buff-colored wool jacket I recommend to him on more temperate days. With either of these jackets, he snaps the bottom snap, then snaps the top snap, leaving a big, gaping belly-full of exposed shirt underneath. It's useless for me to explain or demonstrate. His ability to zip zippers went in the trash with the Jim Whitaker jacket. Reminds me of the old grandfather clock song, but kind of less picturesque. 

So I do the zippers.

Pile o'shoes? Well, okay.

I think there will be a moment where young adult children, departing to resume their at-school lives, realize that it would be thoughtful to leave their rooms tidy. Maybe pick up the towels and other flotsam off the bathroom floor. Maybe toss empty dental floss containers and underwear packaging in the trash can instead of on the floor. As it stands now, I usually allot the day or two following their decampment to washing towels, piling abandoned garments in baskets, picking up little bits of trash, and vacuuming the remainder.

To be fair, I am aware that it pleases them to wait until the last minute to gather the scattered necessities. At home, one is in at-home mode. It is a time to decompress, as much as is possible, from the obligations of academia, and no one is anxious to attach a whole new set of must-dos to that interlude. I am hardly the picture of the overly put-upon domestic maternal figure, anyway. Don't like it, don't do it...and nobody much cares. But, I do need my visual space. And my personal definition of visual space is essentially the same as not-cluttered. I believe objects must emit a certain type of radio frequency that my brain is unfortunately unable to tune-out, hence the more there are, the more energy that might be put toward attempting to write an intelligent paragraph is diverted to communing with the cacaphony of objects strewn about the kitchen table or the bathroom floor. And I did mean cacaphony. It's almost noise. 

There's another side of it, though, that I noted this morning as I walked into the upstairs hallway and observed the absence of extra people living behind the extra doors. People are a fair trade-off for a reduction in the Spartan simplicity of my space. 

Even microbiological cultures have to try

(note: this is the last in a series of posts I made from my iPhone while on a trip to Colorado with Jeff. I posted in bits, hence, the sequence is backwards! Annoying, I know. To make sense of them, scroll down--next page maybe--and start with the one labeled "Start here...")

We're probably roughly over Indiana. It's dusk. The world below
remains lightly dusted with snow, cut every which-way with dark
streaks, like the veins in blue cheese. In patches, human civilization
spreads out--random cultures in a global petri dish, with a
luminescent trait. I can't tell you whether they're gram positive or
negative.
It's a little hard to fathom--watching these clusters glow, spread,
and interlace their tentacles--a pov which insists that the prevalence
of humans does NOT affect the Earth's climate. But to acknowledge that it does need not equal an indictment. Life, of any sort, tries to prevail. Don't know how we'll do longer-term. I hope we figure out and implement a good trick or two without the cross-purposes of our conflicting motives reducing it all to static. Maybe.

Let me just add, that when breakfast coffee is served in a small white ceramic cup labeled "illy," it cannot help but be delicious.

There is a toasted Einstein honey-wheat bagel with hummus in my carry-on for cross-country sustenance. Soggy, possibly, but better than airline Chips Ahoy crisps. I hope Jeff and Wade will have a good week, and that the dishes are washed at home.

And now I am on my way home. I left Jeff and Wade after breakfast, and am relishing the time alone--from the quiet drive across somewhat-barren Boulder County, to my imminent flight, on which I will be concerned only with the upright and locked status of my own seat-back.

Wade chided me for buying $10 "earlybird boarding" privileges for our Southwest flights, because Jeff's health status should be enough to let us access priority boarding. Here's the thing--so far, he is much more comfortable playing that card than I am.

Prior to dinner, yesterday's most useful activity consisted of finding a means to make it easier for Jeff to tie his shoes. Wade recommended shoes such as his, which laced with bungee shoestrings, cinched with one of those spring-loaded locking gizmos. The perfect pair were not in evidence at the 3 shops we visited, so I went with putting spring-cinch thingies on his existing shoes. There is a problem in that he can pull the plastic mechanism off and be befuddled. This will take further study, and perhaps bona fide bungee laces when he gets home.

