I am going to uni tomorrow. That uni is Oxford. I am therefore cleverer than you and thus, blogging is a bad idea.
(In other words: I'll blog some time this week)
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Sunday, September 30, 2007
Friday, September 28, 2007
Travel on the cheap
Photo by Bill Thompson IIIFeel like going to the Amazon but can't afford the airfare or the time off? I have a great travel-on-the-cheap tip for you: Hitch a ride with Bill of the Birds. It'll be a trip to remember.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Interview with a RAPTOR
A while back, Susan of Susan Gets Native fame agreed to let me interview her. Her busy schedule made it oh so difficult for us to meet over cocktails at Sardi's, but her people finally got with my people, and we were able to do lunch and chat.
And now, exclusively on beginningtobird, presented live and in color and in NibbleVision, it's Susan... Gets... Native! Let's give her a nice round of applause, folks!
Susan, welcome to beginningtobird. You list your occupation as "Director of Education, RAPTOR Inc." How'd you get this gig? Is it an 8-5 thing, plus an hour for lunch? How would one apply for such a position?
I got the gig at RAPTOR thus: I started volunteering on Saturdays, when all the cleaning and feeding take place. Someone has to clean the cages we keep our live mice colony, someone has to pick up all the "leftover" food in the birds' mews (cages), someone has to then clean the mews with a rake and hose, and then someone has to feed all the birds. Anyway, during one Saturday, I asked about the educational programs RAPTOR does, and when I heard how cool it sounded, I said it was interesting to me. Turns out that the current director was leaving, because he had found a "real" job teaching, so the position was going to be open. So they trained me to handle the birds and gave me a basic outline for programs. I shadowed the director a few times, held the birds, got comfortable, and I have now done a few hundred programs! It's not an 8 to 5 thing...it's whenever the requester wants it. I have done programs at 8 am and also at midnight. To apply for such a position, I guess you could contact a rescue/rehab center and do it like I did...get your feet wet in the organization and display a distinct interest.
What's the strangest/funniest thing you've found out about raptors?
General facts are not funny, exactly, but there are funny stories about some of our education birds. Earl the turkey vulture, for example, has escaped twice, and has flown up to the nunnery that is near RAPTOR and tapped on the windows, frightening the nuns. They called us and Earl was easily recaptured. Earl is fully flighted, but is a human imprint (she thinks she is a person) She was brought in after someone had removed her from her nest as a baby, and tried to raise her by feeding her raw hamburger and chicken breast. She was very thin when she was brought in, so it was assumed she was a male. And a few years later, she laid an egg. So we knew she was a female, but the name Earl stuck.
Tell us about this whole "gets native" thing -- is it hard? Do you still have to mow the lawn?
Get native...my favorite subject, other than birds of prey!
Why are native plants important? They are food sources for other native organisms, like birds. They have evolved along side these animals, and are perfectly adapted to survive and thrive in their native environment. You rarely have to water them, you don't have to fertilize them. I have a "prairie" in the back yard, planted with mostly native plants...a few exotics have raised their heads, but I kept them because they have seeds for birds.
I do mow the lawn, but the total area is lessened because a third of the back yard is the prairie. We also keep the corners "brushy" and we build brush piles along the borders of our property to provide cover for small birds and mammals. We don't use ANY weed killer, pesticides or fertilizer. All those things have a way of NOT staying where you put them and they eventually end up in our water supply via lakes and rivers. Did you know that fertilizer can kill off the entire fish population in a pond? The fertilizer runs into the pond, causing an algae bloom, which sucks up all the oxygen and sunlight and the fish die by suffocation.
Our yard has been host to these mammals,snakes, amphibians and birds:
Deer mice
Field mice
Chipmunks
Gray squirrels
White-tailed deer
Opossums
Raccoons
Meadow voles
Eastern brown snakes
Black rat snakes
Cope's gray tree frogs
Green frogs
Bullfrogs
And about 40 species of bird....all in just under an acre of land! I am rather proud of that.
I grew up in Bright, Indiana. I wanted to be a marine biologist, a vet, a rock star....I never thought I would be doing this for a living. But it's not like the money is all that good. It helps, though.
Well, folks, that's all the time we have today, but let's thank Susan for being with us today and for not bringing a vulture to puke on me!
And now, exclusively on beginningtobird, presented live and in color and in NibbleVision, it's Susan... Gets... Native! Let's give her a nice round of applause, folks!
Susan, welcome to beginningtobird. You list your occupation as "Director of Education, RAPTOR Inc." How'd you get this gig? Is it an 8-5 thing, plus an hour for lunch? How would one apply for such a position?I got the gig at RAPTOR thus: I started volunteering on Saturdays, when all the cleaning and feeding take place. Someone has to clean the cages we keep our live mice colony, someone has to pick up all the "leftover" food in the birds' mews (cages), someone has to then clean the mews with a rake and hose, and then someone has to feed all the birds. Anyway, during one Saturday, I asked about the educational programs RAPTOR does, and when I heard how cool it sounded, I said it was interesting to me. Turns out that the current director was leaving, because he had found a "real" job teaching, so the position was going to be open. So they trained me to handle the birds and gave me a basic outline for programs. I shadowed the director a few times, held the birds, got comfortable, and I have now done a few hundred programs! It's not an 8 to 5 thing...it's whenever the requester wants it. I have done programs at 8 am and also at midnight. To apply for such a position, I guess you could contact a rescue/rehab center and do it like I did...get your feet wet in the organization and display a distinct interest.
What's the strangest/funniest thing you've found out about raptors?
General facts are not funny, exactly, but there are funny stories about some of our education birds. Earl the turkey vulture, for example, has escaped twice, and has flown up to the nunnery that is near RAPTOR and tapped on the windows, frightening the nuns. They called us and Earl was easily recaptured. Earl is fully flighted, but is a human imprint (she thinks she is a person) She was brought in after someone had removed her from her nest as a baby, and tried to raise her by feeding her raw hamburger and chicken breast. She was very thin when she was brought in, so it was assumed she was a male. And a few years later, she laid an egg. So we knew she was a female, but the name Earl stuck. 
Tell us about this whole "gets native" thing -- is it hard? Do you still have to mow the lawn?
Get native...my favorite subject, other than birds of prey!Why are native plants important? They are food sources for other native organisms, like birds. They have evolved along side these animals, and are perfectly adapted to survive and thrive in their native environment. You rarely have to water them, you don't have to fertilize them. I have a "prairie" in the back yard, planted with mostly native plants...a few exotics have raised their heads, but I kept them because they have seeds for birds.
I do mow the lawn, but the total area is lessened because a third of the back yard is the prairie. We also keep the corners "brushy" and we build brush piles along the borders of our property to provide cover for small birds and mammals. We don't use ANY weed killer, pesticides or fertilizer. All those things have a way of NOT staying where you put them and they eventually end up in our water supply via lakes and rivers. Did you know that fertilizer can kill off the entire fish population in a pond? The fertilizer runs into the pond, causing an algae bloom, which sucks up all the oxygen and sunlight and the fish die by suffocation.
Our yard has been host to these mammals,snakes, amphibians and birds:
Deer mice
Field mice
Chipmunks
Gray squirrels
White-tailed deer
Opossums
Raccoons
Meadow voles
Eastern brown snakes
Black rat snakes
Cope's gray tree frogs
Green frogs
Bullfrogs
And about 40 species of bird....all in just under an acre of land! I am rather proud of that.
Where did you grow up? Did you always want to be a raptorologist educator person?
I grew up in Bright, Indiana. I wanted to be a marine biologist, a vet, a rock star....I never thought I would be doing this for a living. But it's not like the money is all that good. It helps, though.
Have you ever been bitten or injured by a bird? (either on the job or not)
I have been bitten, scratched, pooped and vomited on. The pooping and vomiting was just the birds being themselves (Earl, being a TV, will vomit on you if she doesn't feel like coming withyou and the screech owls use their poop as a defense...it stinks, big time). The biting and scratching were both my fault. Two-Socks, a RT we had, scratched me on my arm, early on, because I wasn't holding him properly. Our male kestrel bit me on my fingers while I was talking to someone in the crowd, and he was perched next to me, and I didn't realize I was standing so close. The program birds don't hurt us out of spite, because they have been treated gently and used for many programs, so they know how to react. It's the REHAB birds you have to watch. We handle them more rough than the ed. birds. And they get pissed.
Well, folks, that's all the time we have today, but let's thank Susan for being with us today and for not bringing a vulture to puke on me!Saturday, September 22, 2007
To be a buzzard
Yesterday when I was leaving work, I saw a turkey vulture flying very low over the grassy area near the back of the parking lot; he couldn't have been more than 25 feet off the ground. This is the closest I've ever come to a TV, so I hopped in the car and drove nearer back there, trying to watch him as I went (maybe 100 yards). He was alone, as far as I could see, and I don't know if I scared him or what, but he kinda drifted back farther toward the road and away from me, still flying low. I had to keep my eye on him from crazy angles inside the car (through the windshield and the side windows and the moon roof), and in that time, the TV disappeared. I mean, he absolutely vanished. There was no place for him to hide; I didn't see him on the ground or in the small trees. He just vanished! I was bummed, both that I didn't have my camera and that I might've scared him off of some food source he'd found.
I drove away, trying to get a broader non-car-blocked view of the area, and he was still just gone. I don't know where he went, but he went there FAST.
To me, turkey vultures are both beautiful and somewhat repellent. As Linda mentioned in a comment on the Power Bird quiz post, vultures in flight are quite beautiful: large, with a broad wingspan and delicate fingerlike primary feathers spread out at the wing tips. They rarely flap their wings, instead just floating along on wind currents. Whenever Kat and I are driving somewhere and I see a turkey vulture, I always say, "Look, an eagle! Soaring majestically! ... in a circle!" It's our little birding joke, because I always used to make every large bird into an eagle to make it seem more exciting and because I'd never actually seen an eagle yet.
