Forget the Caribbean

It would be easy to see oneself living on a small island in the Caribbean--snorkeling, drinking fruity rum drinks from cheap plastic cups at 2 pm, wearing a sunhat to keep the burn at bay. Working? Well, that's a different story. How to pay for the $5/jar peanut butter and $10 frozen pizza, because let's face it, when you work, sometimes you come home and eat peanut butter from the jar. While standing, and waiting for the oven to preheat.

My thoughts are once again on the tropics because it's -4F out, the windchill's probably -15F or -20F. Yet the house sparrows, the chickadees, the cardinals, the house finches, and the morning doves insist on persisting. I am worrying that the feeder is almost empty and that could lead to some wee ones' demises. I need to get to the store to buy more fatty sunflower seeds in the shell.

A month ago while in Chicago and the windchill was over -25F, the difference between my hotel room temperature and the outside was over 100 degrees. I am going to say this outloud: That's just plain ridiculous.

Today, at home the sky is stark blue, the steam from the neighbor's chimney casting a shadow on the snow in the early morning yard. Bug is shredding a magazine in his box, and I am wishing for a warm beach.

It's ridiculous, I thought also, when I got to St. John last May--the turquoise water, the white sand beach, the loggerhead turtles 10 feet from the shoreline. I mean, this is the same planet as below zero temps and endless prairies of the Midwest? Eagle ray vs. glare ice on the windshield, tamarind trees vs. the brittle leaflesss arms of a willow?

I see the beauty in starkness. I do. The simplicity of form, the silhouette against white.

But I can't seem to get in the car to go to the store to buy more seed, so my petite friends can keep on going. They don't know their tiny bodies have a large surface area to volume ratio, so that's why heat keeps pouring off them and they have to eat eat eat eat.

I eat in the winter for other reasons, as so do you probably, too. Fried food seems especially magnificent and alluring when you have to wear a hat and mittens, boots and a down coat out of the house. If you are going to go to all the trouble to leave the warm, heated abode, then why not eat the greased and crispy? That's what the birds do, but they have no cozy slippers or space heaters to leave at home when they venture out.

Bug just flew into the office to sit on the desk in a patch of sun. Then he began to sneeze and pick at his nostril with a toenail. His nose is dry--I've got to go set up his humidifier, and then maybe later, get him to take a bath, dip his head in a bowl.

I am sure he'd prefer the steamier Caribbean, but how would he pay the bills, eh?

Appearances Can Be Accurate

While house hunting on the internet Sara and I came across the following description written by a realtor:

"Living room appears bigger than it looks! Charming fixer-uper, move in ready!"

I wouldn't buy an egg from that genius, but he does get points for enthusiasm.
No wonder the house market tanked.

If SSW Could Join Facebook

He would join this group: "I Dont [sic] care How Comfortable Crocs Are, You Look Like A Dumbass."

I am not a member of that group. In fact, I am trying to break up with the black-hole of time consumption that is Facebook.

Regardless, the parrot cannot type except when he runs across the keyboard from one side to the other.

But he hates Crocs. Just mine, not Jonesy's. Mine are navy and have holes on the sides, not the tops, the "professional" style, so liquid (ie chefs, drs) rivulets off the top, the holes for aeration. These are not good shoes to run to the car to warm it up when it is snowing, snow creeping in through the little vents.

Bug will chase after me and seize upon the side holes with his beak and not let go. Not even if I lift him off the ground. One time, I put him, attached to my foot, into his cage that way, my leg through the cage door, clogged foot resting on the grate. Then he got off.

He likes to adhere to the footwear and inflict small puncture wounds with repetitive, forceful motions with his beak. And whatever you do, do not put your hand near him to try to release him. Crocs must die.

I like them as winter slippers with thick wool socks: lightweight, good indoor traction, neutral colored. And they wipe off, or you can completely submerge them to clean them.

So Crocs haters out there, it's too exhausting to be so angry all the time, isn't it? I know the bird has steam pouring out of his ear holes when he chases me. I don't know what the shoes ever did to him.