Last night's dinner spot was called Sushi Tora, which, thanks to my iPhone Kotoba dictionary, I can translate as sushi tiger. I did not order tiger myself, but my teriyaki tofu, miso soup, and wasabi mashed potatoes proved that it is possible for a Japanese restaurant to be as good as Joss in Annapolis.

Hi! Go all the way down to the fireplace pokers and read backwards!

The morning with a cup of coffee view

We have worked at making sure he can identify the correct rowhouse should he wander out alone. He seems to be retaining "660," and we've employed more visual cues: "See? 3' tall wooden Confucius with only half a face? This is the house."

Jeff's struggles seem incrementally more severe. I will appreciate Wade's review, after 5 days with Jeff and not me.

then came back to this far better than average townhouse and drank a glass of Argentinian Malbec. Wade's dog Kashi is sweet, and our hosts--friends from whom he's currently renting a room--are a great couple. I bought them a couple bottles of red at the Boulder Wine Merchant today. (Barbara thinks that I look like EmmyLou Harris. How could I not?)

But we are here. We grabbed a yummy late (for our East Coast bellies) dinner with Wade at a little Pan-Asian hole-in-the-wall called 5 Spice,

A few miles down the highway, something started to go "screeeeeeee."
"Jeff," I said, "your window might be a little open."
Thankfully, he was buckled in, because his reaction was to open the door, at 65mph. His reflexes worked. He pulled it closed. And the screeeeeeee got louder, at which point I realized his knee was hitting the window crank. I pointed this out and, remarkably, he tightened it. No more screee.

You know those National car rental ads where the guy says "I can choose any car in the aisle???" Well, our "aisle" consisted of a Hyundai Accent and a similar Chevy. I picked the Hyundai because it was silver, not white, and off we went to discover that--compared to the Hyundai--my Soobie is a luxury car. It took me a couple secs to figure out how to roll down the window (a crank.)

(we are about to have blueberry pancakes, courtesy of Wade. More when my coffee/food/blood sugar ratio has restabilized. )

It is also one of the catch-22s of Alzheimer's that the greater the need for assistance, the less welcome such assistance will be. Hence, whether I was pointing Jeff toward the proper end of the plane for exiting or trying not to lose him in the flow of humans, his expression remained: "What's your problem?"
This dynamic intensified as we boarded a shuttle bound for the car rental lot. Jeff could not sort out how to place his duffel on the rack, let go of it, then join me on a seat. As I gave him step by step directions, the guy sitting opposite chuckled--clearly one of those "women...pains in the butts, aren't they?" kind of things. Then Jeff decided he needed to put his coat on in the 80 degree F shuttle...and I didn't help. So I think the guy, and--I'm quite certain--the shuttle driver, finally caught on as Jeff couldn't ascertain top, bottom, inside, nor outside of his jacket. Still, I hit a point. One of those points where you know you'll continue to be judged for your "overbearing " behavior by people who have no clue what's actually going on, and I was thankful I had tucked tissues in my carry on bag, as I stared out the bus window and dabbed.

Anyway, there are few times when Jeff is more disoriented than at the end of a flight. I don't know why this would be...perhaps the brain has instrumentation which approximates the work of the plane's navigational gear, and the particular deficits from which he suffers leaves him more scrambled than usual. But it is so.

It occurs to me, as I blog in text-bits, that this story will post backwards. But the Colorado sun is shining. Perhaps I don't care too much.

Yesterday, we ate an adequate, if overpriced meal at the Silver Diner/BWI airport before boarding our 1:15pm flight. Being crammed into airplane seating for a mere 3.5 hours is tolerable, but resolved me to become rich enough to afford business class before I fly again to more distant geographical points.

It's good to feel good. Yesterday, en route to Denver, I had my moments.

row of houses across the street to a glow, and a small red hatchback is adding a charming accent. Not my usual reaction to the aesthetic offerings of cars and housing developments, but it doesn't hurt that this particular row of homes sits just in front of the foothills of the Flatirons.

Start here...

(This is where the Colorado sequence starts!)
At the moment I'm feeling some Colorado Rocky Mountain high. Out the front window of this rowhouse north of downtown Boulder, the morning light is burnishing the earthy tones of a

Have Estonian wood, will poke.