TVs (I've never seen a black vulture, so I'm limiting my discussion to turkey vultures) always seem to fly so slowly, preferring to drift instead of actively flap their wings to get someplace. It looks like they go where the wind takes them, stopping only when they get that scent: the scent of death. This is where the "somewhat repellent" part comes in, but still I'm fascinated. I read in one of my forensic science books that vultures (and some insects) can smell death even before it comes. What exactly is it that they smell--blood? I can understand that, because blood emits a powerful scent to a predator; but sometimes an animal's injuries are internal or he's just sick and dying, so there's no blood. How do the vultures find that animal out there in the vast expanses of a desert or a valley and thus begin their circling dance? My forensic science book didn't say how the animals and insects did it, just that they can.
How does it work? What it is about a flying vulture that can sense death miles away, float toward it on the wind, and then circle above it until (gulp) it happens?
I drove away, trying to get a broader non-car-blocked view of the area, and he was still just gone. I don't know where he went, but he went there FAST.
To me, turkey vultures are both beautiful and somewhat repellent. As Linda mentioned in a comment on the Power Bird quiz post, vultures in flight are quite beautiful: large, with a broad wingspan and delicate fingerlike primary feathers spread out at the wing tips. They rarely flap their wings, instead just floating along on wind currents. Whenever Kat and I are driving somewhere and I see a turkey vulture, I always say, "Look, an eagle! Soaring majestically! ... in a circle!" It's our little birding joke, because I always used to make every large bird into an eagle to make it seem more exciting and because I'd never actually seen an eagle yet.
TVs (I've never seen a black vulture, so I'm limiting my discussion to turkey vultures) always seem to fly so slowly, preferring to drift instead of actively flap their wings to get someplace. It looks like they go where the wind takes them, stopping only when they get that scent: the scent of death. This is where the "somewhat repellent" part comes in, but still I'm fascinated. I read in one of my forensic science books that vultures (and some insects) can smell death even before it comes. What exactly is it that they smell--blood? I can understand that, because blood emits a powerful scent to a predator; but sometimes an animal's injuries are internal or he's just sick and dying, so there's no blood. How do the vultures find that animal out there in the vast expanses of a desert or a valley and thus begin their circling dance? My forensic science book didn't say how the animals and insects did it, just that they can.
How does it work? What it is about a flying vulture that can sense death miles away, float toward it on the wind, and then circle above it until (gulp) it happens?
Friday, September 21, 2007
Crosspost for mercy
My blogpal Splotchy has a very new blog called Who's in Charge Here?, on which he posts publicity photos of bands and asks commenters to figure out who in the photo is actually the supposed "leader" of the band. His band choices are always obscure and the band photos are always hilarious: a bunch of uber-sensitive guys looking like the world just misunderstands them, or quirky neo-punk weirdos with bad hair and makeup, etc. You can tell the photographer (probably one of the bandmembers' significant others or something) was trying to "make a statement" for the band, pose them in such a way that you just couldn't resist the urge to buy their CD so you could hear about the emotions pulsing underneath that glossy surface.
The latest band is a two-woman outfit called Peach Candy. Only four people have commented on who's in charge, so Splotchy hasn't updated with the answer. (He waits for sufficient table-talk to have occurred.) Well, I'm DYING here, people! I gotta know if I picked the right one! So for a good time, head on over to Who's in Charge Here?
The latest band is a two-woman outfit called Peach Candy. Only four people have commented on who's in charge, so Splotchy hasn't updated with the answer. (He waits for sufficient table-talk to have occurred.) Well, I'm DYING here, people! I gotta know if I picked the right one! So for a good time, head on over to Who's in Charge Here?
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Muxola: Just what the Dr. ordered
I was on Dr. Monkerstein's blog a little while ago, and my word verification was "muxola." What a great word! I'm not sure whether it sounds more like a medicine or a new high-fiber cereal, but I like it. It's now the official -er- product of beginningtobird, whatever the heck it is.
Perhaps it's a baked good:
Perhaps it's something more abstract, and it will save the universe:
Perhaps it's a baked good:
Perhaps it's something more abstract, and it will save the universe:
Perhaps it's a secret weapon, to be guarded with your life:
What is Muxola?
P.S. Official thanks to Retro Ad Art and Retro Clip Art for not arresting me (yet) for lifting these images.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
What kind of bird are you?
| Your Power Bird is an Owl |
 |
New reader Gledwood from merrie olde England had a link to this little quiz, and it's fun. It's painless and only takes a minute or so--go check it out. I wanted to answer several of the questions with three or four of the choices, but you're only allowed one choice per question. Otherwise, I might've been some sort of cross-bred freak bird.
Monday, September 17, 2007
From the greatness that is http://icanhascheezburger.com/
Look at the expression on that poor little guy's face. "Um. Excuse me. That's, well, that's my HEAD. Hello?"
Look at the expression on that poor little guy's face. "Um. Excuse me. That's, well, that's my HEAD. Hello?"
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Steph’s 19th at Planet Angel (14/09/07)
My friend Steph the Crackhead had her 19th birthday the other week, so she invited all of us to come to a nightclub called Planet Angel. What sort of club is Planet Angel? Well, firstly consider the fact that I referred to Steph as “Steph the Crackhead” and use that as your clue to the basic emphasis of the club. To continue this point of view I would like to hypothesise that the club would more accurately be named ‘Planet Angel DUST’ (angel dust is another word for PCP). Yes, it was one of those fabled ‘drug clubs’ that I read about in the Sunday papers under headlines like ‘look what the young people are up to now’.
Of course, the owners of Planet Angel do quite a good job at disguising the fact that it is basically a neon covered opium den; well, the website describes it best:
“In 1997 Angel and Pete were working in the IT industry, disillusioned, craving the company of other like-minded people and unable to find any gatherings where they felt they could truly relax and be themselves. As an antidote to some quite negative realities of their lives at the time, they both had dreams… Angel’s dream was of a 24-hour location full of creativity, entertainment, good friends and surrealism... Pete’s was of a fun, creative, permanent and sustainable natural lifestyle; one free from the bounds of negative profit-oriented rules…”
When I read this, I was like ‘COOL’; in my mind it would rather be like the Chelsea Hotel in New York; a hothouse of ideas and philosophy, full of intellectuals and poets – the intellectual masters of tomorrow. I had half a mind to bring my vintage typewriter, a battered copy of The Island and a beret along with me, as well as some menthol cigarettes. I didn’t. But I wanted to.
Assumedly, in order to protect the rarefied intellectual atmosphere of the club, it was more convoluted to get into than a 747. Firstly, it was necessary to ‘prebook’ our tickets online beforehand. This involved going onto the internet and finding the Planet Angel website. According to the site, it was a ‘not for profit’ organisation, which made the fact that it cost about £15 a bit ironic. However, I sighed to myself, thought ‘THINK OF THE PHILOSOPHY’ and signed up and got emailed. Then we had to go to the club itself. For some reason I traveled with a load of drunk girls who were all talking about how much sex they had at the Reading Festival. There was one called Cassie (who is my spiritual guru, my own personal Beth Ditto); and one called Fran and one called Leyla. Unfortunately I was unable to tell them apart, even though they looked utterly different. I was also convinced that one of them was called Beth and so when I spoke to them I tended to just call both of them Beth, Frayla, or You There. When we got to the club, we had to talk to a man with a clipboard who would ascertain whether we were on the list, then we had to show them our printout of the emails.
This blew my mind. The night before, at 11.20pm, I had sat in my room and typed my name into my laptop. AND NOW MY NAME WAS WRITTEN ON THIS MAN’S CLIPBOARD. For some reason, this entirely basic example of the information age blew my mind; and I thought to myself – if I am this mind-blown BEFORE I enter the club, imagine what I’ll be like when I’m inside! I was well excited at that point and so I eagerly got frisked by the big black security guard (THERE WAS MEANT TO BE A NO-CHEWING GUM POLICY AT THE CLUB BUT I HAD SOME IN MY BACK POCKET AND THEY DIDN’T EVEN NOTICE IT! FUCK YOU, SYSTEM!!!). Then we showed our tickets to another man and we got our hands stamped and we were thrown into the club itself.
I have to admit that I felt a little let down. Inside was cramped and sweaty and filled with people who were vibrating. Slovens lounged on sofas playing with Lego and probably smoking crack. A midget wearing a day-glo jacket ran past, followed by a fat elderly woman. AND THEY WERE PLAYING MADONNA. We passed through this first room into a ‘dance hall’ which was a flashing UV wonderland replete with gyrating sweaty people and several disk jockeys; here we met Steph who was probably on some drugs. “HI GUYS OMG IT’S SO GOOD TO SEE YOU” she shrieked excitedly, and then started dancing. Steve is a good dancer and she was really getting into the monotonous beat of the hardcore; she had a nice sort of ‘shoulder shuffle head waggle hand wiggle’ thing going on; she was literally waving her hands about in the air like she just didn’t care; and if I was forced to place a temporal description of her actions, I would probably have to say that she was partying like it was at least 1999. Anyway, we all ‘got jiggy with it’ for about half an hour. I have to say I’m a well good dancer. I was cutting some rug up. However, when it comes down to it I think that the ‘dancer of the night’ award goes to the figure who was joking it down in the other dancefloor.