@$%#!!

Not cussing is really effing hard.

The View from Here

For three days I have had a sore throat, and today, now a runny nose. So: I have taken some cold medicine and here lies the weird landscape of the fuzzy-headed, but with lessened cough. Behind me out the sliding glass door, the yard's brilliant with snow and a full-blue sky. We are headed to a week of below zero temperatures. Can't wait.

I am watching Jonesy about to make oatmeal cookies. Bug is on her shoulder and goes from one to the other, depending upon the best balance and viewpoint. She is also concurrently crafting chicken noodle soup, and when SSW won't get off her shoulder, she says looking in the pot, See what happens to birds sometimes?

It is preferable to not have a bird on your shoulder while cooking for numerous reasons. I am sure you can make your own short list right now. An apron is good for protecting the front of you from flour and butter and milk, but your shoulders--they are open territory for the you know what, from the you know who's little rear.

Well, thankfully, he decided to hop off and go to his perch to rub his beak on his rope perch and then proceed to chitter.

He loves the sound of the mixer, by the way. No surprise there: he screams at each plate and cup being put away from the dishwasher. Looking at him now, though, he's sitting still and erect, feathers poofed a little, and his calls are quiet, like little oh dears and that scares me a tad. Occasionally he emits a taut, high-pitched squeak, like an exclamation point.

Ah, there's a sneeze from me, and it hurt my throat for a second. Bug likes to mimic my coughing first thing in the morning when I am extra intolerant to noise. Ok, it's endearing, but give me tea first.

I just got to lick the mixer beaters. Very cinnamonny.

Well, I suppose that's all from here, for right now. My head's ablur and I seem to be staring off into space--

Pardon My French

With gentle encouragement from Sara I agreed to quit cussing. Anyone who knows me, or has had the misfortune of being in line with me at an airline service counter after my flight has been canceled, understands the enormity of this challenge.

I’ve had a potty mouth for years, going all the way back to the first grade when Miss Shaklett washed out my mouth with Bab-o, the cheaper equivalent of Comet, for saying ‘damn hell’ on the playground of Norman Binkley Elementary School in Nashville, Tennessee.

After almost 40 years the memory of the incident still makes me queasy. You’d think I would have learned my lesson back in 1970, but all I really got from the abuse was that ‘damn hell’ is a poor combination and Miss Shaklett was a royal bitch.

My proficiency with the coarser side of the English language has improved a shit ton since then, especially my verbal adroitness with the word fuck. I frequently drop the ‘F’ word, often multiple times in the same phrase, as in “…fuck that fucking little fuckwit.” Concurrently, primarily due to my fascination with Dead English Writers, I’ve amassed a fairly respectable arsenal of what I like to call ‘$2 words.’ Often these two sets of vocabulary merge and produce a single oxymoronic sentence like: ‘That Troy Aikman is a loquacious mother fucker and I wish he’d shut the fuck up.’

Sara claims that my excessive use of obscenities leads people to believe that I’m either stupid, inarticulate, angry, or all of the above. She’s probably right since she almost always is, but I’ve long held the belief that a single epithet provides more punch than pounds of so called ‘clean’ language. I’ve now come to realize that isn’t always true. Overuse weakens just about everything -- consider the brakes on a ’91 Saab. Trust me, they wear out, many times over. So it is with words. Through intemperate use I’ve robbed profanity of its power. What should have a sharp, glinting edge is now blunt and lackluster. Well shit.

To be completely honest, it’s not possible for me to eliminate expletives from my speech altogether, but I can control them. My hope is that through judicious use, scurrility will become the habanera rather than the salt and pepper of my speech.

Fuck. (I had to swear gratuitously, just one more damn time.)