Today’s field trip, hastily stuffed into the schedule when it became clear that none of the daughters-on-break required my feeding services, took us north of Baltimore, to Wegman’s. Wegman’s is known for its general bigness, and--I guess--fabulousness, but, as there isn’t one which is by any means a practical commute from Chez Em, it became a fun, rather than practical outing. Especially when combined with a need to poke our burning fireplace logs with something other than a 14” stainless steel shishkebab skewer. Right there, near Wegman’s, see, is a Plow & Hearth store--the sort of place that causes you to walk around thinking Wow...if only my yard weren’t a concave mudpit where the sunlight is completely blocked by those trees that like to drop branches on the car in the middle of February ice storms...‘cause then I’d buy that eucalyptus garden bench, yes sir.

But, as it turns out, our yard is that thing that I said, and also I’m aggravatingly whimsical when it comes to spending money. And most of the time, I don’t want to. Still, I spied a set of wrought-iron fireplace tools, which met the dual criteria of functional and simple (except for the shafts charmingly twisted like wire coat hangers,) and accepted the display set when none were available packaged. Not that I wanted a package anyway.

But, as for Wegman’s: We ate lunch there, in the dining area that appears to go on forever, giving you countless different options for overlooking the shoppers below, as you eat your reasonably adequate fried rice and egg roll from the Asian hot bar. And your partner eats his chicken caesar salad. Which is kind of what he always eats.

But, indeed...big it was. Not only big though, it was partitioned up into sections that--from a bird’s eye view--must closely resemble the very random patchwork of tilled fields you see as you fly over, say, Indiana. Which means more of a maze than continuous aisles. This poses a bit of a problem for us, as Jeff likes to tail me by about 5 paces, but cannot track as I turn a corner. Hence, I must stop, peer back around into the the corridor where he is considering following the woman in the blue coat instead (her hair, after all, is blondish too,) and get his attention, and not completely disappear from view again until I’m certain he’s on the right track. And this happens in Wegman’s about every 15 feet. As a consequence, today’s purchases were limited to a french baguette (well, batard, actually,) a canister of “Peppermint Joy” tea, a mesh sack of grapefruit, and a package of store-label multigrain english muffins.

Yeah, it was a fun outing. I try not to mind noticing things, such as how much less useful it becomes, incrementally, to ask Jeff which fireplace poking set he prefers. These, I say, pointing at the twisted shaft ones, or these, I say, pointing to the set with simple hooks at the top, but a “bird cage” embellishment in the middle of the rack. I point down at a set. He gazes vaguely at the confusing array of visual stimuli at floor level and says “those are good.” Then he stands exactly in front of the service counter until 3 different clerks have asked if he needs something, at which point it occurs to my slow brain (I am admiring dog beds, and cat-shaped door-stops, you see,) and position him in a slightly more out of the way spot.

So, if they build a Wegman’s down the road from us, as has been rumored for roughly 5 years now, I’ll visit. I still prefer Whole Foods Market. But, given my grocery shopping druthers, I would evict Food Lion from it’s prime spot near Clement Hardware, and insert a Trader Joe’s.

Ok, so I'm ready to poke logs. But there is this weird thing, that just occurred to me: The logs I bought at Whole Foods the other day? They're birch, from Estonia. Why in the world does my firewood need to be imported from Eastern Europe? You know, I should have swapped it out for the bags of local stuff, but I wasn't paying attention. I grabbed a hefty sack full, from the pile by the underground parking garage, carried it up the stairs, plunked it in my cart, wiped the bits of bark off my coat, and then realized that I'd also carried up the sign that said "European Birch." So, I carried the sign back downstairs, and replaced it on the pile before I even noticed the domestic wood pile on the other side of the doorway. Next time. For now, I'm sure our next fire will burn with a almost-Russian accent. Looking forward to it.

ok...twenty-ten, let's see you.

Day four of 2010, and so far I like it. Even with the cold. Even walking back from Rams Head On Stage, through the darkened streets of Annapolis (after seeing Maggie Sansone and company,) in 20℉ (which I realize is piddling to those in more northerly climes.) Even with the cold, I like it. I cannot recommend long undies and hats strongly enough, but these are not negative factors.