Firstly, she was about 70 which I think in itself is a reason to applaud her. Secondly, she was wearing some white rhinestone-covered jeans and a crop top. Thirdly, she was doing a weird dance in which she was positioned exactly two inches away from the wall (facing it) and squatting up and down while waving her arms around in the air (but not in a manner that said she just didn’t care; indeed there was a level of bemused seriousness to her spasmodic jerkings). After doing this for about three minutes she started waltzing around in circles, rather like a confused zombie, but with a dead serious expression on her face.
At this point I had realized that this club was not going to be the intellectual domain that I had so hoped it would be and I resolved that I was unlikely to take this evening as seriously as some were. And when I say ‘some’ I mean ‘pretty much everyone else on the dancefloor except Cassie who was also laughing at the weird pillhead woman’. I also refer to the woman who showed up wearing a bra and stringy pants and sucking on a pacifier. For some reason, there is nothing so utterly unappealing as a scantily dressed woman in a nightclub. It’s like seeing a Big Mac in a puddle; or watching an episode of Frasier in a bathtub (I had no idea what those analogies mean but they seem oddly appropriate to me). After another hour of having weird sequined boobs rotated around me, I got bored and went and sat outside with Cassie. Outside was filled with people smoking pot and most likely engaging in other illegal activities like sharing needles and downloading pirated music and broadcasting FM radio. I watched two men snorting some self-raising flour from a playing card and pondered. “Cassie” I said, “Why are we not on drugs?”. She looked at me with her sunken piggy eyes and looked confused. I was going to suggest that we cruise for some Triple-sod or Yellow Bentines and get totally mashed off our noggins like a couple of fortnights in a bad balloon, but then a better idea hit me like a bolt of inspiration.
“WAIT A SECOND!” I cried triumphantly.
“What?”
“I just had SUCH A GOOD IDEA.”
“Yes?”
“Basically, if I opened up a shop selling DVDs and do some sort of promotion when I sell them really cheap, I am totally going to call it a DVDEAL!”
She stared at me blankly. I am constantly having amazing ideas like that, but nobody ever takes them seriously. Especially when I am saying them at 2 in the morning with a triple-jacked 19 year old passed out on my foot. That wasn’t even the best innovation I came up with all evening; after talking to Steph about how many drugs she was on: “ONE AND A HALF ECSTASTY, TOM” she replied with a lazy grin that nearly disguised the flecks of blood on her gums, I came up with “EXTRA-SY” which is like ecstasy but just a little bit stronger. We agreed that it was a really good idea and that I was a genius.
Ok, so we were bored at this point. Going to a drug-club and then not taking any drugs is probably missing the point; but it wasn’t like we were even offered any which I frankly think is a bit lax on the behalf of the dealers. I thought that I found a whole sheet of pills on the floor but then it turned out to be a bit of Lego. When I was in the toilets a man popped out of his cubicle said “Excuse me my dear, can I borrow a bank note?” while pointing at his nose. I thought that he wanted to wipe his nose on it and frankly I didn’t have any money left anyway so I was like NO GET AWAY FROM ME and fled the toilets. Thinking about it, he probably wanted it to buy drugs with and I’d been a bit cleverer perhaps I might have gotten in on the deal.
As it was, no narcotics were procured and after the alcohol wore off and we realized that none of us was rich enough to buy any more (the drinks at the not-for-profit club were so expensive that buying a round of beers would have required me to get on the property ladder, slowly move up through careful work and investment until I owned a small 5-room studio flat in London, and then get a mortgage on it). The first train wasn’t for three hours and we were bored, so we sat down on an upper walkway and made snidey comments about the druggers who staggered past.
“Man, I saw her vagina.”
“I like his tshirt.”
“Her boots are fucking stupid.”
“That guy only has one arm”.
Finally, Nat heard us and sat down. Nat is a boy who goes to Kings school. He and I have had a checkered past with regards to this blog (I think I called him a puny little pink virgin flower-boy after he tried to steal my girlfriend, and he called me a pussy, but that is pretty much water under the bridge). “Listen yeah guys” he said to me and Cassie. “Just because you aren’t taking drugs doesn’t mean that you can look down us yeah? Just because you haven’t done it doesn’t mean that you have a RIGHT to look down on people who choose to do so”.
I stared blankly at him. I wanted to point out the moral issues with making moral judgments on people who are making moral judgments on you, but at this point I was still a little bit drunk and it was three thirty in the morning and I just couldn’t persuade my mind to make the correct mental calculations so I said the first thing that came into my mind, which in this case was ‘Yeah, well I have never been Madeleine McCann, but I don’t look down on people who are her,’ and then I sat back and looked pleased with myself. Nat looked at me. Cassie looked at me. I picked up my shovel and started digging. ‘… and anyway…’ I continued “…how do you know we are not on pills? I took two Neurofens and a Vitamin C tablet before coming out’. There was a second of silence.
“Hey, is that eczema on your arm?” asked Nat, pointing at Cassie’s arm, which did indeed have some eczema on it. She stared blankly at him. I stared blankly at her arm. Then I TWISTED THE FUCKING SCREW.
“Hey, just because you have never had it doesn’t mean you have a RIGHT to look down on people who have.” I snapped. I was actually quite annoyed about the whole conversation. To be honest, I have literally no opinion about the business of taking pills for the purpose of moving about really fast and twitching a bit. But I’ll be jiggered if I won’t be allowed to sit in the corner and make sarky comments about anybody who chooses to dress in rave goggles and piss themselves in the corner of a dancefloor. This is my human right as a satirist of the younger generations.
Anyway, we left the club and caught a train home. It was a sad reflection on the world that we’d been out at a nightclub until 5.30 and we were still not hardcore. It’s a bit of a worry that I have managed to miss such a fundamental part of being a teenager as injesting narcotics and rolling about on the floor for eight and a half hours. I also caught a cold on the walk home. That was the worst party ever.
AND I HAD TO WORK THE NEXT DAY. That sucked.
Of course, the owners of Planet Angel do quite a good job at disguising the fact that it is basically a neon covered opium den; well, the website describes it best:
“In 1997 Angel and Pete were working in the IT industry, disillusioned, craving the company of other like-minded people and unable to find any gatherings where they felt they could truly relax and be themselves. As an antidote to some quite negative realities of their lives at the time, they both had dreams… Angel’s dream was of a 24-hour location full of creativity, entertainment, good friends and surrealism... Pete’s was of a fun, creative, permanent and sustainable natural lifestyle; one free from the bounds of negative profit-oriented rules…”
When I read this, I was like ‘COOL’; in my mind it would rather be like the Chelsea Hotel in New York; a hothouse of ideas and philosophy, full of intellectuals and poets – the intellectual masters of tomorrow. I had half a mind to bring my vintage typewriter, a battered copy of The Island and a beret along with me, as well as some menthol cigarettes. I didn’t. But I wanted to.
Assumedly, in order to protect the rarefied intellectual atmosphere of the club, it was more convoluted to get into than a 747. Firstly, it was necessary to ‘prebook’ our tickets online beforehand. This involved going onto the internet and finding the Planet Angel website. According to the site, it was a ‘not for profit’ organisation, which made the fact that it cost about £15 a bit ironic. However, I sighed to myself, thought ‘THINK OF THE PHILOSOPHY’ and signed up and got emailed. Then we had to go to the club itself. For some reason I traveled with a load of drunk girls who were all talking about how much sex they had at the Reading Festival. There was one called Cassie (who is my spiritual guru, my own personal Beth Ditto); and one called Fran and one called Leyla. Unfortunately I was unable to tell them apart, even though they looked utterly different. I was also convinced that one of them was called Beth and so when I spoke to them I tended to just call both of them Beth, Frayla, or You There. When we got to the club, we had to talk to a man with a clipboard who would ascertain whether we were on the list, then we had to show them our printout of the emails.
This blew my mind. The night before, at 11.20pm, I had sat in my room and typed my name into my laptop. AND NOW MY NAME WAS WRITTEN ON THIS MAN’S CLIPBOARD. For some reason, this entirely basic example of the information age blew my mind; and I thought to myself – if I am this mind-blown BEFORE I enter the club, imagine what I’ll be like when I’m inside! I was well excited at that point and so I eagerly got frisked by the big black security guard (THERE WAS MEANT TO BE A NO-CHEWING GUM POLICY AT THE CLUB BUT I HAD SOME IN MY BACK POCKET AND THEY DIDN’T EVEN NOTICE IT! FUCK YOU, SYSTEM!!!). Then we showed our tickets to another man and we got our hands stamped and we were thrown into the club itself.
I have to admit that I felt a little let down. Inside was cramped and sweaty and filled with people who were vibrating. Slovens lounged on sofas playing with Lego and probably smoking crack. A midget wearing a day-glo jacket ran past, followed by a fat elderly woman. AND THEY WERE PLAYING MADONNA. We passed through this first room into a ‘dance hall’ which was a flashing UV wonderland replete with gyrating sweaty people and several disk jockeys; here we met Steph who was probably on some drugs. “HI GUYS OMG IT’S SO GOOD TO SEE YOU” she shrieked excitedly, and then started dancing. Steve is a good dancer and she was really getting into the monotonous beat of the hardcore; she had a nice sort of ‘shoulder shuffle head waggle hand wiggle’ thing going on; she was literally waving her hands about in the air like she just didn’t care; and if I was forced to place a temporal description of her actions, I would probably have to say that she was partying like it was at least 1999. Anyway, we all ‘got jiggy with it’ for about half an hour. I have to say I’m a well good dancer. I was cutting some rug up. However, when it comes down to it I think that the ‘dancer of the night’ award goes to the figure who was joking it down in the other dancefloor.
Firstly, she was about 70 which I think in itself is a reason to applaud her. Secondly, she was wearing some white rhinestone-covered jeans and a crop top. Thirdly, she was doing a weird dance in which she was positioned exactly two inches away from the wall (facing it) and squatting up and down while waving her arms around in the air (but not in a manner that said she just didn’t care; indeed there was a level of bemused seriousness to her spasmodic jerkings). After doing this for about three minutes she started waltzing around in circles, rather like a confused zombie, but with a dead serious expression on her face.