My Kind of Kids

I know it’s cliché to say that I think of my pets as children, but I do. Kind of. To clarify, I think of them as the sort of children you can lock up in a cage or just leave running loose in the house for hours on end while you go out and work or run errands or play the slots at the Ho-Chunk Casino or hang around a coffee shop pretending to write on a fancy-assed laptop computer sitting across the table from another pet owner whose cats or dogs or guinea pigs or other creatures are also in cages or running loose at their house, while they tap on their fancy-assed laptop computer that’s open just opposite yours making it look, for all the world, like you two are playing battleship. They’re the kind of kids that you actually encourage to eat whatever it is you dropped on the floor, let them drink from ponds, restrain them with nylon collars and leashes and shove off the bed when they start to puke in the middle of the night. You never put a dime away in a college fund for them.

Like the children I imagine I would have had if life had been very different, my pets come when I call (most of them, anyway), are jealous of one another, and make the house a mess. They want you to get their dinner, take them for a walk, get them a new toy, play with them, etc. making you just a worker on the line of a fulfillment factory where the conveyor belt keeps coming at you while you try to deal with one need after another, sometimes just giving up and allowing the pleas to tumble to the floor. That’s when it comes in handy that you can lock them up and leave the house without fearing repercussions from social services.

That’s where I’m at right now. Time for Sweet William to go into lockdown, for Taiko and Gracie to have a quick constitutional moment outside and for me to pack up my fancy-assed laptop.

Roasted Not Toasted

I used to be a barfly but now I hang out in cafés. I had to leave the bar thing behind for lots of reasons, not the least of which was my liver. That and time, which I have come to value and beer is, among other things, a time accelerant. Sit down on a bar stool, drink steadily for seven hours straight and the time just washes by. And with so few memories to show for it. Some unexplained bruises, yes, a pounding headache to be sure and an empty wallet no doubt, but not so much recollection.

I’m not a teetotaler and I don’t avoid bars, I just don’t make them my living room. I still enjoy a good drink, and, in fact, since leaving the bar scene I’ve come to appreciate a wider variety of booze for the taste, not the buzz. Sara’s chef friend, Robin, told me the other day that “there isn’t a meal not enhanced by an alcoholic beverage.” Being the devil’s advocate type I immediately thought of a Happy Meal. Then again, a frothy, peachy Saracco Moscato D’Asti would complement (and cut the grease) nicely. PB and J -- a bright, jammy California Zinfandel. Mac and cheese – a cholesterol taming, zesty pinot grigio. Yes, Robin was right.

Now rather than squandering brain cells in a bar, I spend a few hours a week in cafés. I go to several, but my favorite is EVP, a local outfit. I walk in the door and savor every aspect of fine roasted bean. I mentally roll in the smell of it, add a little cream and admire its dark caramel hue, sip through the rich folds of it, and appreciate the warm ceramic mug on my hands.

The relationship between customer and barista is much simpler than that of drinker and bartender. With a bartender it’s important to cultivate the relationship so as not to be left standing at the end of the bar with an empty glass and a $20 bill in your hand while more popular patrons are served. For the most part, the best way to avoid such a travesty is through exorbitant gratuities and glib remarks – costly and subjective. On the other hand, EVP baristas seem quite pleased with the type of appreciation that ends up in their tip jar but don’t snub you when your offering rattles the glass. Conversation is more natural as less depends on it – they’ll never leave you high and dry when you present them with an empty cup, even if your jokes do suck. Of course, there is no presumption of psycho-therapy for tips, but that's probably for the best since the answer to pretty much every problem confessed in a bar is another vodka gimlet.

The café has become my social arena, much like the pub used to be, except that I remember the conversations and they don’t increase in volume in relation to consumption. And, hopefully I don’t sound quite so dumb all the while thinking that I’m very clever, buy rounds of espresso shots for all of my new friends and wind up stumbling on my way to the bathroom and pretending that I didn’t. The most deleterious effect of my time in the coffee shop is that I talk a little faster.