Nor did I mind my usual morning routine of helping Jeff put his jacket on right-side out, cleaning up his spilled o.j., and pre-determining his need for an english muffin, a butter knife, a coffee cup, and some directional pointers.

I am presently waiting for the girls who, last night, announced that “going to breakfast” would be an excellent idea. It will not be my breakfast by the time they get up--it will be my lunch, or brunch or something...but food is good.

I like that it is the first day of Gabe’s last semester of high school. I don’t think he particularly likes it, but--for me--it represents the possibility of change. I cannot predict anything much. I cannot predict how Jeff will do as time goes on, or whether I’ll want to live somewhere smaller, or whether I’ll never leave...but just the potential for different choices, different activities, and--most likely--different challenges, at least engenders a slight serotonin spike, and I never argue with serotonin spikes.

But here we are, on day #1 of semester #8 (final,) in the coldest, darkest part of the winter, counting down the 5ish final months of getting up at 5:15 am, as the days progressively lengthen (yay sun!) and warm up.

To be sure, peri-menopausal moodiness is unlikely to have stayed behind in ’09, nor will have existential angst, but--yes, thank you--I will accept all good moods that care to apply.

this does not make me a consumer.

I go to the store, at night, for fun.

I don’t know, frankly, whether it’s a sign of ends which have become even looser, or evidence that my mood has picked up and I’m more motivated to seek entertainment. Surely it is, whatever else, a distraction--a means of presenting my brain with stimuli that will divert it from the doldrums of company that isn’t company, and conversation that, well, isn’t.

Actually, that’s why I’m partly looking forward a great deal to next Fall, when I’m no longer bound by the parameters of Gabe’s carpool schedule. Do stuff, go places, see things, write about them*...and not spend much time feeling the soggy, pervasive, and useless guilt that comes from feeling I should be able to entertain a presence who is neither entertaining nor entertainable.

And, for whatever non-ecological reason--I am better company to Jeff in the car. I can talk about something or nothing, he appears interested, and it’s ok that it won’t stick, or even be thoroughly comprehended.

*Yes. Write about places of interest that we visit and not the tiresome drivel of a brain in a rut.

This week I have done it twice. Once to the mall, (where I purchased jeans which I meant to acquire anyway,) and last night to Trader Joe’s, where I beefed up the larder. But without beef. Or lard. It was cold, and it was windy--but the thing is, I’m not minding the arctic chill. I’m just looking for fun. And the vacuum carafes of sampleable coffee, on the service counter at TJ’s is, yes it is, fun. And so are two lovely packages of chickenless nuggets.

I kind of wish they’d go ahead and tell us what Gabe needs for his housing situation next Fall, although I don’t expect to learn more details until this summer. Because, then we will acquire them. And that will be fun.

duck

Just before you are born, you go to the little plastic wading pool, with extra water jets installed, and pick a duck. There are swarms of little floating plastic ducks, clumping, whirling, and eddying in the wading pool, and you just pick one.

It is natural to feel a swell of hopeful expectation as you grab your duck--it could be an extraordinary one, with the special marking on its belly designating you as someone charged to be a notable persona among zillions of plain-bellied ducks. Well, of course you aren’t going to be a duck, regardless (unless you are a duck,) but an extraordinary duck selection means you’ll be launched with an extra spark of zest, charisma, or dynamism--the sort of person whom plain-bellied duck pickers admire, and say things about like: It would be great to be able to sing like that! or where does she get her great ideas?

A lot of people who pick a fancy duck may end up sort of half-wishing they’d picked a plain duck. And, odds are, you did pick a plain duck. It’s exceedingly rare not to. As for me, I am still not clear on whether the magic markings on the bottom of the ducks, and the subsequent “significance” they convey, may not be just a red herring. This is a definition for red herring: A red herring is an idiom referring to a device which intends to divert the audience from the truth or an item of significance.

Now that I am becoming slightly more hip to sleight of hand, as Gabe’s primary test audience, I am learning to look toward that which I am being distracted away from. Still, as far as ducks go, it’s clear I picked a plain-bellied duck. Now...just what is the item of significance away from which my attention has been diverted? When I find it, I may have to attach an electronic beeper to it.