At this point I had realized that this club was not going to be the intellectual domain that I had so hoped it would be and I resolved that I was unlikely to take this evening as seriously as some were. And when I say ‘some’ I mean ‘pretty much everyone else on the dancefloor except Cassie who was also laughing at the weird pillhead woman’. I also refer to the woman who showed up wearing a bra and stringy pants and sucking on a pacifier. For some reason, there is nothing so utterly unappealing as a scantily dressed woman in a nightclub. It’s like seeing a Big Mac in a puddle; or watching an episode of Frasier in a bathtub (I had no idea what those analogies mean but they seem oddly appropriate to me). After another hour of having weird sequined boobs rotated around me, I got bored and went and sat outside with Cassie. Outside was filled with people smoking pot and most likely engaging in other illegal activities like sharing needles and downloading pirated music and broadcasting FM radio. I watched two men snorting some self-raising flour from a playing card and pondered. “Cassie” I said, “Why are we not on drugs?”. She looked at me with her sunken piggy eyes and looked confused. I was going to suggest that we cruise for some Triple-sod or Yellow Bentines and get totally mashed off our noggins like a couple of fortnights in a bad balloon, but then a better idea hit me like a bolt of inspiration.
“WAIT A SECOND!” I cried triumphantly.
“What?”
“I just had SUCH A GOOD IDEA.”
“Yes?”
“Basically, if I opened up a shop selling DVDs and do some sort of promotion when I sell them really cheap, I am totally going to call it a DVDEAL!”
She stared at me blankly. I am constantly having amazing ideas like that, but nobody ever takes them seriously. Especially when I am saying them at 2 in the morning with a triple-jacked 19 year old passed out on my foot. That wasn’t even the best innovation I came up with all evening; after talking to Steph about how many drugs she was on: “ONE AND A HALF ECSTASTY, TOM” she replied with a lazy grin that nearly disguised the flecks of blood on her gums, I came up with “EXTRA-SY” which is like ecstasy but just a little bit stronger. We agreed that it was a really good idea and that I was a genius.
Ok, so we were bored at this point. Going to a drug-club and then not taking any drugs is probably missing the point; but it wasn’t like we were even offered any which I frankly think is a bit lax on the behalf of the dealers. I thought that I found a whole sheet of pills on the floor but then it turned out to be a bit of Lego. When I was in the toilets a man popped out of his cubicle said “Excuse me my dear, can I borrow a bank note?” while pointing at his nose. I thought that he wanted to wipe his nose on it and frankly I didn’t have any money left anyway so I was like NO GET AWAY FROM ME and fled the toilets. Thinking about it, he probably wanted it to buy drugs with and I’d been a bit cleverer perhaps I might have gotten in on the deal.
As it was, no narcotics were procured and after the alcohol wore off and we realized that none of us was rich enough to buy any more (the drinks at the not-for-profit club were so expensive that buying a round of beers would have required me to get on the property ladder, slowly move up through careful work and investment until I owned a small 5-room studio flat in London, and then get a mortgage on it). The first train wasn’t for three hours and we were bored, so we sat down on an upper walkway and made snidey comments about the druggers who staggered past.
“Man, I saw her vagina.”
“I like his tshirt.”
“Her boots are fucking stupid.”
“That guy only has one arm”.
Finally, Nat heard us and sat down. Nat is a boy who goes to Kings school. He and I have had a checkered past with regards to this blog (I think I called him a puny little pink virgin flower-boy after he tried to steal my girlfriend, and he called me a pussy, but that is pretty much water under the bridge). “Listen yeah guys” he said to me and Cassie. “Just because you aren’t taking drugs doesn’t mean that you can look down us yeah? Just because you haven’t done it doesn’t mean that you have a RIGHT to look down on people who choose to do so”.
I stared blankly at him. I wanted to point out the moral issues with making moral judgments on people who are making moral judgments on you, but at this point I was still a little bit drunk and it was three thirty in the morning and I just couldn’t persuade my mind to make the correct mental calculations so I said the first thing that came into my mind, which in this case was ‘Yeah, well I have never been Madeleine McCann, but I don’t look down on people who are her,’ and then I sat back and looked pleased with myself. Nat looked at me. Cassie looked at me. I picked up my shovel and started digging. ‘… and anyway…’ I continued “…how do you know we are not on pills? I took two Neurofens and a Vitamin C tablet before coming out’. There was a second of silence.
“Hey, is that eczema on your arm?” asked Nat, pointing at Cassie’s arm, which did indeed have some eczema on it. She stared blankly at him. I stared blankly at her arm. Then I TWISTED THE FUCKING SCREW.
“Hey, just because you have never had it doesn’t mean you have a RIGHT to look down on people who have.” I snapped. I was actually quite annoyed about the whole conversation. To be honest, I have literally no opinion about the business of taking pills for the purpose of moving about really fast and twitching a bit. But I’ll be jiggered if I won’t be allowed to sit in the corner and make sarky comments about anybody who chooses to dress in rave goggles and piss themselves in the corner of a dancefloor. This is my human right as a satirist of the younger generations.
Anyway, we left the club and caught a train home. It was a sad reflection on the world that we’d been out at a nightclub until 5.30 and we were still not hardcore. It’s a bit of a worry that I have managed to miss such a fundamental part of being a teenager as injesting narcotics and rolling about on the floor for eight and a half hours. I also caught a cold on the walk home. That was the worst party ever.
AND I HAD TO WORK THE NEXT DAY. That sucked.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
You’re about to see some ookey photos; you might want to just skip this post unless horrifying mouse death doesn’t bother you. Zick, you’ll probably be happy just to see mice anywhere but your dryer....
I warned you...
Yesterday I was getting some birdseed for the babies when I noticed a grotesque site: there were (gulp) two dead mice in the feeder! I didn’t take a picture of this (didn’t have the camera) until after I dumped them out and washed out the feeder:
What the--? The birds must've just eaten the seed as it came down, and these guys were just trapped in there. EEWWW!!!
Then I looked at the birdseed I'd scooped. That's when I screamed a little and dropped the scoop. There was another dead mouse in the scoop!
It didn't take a Science Chimp to figure it out: There are mousies dying in my birdseed bag.
EEWWW!!!!!!
Hello? (icky!) Hello in there?
I don’t see any holes in the bag; did they just climb in and then couldn’t get out? It’s like when I found that mouse trapped in the empty beer bottle! EEWWW again!
(I’m shuddering as I type this. I warned you it would be el creepo.)
I’ve put the seed in plastic containers before, but the mice always graw their way into those. I think I’ll have to buy one of those shiny metal trashcans; that might keep them out.
EEWWW!!!!! Has this ever happened to you?
Birthday morning coming down
Today is my 43rd birthday, and I woke up at about 7:15a.m. I don’t think it’s fair that my body decided to wake up this early, but I can’t get back to sleep because I know I could be outside birding. It’s not like I have to go to work, after all; I figure I should take advantage of this sleep deprivation.
The sunrise after a stormy day yesterday:
I didn’t see any warblers or anything, but I did see some “regular” birds:
Northern cardinal
American goldfinch
Downy woodpecker (first one I’ve seen visit the suet since I put it back up)
Bluejay (the squawky beautiful things!)
Gray catbird
Common yellowthroat
Carolina wren
Chipping sparrow
Eastern starling
I saw this bird at the top of a tree and thought, “what the heck is that?” That’s how long it’s been since I’ve seen a starling in his jazzy fall outfit:
You see how light he is, though? I thought I had me some exotic bird for a minute there!
So I set off on a nice walk after doodling around the backyard and watching the birds I mentioned above (though I STILL haven’t actually seen that yellowthroat, dangit!). The traffic on our road was incredibly busy, and I was cursing it and wondering what was going on when I remembered: “Oh yes. Penn State home game.” The Central PA universe revolves around Beaver Stadium.
Note to self: Don’t go into State College today, no matter what!
I finally turned off the main road onto Shook Hollow, a nice road for walking:
I didn’t really see any birds other than bluejays, catbirds, and starlings here, but the walk was nice all the same. I did get some looks from the locals, though:
Here’s my usual turn-around point:
It’s so cold this morning, with a brisk wind blowing through the trees and providing a nice background sound for the constant cries of bluejays and mews of catbirds. I’m in shorts and a sweatshirt, so I’m not too cold except when the wind gusts.
Some sights from my walk:
I made my way back home, and took a few more close looks at the nature around me:
I pick some dandies for Niblet (he loves the flowers even more than the leaves), and he’s so happy to see me. I couldn’t get any good shots of him that weren’t blurry; the battery’s tired after so many photos. And so we come to . . .
The sunrise after a stormy day yesterday:
It takes my breath away to look at such things so early in the morning.
I didn’t see any warblers or anything, but I did see some “regular” birds:
Northern cardinal
American goldfinch
Downy woodpecker (first one I’ve seen visit the suet since I put it back up)
Bluejay (the squawky beautiful things!)
Gray catbird
Common yellowthroat
Carolina wren
Chipping sparrow
Eastern starling
I saw this bird at the top of a tree and thought, “what the heck is that?” That’s how long it’s been since I’ve seen a starling in his jazzy fall outfit:
You see how light he is, though? I thought I had me some exotic bird for a minute there!
So I set off on a nice walk after doodling around the backyard and watching the birds I mentioned above (though I STILL haven’t actually seen that yellowthroat, dangit!). The traffic on our road was incredibly busy, and I was cursing it and wondering what was going on when I remembered: “Oh yes. Penn State home game.” The Central PA universe revolves around Beaver Stadium.