I don’t have a job at the moment so I have the luxury of spending an afternoon or two a week at EVP. I have time to write (case in point), read and chat. When I, once again, have to bend to the yoke, I’ll miss this. But for now, the afternoon is bright, I have a table next to an electrical outlet and a friend just walked in the door. So cheers to coffee, to the bottomless cup, to the dilettantes at the tables and getting all jacked up.

When You're Old, Maybe You'll Eat Cat Litter Too

Sasha, my ancient feline (18 in April), Holstein-colored, muscle-wasting, tottering, senile dear has taken to eating clumping cat litter. I first witnessed this a few months ago, so who knows how long this has been going on since she has moved to the basement 23 hours a day.

Just yesterday, as I leaned over and scooped her litter, she came up to the edge of one her boxes and put her nose down inside it and began to nibble as if she were at a trough made for cats. I tried to gently dissuade her by tapping the box and talking to her, but my hands were full, and she didn't lift her head. After a few seconds she wandered off to the stairs and put her snoz in a bowl of expensive, stinky, fishy, dried cat food and ate it as if it were litter.

To be clear, we feed her whatever she wants, which is made for cats' consumption. Her pica shouldn't be due to a nutritional deficiency. She is, however, slowly losing her mind.

I like the new Sasha. For 17 years she was mostly unapproachable, untouchable, except for the rare occasions where she'd jump on the bed, and if you didn't move, she might knead and suck on the fabric in the crook of your arm. Now, things are very different. I can pick her up, hold her, for god's sake. I walk her up the stairs in my arms and pet her on the couch for hours. She purrs and purrs. She even saunters up to the bird when he's stupidly on the floor. I am not sure if it's in malice; more likely, she's wondering what the hell the little blurry thing on the linoleum is.

We first noticed The Great Mindshift during a party in May. She came up the basement stairs, sat in the kitchen filled with people, and proceeded to stare at the guests. Huh.

She had vacant but sweet expression on her face. A few friends picked her up; the dwindling cat mewled. Jonesy, protective like a mama bear to her cubs, burst forward with a "I don't care if you are vets. Put my cat down!"

Down the cat came.

It's painful to watch her walk, wrists askew in arthritis. Her hips jut out, her once fatter belly sags and swings like an empty udder. When she sees me at the top of the stairs I wince, knowing she's headed up to see me. I put her on pain meds, but I am not sure it helps much.

Further proof her mind has wandered to the place of permanent absenteeism--we feed her little bowls of wet food when she comes upstairs. If you move when she eats, or if another pet walks by, distracting her (you need to sit by her and fluff her food with a fork), she turns around, looks up as if to say, What was I doing here? You get her attention back to the bowls (multiple flavors to encourage her to nosh), and she dives in as if she's never seen them before. She may eat for a minute or a few seconds, and the whole cycle of attention starts again.

The newest dilemma is she appears to be voraciously eating but when she totters off, the food merely looks moved around, some now on the floor for the dog-vultures to swoop in. We add water to the wet food to create more of a stew--she tends to lap up the liquid and then stumble away, as if drunk. Then a minute passes and she looks at you as if she hasn't eaten yet.

Occasionally the bird walks over--he prefers to be center stage with all activities. I shoe him away; the dogs are circling, knowing there will be great payoffs if I step away from guarding the bowls. A little bird in the way of that could lead to a pile of feathers and a small avian leaving this mortal plain.

Every day I look down the basement stairwell to do what we call the Dead Check. This was first instituted when my lovely O, my aging lab cross, started to not come down from the upstairs bedroom (do we detect a pattern here, retreat to floors above or below the mainstay commotion?) when we got home. He had gone a wee deaf and was not easily wakened, even by the piercing barks of the terrier-mutt Lulu. Each day, you never knew if today was the day.

So now we wonder, Is today Sasha's day? So far so good.

She seems transilluminated with happiness, suffused with even more present-tense-ism than even before. I love watching her look around the room, then amble over to rub on Jonesy's legs. She's unsteady but she doesn't care. She just wants a little pet, preferrably on her tummy, and then feed her already--It's been days, she says, since she last ate.