Note to self: Don’t go into State College today, no matter what!
I finally turned off the main road onto Shook Hollow, a nice road for walking:
I didn’t really see any birds other than bluejays, catbirds, and starlings here, but the walk was nice all the same. I did get some looks from the locals, though:
And what, may I ask, are you doing here?
Here’s my usual turn-around point:
It’s so cold this morning, with a brisk wind blowing through the trees and providing a nice background sound for the constant cries of bluejays and mews of catbirds. I’m in shorts and a sweatshirt, so I’m not too cold except when the wind gusts.
Some sights from my walk:
Is this a doodie? I mean a scat? From what?
Who lives here?
And here?
Where are these guys going?
The wind is cold, but I can feel the warmth of the sun as it peeks through the trees.
I made my way back home, and took a few more close looks at the nature around me:
Pure white beauty
The tomatoes, still giving me everything they've got
The coming mums
I pick some dandies for Niblet (he loves the flowers even more than the leaves), and he’s so happy to see me. I couldn’t get any good shots of him that weren’t blurry; the battery’s tired after so many photos. And so we come to . . .
The end
Friday, September 14, 2007
From England with love
The following article was brought to national! attention by my pal KGMom:
It's dove at first sight
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
It's a tale straight out of Disney – an abandoned baby monkey, close to death, is revived by the love of a bird.
The 12-week-old macaque was rescued on Neilingding Island, in Goangdong Province, China, after being abandoned by his mother.
Taken to an animal hospital, he was weaned back to physical health but still showed little appetite for life.
It was not until a fellow patient, a white pigeon, took him under her wing and showed him love and affection that he perked up.
Now the two are inseparable, say staff.
They are not the first odd couple. In March, we told how a tiger cub in China was being raised by a sow along with her piglets because his mother didn't know how to feed him.
And in 2005 Mi-Lu the baby deer became best friends with lurcher Geoffrey at the Knowsley Animal Park, in Merseyside, after being rejected by her mother.
It's dove at first sight
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
All together now: Awwwww
It's a tale straight out of Disney – an abandoned baby monkey, close to death, is revived by the love of a bird.
The 12-week-old macaque was rescued on Neilingding Island, in Goangdong Province, China, after being abandoned by his mother.
Taken to an animal hospital, he was weaned back to physical health but still showed little appetite for life.
It was not until a fellow patient, a white pigeon, took him under her wing and showed him love and affection that he perked up.
Now the two are inseparable, say staff.
They are not the first odd couple. In March, we told how a tiger cub in China was being raised by a sow along with her piglets because his mother didn't know how to feed him.
And in 2005 Mi-Lu the baby deer became best friends with lurcher Geoffrey at the Knowsley Animal Park, in Merseyside, after being rejected by her mother.
- - - - -
Now how cute is that!?
We need to stop these people, Norm
I got my first bit of hate-mail for a long time the other week. It was from a woman named Adrienne, which is a french name originally derived from the roman "Hadrian", from the Northern Italian town that gave its name to the Adriatic sea. The hate mail was in the form of a comment on this blog, and it read:
"You're a vile cretin to spew such hatred. I hope someone treats you with the same disregard as you treat others. Karma's a bitch."
Ouch. Hmm. Interesting. I have a few problems with this. Firstly: I really can't see why she's so upset. I mean, the post in question was entitled Fat people are annoying>, and featured the sentence "If fat people are to be made thin, and therefore non-annoying and quiet, all is needed is to point a gun at them and keep them running until a: they die or b: they get fit enough to outrun the bullets"; but really, it was clearly ironic. I was secretly on the SIDE of the morbidly obese people and was cleverly satirising the size-0 debate with my incisive wit and intellect, which is why I made the photoshop picture of the fat man being chased by the little boy with a rifle. I was frankly being postmodern and the fact that Adrienne was unable to realise that 'copying and pasting extracts from the Weight Watcher website in order to poke fun at the suffering of the unforunate women' was meant in a metaphorical, subversive way... well, frankly I find that slightly offensive. And more than a little racist, to be honest, especially coming from a frenchwoman. I bet she's really fat.
My second main complaint about this comment as a piece of relevent biting criticism is that it was posted on a blog-post that I originally wrote in April 2005. APRIL 2005. That is 2 years, 5 months and 2 days ago, or 885 days, or 76,464,000 seconds. She is kind of behind the times here and frankly I think that SHE is the vile cretin for not giving me an opportunity to GROW and MATURE in the 21,240 hours I've had to think about my behaviour since writing that blogpost. I might have grown up a bit... gained a bit of maturity and an increased respect for the female form of all shapes and sizes; I might now be a sober responsible adult who listens to U2 and comments on the fretwork and who shops at John Lewis and thinks that Myleen Klass is a jolly swell lady. Just because I haven't and I'm not doesn't mean that I'm not offended that she has simply made these assumptions about me. If anything, I'd say that SHE is the bitch, not karma. Or me.
But really, what do I care what some anonymous fat bint named after a wall thinks about me on the internet? I'm still a hellraiser, baby. I'm tearing it up. I mean, here I am, sitting on the sofa with my laptop balanced on my lap at a precarious angle - I was told that actually holding it on my lap would cause me to get cancer BUT DO I CARE? Hell no - I don't intend to be alive that long! After all, it is the brightest spark that burns out the soonest, and frankly, at the pace I'm going I'll be surprised if I make it to October. I mean, just think of some of the adventures I have had recently. The other day I went to a pub on my bike and I nearly got hit by a car (this was because I tried to bisect a roundabout). And then I didn't get up til 9:45 the next morning. THAT'S NEARLY TEN. But then I went totally mental and downloaded the entire audiobook of 'Great Expectations' onto my laptop and LISTENED TO IT FOR TWO AND A HALF HOURS. I did this because my reading list for Oxford is so fucking long, and I don't like reading at the best of times, so I decided that it would be a better idea to just find as many medias of taking in literature as possible. If I could find a way of liquidising a book and injecting it directly into my spinal cord, like my friend Steph does, then I would (although, she tends to eschew 'literature', instead choosing to go down the 'highball of turpentine, carpet cleaner and crystal meth' path). The main problems with the audiobook approach is that:
a: It is narrated by this American dude who - every time somebody refers to the protagonist Pip as 'boy' - pronounces it like a deep-south confederate talking to a slave during the 18th century
b: It is 16 hours long
c: It takes up 1.1 gigabytes of disk space and means that I can no longer update my iPod; the chapters are not saved as audiobooks but as individual songs which means that listening to my library has a high probability of being hit by Pip and co
However, it beats reading and it means that I can do my sit ups while taking in literature, thus allowing me to more effectively manage my time and fit more scholarship into the day. YEAH LIKE I SAID HELL-RAISER.
Oh man. It is telling that my first bit of hatemail for months is for a post that I wrote two years ago. I think maybe that I have blunted myself somewhat in my old age. Maybe I have gone down the John Cleese route; once a tall gangly Fawlty Towers firespark, now doing cameos as the new husband of the annoying chipmunk bitch on Will & Grace. Oh shit, I'm married to Karen. That's awful. I think that I need to go back to being gratuitously offensive. Hmm.
Hmm. Well, I could just call my ex-girlfriend's sister fat. That usually gets some responses. Or I could write some sort of thing about paedophilia.
OK I KNOW. I heard this joke the other day.
KNOCK KNOCK.
'Who's there?'
NOT MADELEINE!
Hahahahaha. I told this one to my boss yesterday while we were spinning around on the chairs in the stockroom, and he started laughing hysterically. We then got to talking about the McCann case. The whole thing is pretty fascinating to me. But it only got so when the parents were accused. Beforehand, when it was only "hot blonde girl gets kidnappd", I frankly didn't give a shit. But now the evil mother has come in, it's gotten well good.
Me and Jerry (MY BOSS) are both in agreement the mother is as guilty as fucking sin. Apparently, according to Jerry's reliable 'inside family sources', she's a psychotic bitch who had some screaming fit at her wedding and marches around yelling at people and probably has a collection of sharp axes in her house for kiling homeless people with. She also probably listens to Crazy Town which in my opinion is so hardcore, it'd turn even the most mild-mannered doctor into a serial killer.
After about three minutes of extensive criminal deductive investigation, we've come up with the theory that the 'rents probably didn't mean to kill her; either she overdosed on sedatives, or she fell down the stairs or something; so they hid the body inside a crypt at the chapel, before moving it in a hire car 25 days later in order to bury it somewhere, and that the wife wrote a confession in her diary because - as Jerry said with a wise pause that showed off his years of study of criminal psychology "people like that are narcissistic... they just want to be caught". He gave me a wise nod then stubbed out his rollup on the wall. I thought about it. It does seem that there's a lot evidence against them; the hair in the car and the blood on the stairs and the fact that the mother claimed that her daughter's last words to her were "Mummy, I've had the best day ever. I'm having lots and lots of fun." WHAT SORT OF THREE YEAR OLD SAYS THAT. Has nobody ever watched Supernanny? Young children are shits. My experience of three year olds tells me that she probably said "BUY ME SOMETHING," or maybe "MUMMY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH THAT CHAINSAW?".
The thing is, I want them to be guilty. Or at least her. I dunno why, but I've had an aversion to her from the beginning. Not because of any sense of justice or decency or to restore my faith in the power of civilised society to deal with its criminals, but simply because I think it'd be fucking cool twist. Narratively, that is brilliant and I absolutely approve of it. I'd like all of life to be like a cheesy fiction and frankly, this is the only answer that makes sense. And imagine the film adaptation. Dakota Fanning is: Maddie. Tamzin Outhwaite is: Kate McCann. Paul Burrell is: the dad. Actually, with that cast it'd probably be direct to tv on Five.
I don't know what the point of this post is. Originally it was about hate mail, then there some stuff about me not being a firestarting rebel rockstar any more. And then I started talking about the McCanns. What a load of shit. This a very Joycian post. Brup.
"You're a vile cretin to spew such hatred. I hope someone treats you with the same disregard as you treat others. Karma's a bitch."
Ouch. Hmm. Interesting. I have a few problems with this. Firstly: I really can't see why she's so upset. I mean, the post in question was entitled Fat people are annoying>, and featured the sentence "If fat people are to be made thin, and therefore non-annoying and quiet, all is needed is to point a gun at them and keep them running until a: they die or b: they get fit enough to outrun the bullets"; but really, it was clearly ironic. I was secretly on the SIDE of the morbidly obese people and was cleverly satirising the size-0 debate with my incisive wit and intellect, which is why I made the photoshop picture of the fat man being chased by the little boy with a rifle. I was frankly being postmodern and the fact that Adrienne was unable to realise that 'copying and pasting extracts from the Weight Watcher website in order to poke fun at the suffering of the unforunate women' was meant in a metaphorical, subversive way... well, frankly I find that slightly offensive. And more than a little racist, to be honest, especially coming from a frenchwoman. I bet she's really fat.
My second main complaint about this comment as a piece of relevent biting criticism is that it was posted on a blog-post that I originally wrote in April 2005. APRIL 2005. That is 2 years, 5 months and 2 days ago, or 885 days, or 76,464,000 seconds. She is kind of behind the times here and frankly I think that SHE is the vile cretin for not giving me an opportunity to GROW and MATURE in the 21,240 hours I've had to think about my behaviour since writing that blogpost. I might have grown up a bit... gained a bit of maturity and an increased respect for the female form of all shapes and sizes; I might now be a sober responsible adult who listens to U2 and comments on the fretwork and who shops at John Lewis and thinks that Myleen Klass is a jolly swell lady. Just because I haven't and I'm not doesn't mean that I'm not offended that she has simply made these assumptions about me. If anything, I'd say that SHE is the bitch, not karma. Or me.
But really, what do I care what some anonymous fat bint named after a wall thinks about me on the internet? I'm still a hellraiser, baby. I'm tearing it up. I mean, here I am, sitting on the sofa with my laptop balanced on my lap at a precarious angle - I was told that actually holding it on my lap would cause me to get cancer BUT DO I CARE? Hell no - I don't intend to be alive that long! After all, it is the brightest spark that burns out the soonest, and frankly, at the pace I'm going I'll be surprised if I make it to October. I mean, just think of some of the adventures I have had recently. The other day I went to a pub on my bike and I nearly got hit by a car (this was because I tried to bisect a roundabout). And then I didn't get up til 9:45 the next morning. THAT'S NEARLY TEN. But then I went totally mental and downloaded the entire audiobook of 'Great Expectations' onto my laptop and LISTENED TO IT FOR TWO AND A HALF HOURS. I did this because my reading list for Oxford is so fucking long, and I don't like reading at the best of times, so I decided that it would be a better idea to just find as many medias of taking in literature as possible. If I could find a way of liquidising a book and injecting it directly into my spinal cord, like my friend Steph does, then I would (although, she tends to eschew 'literature', instead choosing to go down the 'highball of turpentine, carpet cleaner and crystal meth' path). The main problems with the audiobook approach is that:
a: It is narrated by this American dude who - every time somebody refers to the protagonist Pip as 'boy' - pronounces it like a deep-south confederate talking to a slave during the 18th century
b: It is 16 hours long
c: It takes up 1.1 gigabytes of disk space and means that I can no longer update my iPod; the chapters are not saved as audiobooks but as individual songs which means that listening to my library has a high probability of being hit by Pip and co
However, it beats reading and it means that I can do my sit ups while taking in literature, thus allowing me to more effectively manage my time and fit more scholarship into the day. YEAH LIKE I SAID HELL-RAISER.
Oh man. It is telling that my first bit of hatemail for months is for a post that I wrote two years ago. I think maybe that I have blunted myself somewhat in my old age. Maybe I have gone down the John Cleese route; once a tall gangly Fawlty Towers firespark, now doing cameos as the new husband of the annoying chipmunk bitch on Will & Grace. Oh shit, I'm married to Karen. That's awful. I think that I need to go back to being gratuitously offensive. Hmm.
Hmm. Well, I could just call my ex-girlfriend's sister fat. That usually gets some responses. Or I could write some sort of thing about paedophilia.
OK I KNOW. I heard this joke the other day.
KNOCK KNOCK.
'Who's there?'
NOT MADELEINE!
Hahahahaha. I told this one to my boss yesterday while we were spinning around on the chairs in the stockroom, and he started laughing hysterically. We then got to talking about the McCann case. The whole thing is pretty fascinating to me. But it only got so when the parents were accused. Beforehand, when it was only "hot blonde girl gets kidnappd", I frankly didn't give a shit. But now the evil mother has come in, it's gotten well good.
Me and Jerry (MY BOSS) are both in agreement the mother is as guilty as fucking sin. Apparently, according to Jerry's reliable 'inside family sources', she's a psychotic bitch who had some screaming fit at her wedding and marches around yelling at people and probably has a collection of sharp axes in her house for kiling homeless people with. She also probably listens to Crazy Town which in my opinion is so hardcore, it'd turn even the most mild-mannered doctor into a serial killer.
After about three minutes of extensive criminal deductive investigation, we've come up with the theory that the 'rents probably didn't mean to kill her; either she overdosed on sedatives, or she fell down the stairs or something; so they hid the body inside a crypt at the chapel, before moving it in a hire car 25 days later in order to bury it somewhere, and that the wife wrote a confession in her diary because - as Jerry said with a wise pause that showed off his years of study of criminal psychology "people like that are narcissistic... they just want to be caught". He gave me a wise nod then stubbed out his rollup on the wall. I thought about it. It does seem that there's a lot evidence against them; the hair in the car and the blood on the stairs and the fact that the mother claimed that her daughter's last words to her were "Mummy, I've had the best day ever. I'm having lots and lots of fun." WHAT SORT OF THREE YEAR OLD SAYS THAT. Has nobody ever watched Supernanny? Young children are shits. My experience of three year olds tells me that she probably said "BUY ME SOMETHING," or maybe "MUMMY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH THAT CHAINSAW?".
The thing is, I want them to be guilty. Or at least her. I dunno why, but I've had an aversion to her from the beginning. Not because of any sense of justice or decency or to restore my faith in the power of civilised society to deal with its criminals, but simply because I think it'd be fucking cool twist. Narratively, that is brilliant and I absolutely approve of it. I'd like all of life to be like a cheesy fiction and frankly, this is the only answer that makes sense. And imagine the film adaptation. Dakota Fanning is: Maddie. Tamzin Outhwaite is: Kate McCann. Paul Burrell is: the dad. Actually, with that cast it'd probably be direct to tv on Five.
I don't know what the point of this post is. Originally it was about hate mail, then there some stuff about me not being a firestarting rebel rockstar any more. And then I started talking about the McCanns. What a load of shit. This a very Joycian post. Brup.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Mr. Little Spider
There’s a little—and I mean tiny—spider who lives on the back of my monitor at work. I’m actually just guessing he lives back there, because I’ve see him every day for about a week. He comes out in the morning, crawls around on the edge of the monitor, then sometimes he jumps onto my copy-holder-stand-thingie and checks out the stuff I’m entering in our database. So far, he hasn’t crawled onto the screen itself yet; maybe it’s too hot or bright or something. He’s so tiny (I’m looking at him as I type this). He’s probably 2mm in length. Not even a quarter of an inch. He’s dark with some lighter parts (white?) on him. Because my close-up eyesight is so terrible, I tried to use the loupe to see him but he’s too shy for such magnification.
How does he eat? It’s rare that flying insects get into the building, at least down where I am. If only I had a gnat for him.
This is what I’m focused on today. Anything but the obvious.
How does he eat? It’s rare that flying insects get into the building, at least down where I am. If only I had a gnat for him.
This is what I’m focused on today. Anything but the obvious.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Wetland regulars and migrants
So that's what it looks like at 6:30 in the morning.
The alarm clock went off at 6am this morning to wake me for my first field trip to several area wetlands with some State College Birding Club members. I was a little tired after a late night of calculus limits and derivatives, but I got up.
I met a lot of new people from the club, as well as some people who've come out the marsh behind my house, so that was nice. I didn't take my scope, but several people had Swarovskis and Kowas, so I did get some close-ups of some of the birds we saw.
For those of you near Central PA, we visited several spots on the lake at Bald Eagle State Park, which looks to be a great site both for birding and camping, plus Lower Greens Run and the Julian wetlands. One place in the park, the Frog Pond, was amazing; I've never seen that many frogs in one place! And for some reason, the little minnows (? they were small fish) were jumping out of the water and straight into the air; they looked like little fingers sticking up repeatedly, making little splashes. I'd never seen that before; it was really funny to watch.
It was a rather foggy and then steamy humid morning, and bird activity was pretty low. However, we did manage to see some notable migrants as well as the usual suspects:
Wood duck--in eclipse plumage, so I still haven't seen one of these in full glory, sadly; still, it was my first steady long look at a wood duck, so I'm finally adding it to my list--a lifer. Even in eclipse, the eye-ring was distinctive.
Mallard
Common loon--not common up here, and another lifer! We watched him dive repeatedly for food right near the stone wall at Sayer's Dam near Howard, PA.
Double-crested cormorant--another lifer that we watched diving for fish.
Great blue heron
Great egret
Green heron
Solitary sandpiper--my first real look at one of these migrants; lifer!
Yellowlegs--couldn't tell whether it was lesser or greater, with only one in sight. Still--yet another lifer!
Belted kingfisher--these were everywhere!
Killdeer
Northern harrier--saw a few of these, another lifer! We saw several raptors this morning.
Cooper's hawk--a young one, who for some reason decided to try to nail a wood duck and made several passes at him before giving up.
Osprey--we got to see one of these perched not far from us, over the lake and looking for food.
Bald eagle--a mated pair! the male actually caught a fish as we watched; it was like watching Wild Kingdom!
Northern flicker
Cedar waxwing
Rose-breasted grosbeak (female)
Bluejay, Mourning dove, American crow, American robin, and Gray catbird--not too notable.
Not at all bad for a humid morning in September! We'd hoped to see some migrating warblers, but that didn't happen. I'm okay with that, especially in light of the facts that (1) I'll be at Cape May soon, and (2) my fall warbler ID skills are, well, pathetic.
What a Great Egret!
A really poor shot of a perched osprey.
It was neat to take a field trip with so many new people; in normal life, I'm not too big on meeting new people, but when you know you've already got one big thing in common, it's easy to make quick friends on a birding trip. I thought several times that I should print up little business cards for my bloggy; then I could hand them out on trips like these. Then, not only would they see my blog but they'd have links to follow to the great birding blogs of Birdchick, Julie Zickefoose and Bill Thompson III, Laura H in NJ, and other Flock members. Does anyone else print up little cards for their blog? Is this an okay thing to do, or would I be seen as a weirdo?
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Memories of birds I've known
In my last post, I talked about the hunting craze in Pennsylvania, and it reminded me of my childhood hunting trips with my father -- and an incident that ended those hunting trips.
When I was little, my father used to go hunting a lot for whitewings--a particular kind of dove common in South Texas during certain parts of the year. (In my memory, it looks a lot like a mourning dove, but I think it was some related species.) Because my dad worked A LOT, my sister Mary and I used to go on these dove-hunting trips with him so that we could spend time with him and so we could go out to "the country" and drink sodas and eat chips and sandwiches. I thought it was the height of "roughing it," you know?
Our job on these hunting trips was to collect the just-shot birds and pull the feathers off them. My dad would do the yanking off of the head, gutting, etc. because Mary and I were grossed out by that. We really enjoyed these trips and "peeling" (defeathering, don't know who came up with that term) the birds, playing with the feathers and stuff.
One time, we went hunting behind our grandpa's house, just out in the vast sorghum fields outside Donna, Texas. My dad shot a bird, and when we went out to gather its little corpse, we found it wasn't yet dead. This had never happened to us before; the birds before had always been dutiful in their deadness and thus I usually didn't feel anything about picking them up, peeling them, and so forth. This guy was fluttering his wings, making little sputtering sounds, and pretty much freaking the crap out of Mary and me.
We then went into EMT mode, laying him on his back, pumping his little bird chest with a fingertip, blowing on his face, trying to find and perhaps extract the fatal shot. In retrospect, we probably hastened the bird's passing, which is a good thing. Despite our efforts, of course, the life slowly ebbed from his body and he stopped moving, but not before significant crying and hullaballoo ensued.
I never went dove-hunting after that.
When I was younger, I really didn't think too much about wild animals and the pain we humans inflicted on them. There are pictures in the family photo albums of my siblings and I next to dead deer and dead fish, all of us just smiling for the camera and happy to be near my dad when he was in such a good mood. He wasn't at work, and he'd just engaged in a sport he enjoyed. We'd watch him gut deer or fish or doves, and other than thinking "gross!" at all the blood, I just don't remember feeling anything for the lives of the animals. I still went fishing a lot, and even as an adult, I used to love being out there on a lake or near the ocean, feeling the little tugging of another life at the end of that line. (I was strictly catch-and-release; I didn't want to have to clean the fish.)
I don't really remember when my feelings changed, except that they did. My love for farm animals, birds, wild beasts of any sort just kind-of grew as I aged, to the point where I stopped eating meat of any sort over five years ago. Sure, I miss the taste of a good steak or a nice piece of rosemary chicken with lemon juice on it, but the idea of sitting down at a table and cutting into that--well, I just don't even want to think about it.
Even before I began birding, I would think about the lives of the birds I saw flying around, scavenging for food in city parking lots, begging for food on my college campus, wondering what they did when they weren't looking for food. I remember that bluejay baby I found in my driveway in Austin, dying after being pecked and ejected from his nest by his mother or father bird; wondering why the adult would do that. I remember watching a little chipping sparrow feeding its young, seeing the gapes of the babies and hearing their cheeping as the parent came near the nest. I began to bird in part out of a desire to learn just what birds did all day, in addition to just watching their beautiful feathered forms.
I'm struggling now to end this post, to back-out to some sort of generalization or clever turn of phrase that will serve as a tidy closure. But my mind is still too full of memories: still melancholy about that dove, still wondering what made that bluejay kill its young, still wondering what happened to that robin's eggs and made her abandon her carefully built nest. Still wondering what birds do all day, and watching them to try to find out.
Friday, September 7, 2007
Green Monkey Music Project -- for a better America
Remember when you were in high school and college, and you and your friends (or your boyfriend/girlfriend) would make mixtapes for each other, with songs that were special or meant something "inside" between the two of you, etc.? Oh, the mixtapes I made back in the '80s! All Go-Go's and Altered Images and B-52's and Bow-Wow-Wow and other crazy early-MTV-era bands, Fleetwood Mac, all kinds of crazy stuff--that, in fact, is how I got really good at playing guitar, because my first girlfriend Kris and I would send each other tapes and tablature of cool songs we liked; that's how I learned to play everything from Rush to the Pretenders. Those were the days!
Well, I, Splotchy (I'm always talking about Splotchy, aren't I?) has been putting together online mixtapes under the heading of the Green Monkey Music Project, and I participated in a recent mix called "What's In a Word" featuring one-word-titled songs. A few other people and I submitted our lists, and Splotchy put up the links to download all the songs for free! (with just a quick little registration--painless). My songs are special to me, but there are some REALLY great songs in all his mixes. Check it out! By the way, Beth's songs ROCK; definitely check them out if you don't already have them in your rotation.
Besides, now I get to put this cool badge on the bloggy:
Cordial Shelf
So, I am a working man at last (hurray!). Yes, that's right, I have gotten myself some gainful paid employment. In a SHOP.
What I do, right, is I sell alcohol and cigarettes and chocolate. Mostly to the working class. I like this, because in my previous role as a useless layabout middle-class callow youth, the working classes of this country were a dark force to be feared. With their slovenly (but, in opposition to the opinions of the presctiptivist linguist wanker John Honey, NOT INCORRECT, MERELY NON-STANDARD) use of language, their shabby dress, their beady little eyes and their angry 'We work for our crust and read The Sun' outlook on the world, they were a scary mass with which I had no rapport, rather like terrorists, crackheads, and orks. But now, we have something in common. No - scratch that - we have a reason for communication. They want the fags and booze (it numbs the pain); I am the only one who can give them the fags and booze. In a way, it is like they are the Balrog, and I am Gandalf, and Frodo is a 20 pack of Benson and Hedges Silver. They come in, slavering at the till, and I'm like "YOU SHALL NOT PASS... until you give me £5.35" and then they do and so I give them their death-sticks and everyone is happy.
I guess what I'm saying is that, being a dealer of mind-numbing toxins really gets you respect from the working classes. They basically do whatever you say. GIVE ME SOME MONEY I cry, then they give me money. And they are ultra polite to me, saying 'Please' and 'Thank you', with their shiny eyes fixed on the bottle of Gin clutched in my hand and the box of Malboroughs clenched in my fist. Let me expemplify. Yesterday, a man dressed in painters overalls said "Cheers fella". I am going to repeat that. A MAN DRESSED IN PAINTERS OVERALLS SAID "CHEERS FELLA". If that doesn't cement my place in society, I don't know what will. And, I mean, it isn't just men in painter's overalls. Having the key to the drinks cabinet brings you into contact with all sorts of exciting people from every walk of life, to weird looking 14 year olds with fake IDs - whom I cast away from the door with my fiery rod of justice - to nervous alcoholics - such as the woman who sprinted in, asked for a litre bottle of vodka, paid in cash then ran off without taking her change - to happy drunks - such as the chap who comes in every day to buy a Heinekin and a Tenants and who gave his son's mobile number to Rose the other night.
Oh yeah, my lover Rose also works at the shop. She is going through a bit of a straight phase and is going out with the manager, whose name is Jerry. YES JERRY. HIS NAME IS JERRY AND MY NAME IS TOM.
Fucking classic, you can't write that shit.
The fact that Rose and Jerry (HAHAHAHAHA) are kind of seeing each other had nothing to do with my getting the job, by the way.
Anyway, I think that J-Dogg can sense the huge and inescapable sexual chemistry between me and Rose, because yesterday was the first day that we got to work a shift together (from 4-10); this was only because Jerry couldn't get the train in. PERHAPS HE WAS EATING A PARTICULARLY BIG PIECE OF CHEESE AND THEN HE GOT STUCK IN HIS MOUSE HOLE! So it was me and Rose. And Rose's friend Yuko who is japanese and was there for no discernable reason. Anyway, when we arrived I said to Rose 'Now, just because we are friends it doesn't mean that we can't do a thorough, professional job with absolutely no messing around, no silliness and no playing the goat; I respect you as a colleague and co-worker and I think that we can keep the working environment both friendly, but also respectful and sensible'. I did say that. I think some of the message was lost because I delivered it while attempting to joust her head with a broom while propelling myself around the stockroom on the swivelly chair. But anyway, we got on with it; counted the float money and started serving customers.
My biggest problem with this job is counting the float. The thing is, when you first log in you get given £100 in - basically - loose change - and you have to count every penny to make sure that it is all there. Now, we all know that maths is not my strong point. On reflection, I would not describe myself as a modern-day Steven Hawkings. Counting 2-3, or in twos, or every five; it does not work for me. I lose count. Therefore, I have to count every single coin INDIVIDUALLY and then double-check it to make sure that I have the right amount. Then, at the end of the day, you see how much money is in the till, remove the exess, then count the leftover to see if you have 100. If you do - HURRAY YOU WIN. If not it causes a headache. I know that this system seems to be old and archaic and the answer is that the machines that we use to take the money were made in the 70s. They still think that the shop is called Victoria Wine. I hadn't even HEARD of Victoria Wine which means that the chain must have changed their name before I got interested in alcohol. And then the machines pre-dated that. They are fucking old, and my till is somehow WELDED to the desk which means that nobody can move it. The drawer also kept getting jammed shut which meant that I had to rescan things twice. REMEMBER THAT INFORMATION, AS IT IS USEFUL.
Anyway, the day I was working with Rose, there weren't many customers. Except for one old guy who showed up at the door and loudly read out what I assumed was the writing on a poster on the door. Like, he listed wine prices and special offers then screamed WE'RE GOING TO HAVE A SPECIAL TIME TONIGHT, YOU AND I EH to Rose, then scampered off. When I looked at the door, there was nothing posted up there. Other than that, no customers. So we decided to restock the shelves. We haven't had a delivery for two weeks so there was no stock to put on the shelves. There was literally nothing to do and - as the old saying goes - the devil makes work for idle thumbs.
Ten minutes later, I was lying on the floor, with Rose perched on my knees and a fluffy purple fish (called Phillip, store mascot) on her head. She was talking to Jerry - CLASSIC - on the phone. He told me to vacuum the carpet. There isn't a carpet in the store, except for the two squares of gummy green felt behind the till. So I vacuumed that. Ten minutes later, I stapled a bow to Phillip, tied him to a broom, and made him swim back and forth in front of the CCTV camera mounted to the ceiling. Meanwhile, Rose was watching me on the video monitor, drawing a green afro on the screen where my head was. We were both wearing hats that I had made out of the tissue used for wrapping the wine bottles. Yuko was sitting on a chair, staring blankly at the wall. After making Phillip swim for a bit on tape, I had a thought.
"Rose?"
"Yes?"
"Does anyone ever watch the CCTV camera tape back?"
"Nah. Well, only if the till is down, money's missing from the safe, or a load of stock has been lost."
"Oh, ok."
I returned to making the fish swim.
Three hours after that:
"My till is down twelve quid."
"And there's forty quid missing from the safe."
"Oh."
This was worrying. Every single penny in the shop needs to be accounted for, and here we were missing loads of money. The thing about the safe was that you never go into there unless you have a good reason - such as taking individual bags of change, or stealing to pay for your mother's kidney dialysis. I went in there only once to get change, and neither of us had mothers who needed dialysis, so there was no explanation for the missing forty quid. Meanwhile, I was running around the stockroom in a panic about the loss of £12 from my till. THERE WAS NO EXPLANATION. Or was there? Yes there was. It was because the till drawer kept sticking so I had to scan stuff through twice. Rose sorted it out for me because she is a hero and I will marry her one day. But what about the missing safe money? SAFE. Neither of us had any explanation or even knew why it was gone. To be fair, it had probably been missing for days and so we decided that the best thing to do would be to blame is on Yuko, who was going back to Japan anyway in a few days. NO NOT REALLY. I think Rose left a note for Jerry (tee-hee) and then we went home.
On the drive home I nearly ran over Rose's cat.
Hmm.
I'm not sure what the point of that story was. There was no real drama, no real intrigue (the worst case situation would be me having to pay £12 to cover the loss), and the resolution was pretty much "I asked Rose and she figured it out for me." It wasn't exciting or funny or gave any insight whatsoever into the human condition. Oh well. Maybe, then, it is a good metaphor for life itself? Who knows? Not me. I do worry that, by selling alcohols and poisons, I am simply now a proponent of the vicious circle of addiction and death that so many people find themselves trapped in; I mean, as I make a living from them, should I now be anti the anti-cigarette movement? Should I paint out the 'Please drink responsibly' sign on posters for booze? Am I selling my soul to cigarette and alcohol companies for £5.50 an hour? I don't know. As the scottish man Thomas Carlyle would have said, I am now a part of the machine. My job is to keep everything lubricated by making the cogs happy and oiled with nicotine and vodka.
That is a sobering thought.
GET IT, SOBERING THOUGHT? I SAID THAT ABOUT EIGHT TIMES LAST NIGHT. IT IS FUNNY BECAUSE I WORK IN A SHOP THAT SELLS DRINK THAT MAKES YOU THE OPPOSITE OF SOBER. lol
What I do, right, is I sell alcohol and cigarettes and chocolate. Mostly to the working class. I like this, because in my previous role as a useless layabout middle-class callow youth, the working classes of this country were a dark force to be feared. With their slovenly (but, in opposition to the opinions of the presctiptivist linguist wanker John Honey, NOT INCORRECT, MERELY NON-STANDARD) use of language, their shabby dress, their beady little eyes and their angry 'We work for our crust and read The Sun' outlook on the world, they were a scary mass with which I had no rapport, rather like terrorists, crackheads, and orks. But now, we have something in common. No - scratch that - we have a reason for communication. They want the fags and booze (it numbs the pain); I am the only one who can give them the fags and booze. In a way, it is like they are the Balrog, and I am Gandalf, and Frodo is a 20 pack of Benson and Hedges Silver. They come in, slavering at the till, and I'm like "YOU SHALL NOT PASS... until you give me £5.35" and then they do and so I give them their death-sticks and everyone is happy.
I guess what I'm saying is that, being a dealer of mind-numbing toxins really gets you respect from the working classes. They basically do whatever you say. GIVE ME SOME MONEY I cry, then they give me money. And they are ultra polite to me, saying 'Please' and 'Thank you', with their shiny eyes fixed on the bottle of Gin clutched in my hand and the box of Malboroughs clenched in my fist. Let me expemplify. Yesterday, a man dressed in painters overalls said "Cheers fella". I am going to repeat that. A MAN DRESSED IN PAINTERS OVERALLS SAID "CHEERS FELLA". If that doesn't cement my place in society, I don't know what will. And, I mean, it isn't just men in painter's overalls. Having the key to the drinks cabinet brings you into contact with all sorts of exciting people from every walk of life, to weird looking 14 year olds with fake IDs - whom I cast away from the door with my fiery rod of justice - to nervous alcoholics - such as the woman who sprinted in, asked for a litre bottle of vodka, paid in cash then ran off without taking her change - to happy drunks - such as the chap who comes in every day to buy a Heinekin and a Tenants and who gave his son's mobile number to Rose the other night.
Oh yeah, my lover Rose also works at the shop. She is going through a bit of a straight phase and is going out with the manager, whose name is Jerry. YES JERRY. HIS NAME IS JERRY AND MY NAME IS TOM.
Fucking classic, you can't write that shit.
The fact that Rose and Jerry (HAHAHAHAHA) are kind of seeing each other had nothing to do with my getting the job, by the way.
Anyway, I think that J-Dogg can sense the huge and inescapable sexual chemistry between me and Rose, because yesterday was the first day that we got to work a shift together (from 4-10); this was only because Jerry couldn't get the train in. PERHAPS HE WAS EATING A PARTICULARLY BIG PIECE OF CHEESE AND THEN HE GOT STUCK IN HIS MOUSE HOLE! So it was me and Rose. And Rose's friend Yuko who is japanese and was there for no discernable reason. Anyway, when we arrived I said to Rose 'Now, just because we are friends it doesn't mean that we can't do a thorough, professional job with absolutely no messing around, no silliness and no playing the goat; I respect you as a colleague and co-worker and I think that we can keep the working environment both friendly, but also respectful and sensible'. I did say that. I think some of the message was lost because I delivered it while attempting to joust her head with a broom while propelling myself around the stockroom on the swivelly chair. But anyway, we got on with it; counted the float money and started serving customers.
My biggest problem with this job is counting the float. The thing is, when you first log in you get given £100 in - basically - loose change - and you have to count every penny to make sure that it is all there. Now, we all know that maths is not my strong point. On reflection, I would not describe myself as a modern-day Steven Hawkings. Counting 2-3, or in twos, or every five; it does not work for me. I lose count. Therefore, I have to count every single coin INDIVIDUALLY and then double-check it to make sure that I have the right amount. Then, at the end of the day, you see how much money is in the till, remove the exess, then count the leftover to see if you have 100. If you do - HURRAY YOU WIN. If not it causes a headache. I know that this system seems to be old and archaic and the answer is that the machines that we use to take the money were made in the 70s. They still think that the shop is called Victoria Wine. I hadn't even HEARD of Victoria Wine which means that the chain must have changed their name before I got interested in alcohol. And then the machines pre-dated that. They are fucking old, and my till is somehow WELDED to the desk which means that nobody can move it. The drawer also kept getting jammed shut which meant that I had to rescan things twice. REMEMBER THAT INFORMATION, AS IT IS USEFUL.
Anyway, the day I was working with Rose, there weren't many customers. Except for one old guy who showed up at the door and loudly read out what I assumed was the writing on a poster on the door. Like, he listed wine prices and special offers then screamed WE'RE GOING TO HAVE A SPECIAL TIME TONIGHT, YOU AND I EH to Rose, then scampered off. When I looked at the door, there was nothing posted up there. Other than that, no customers. So we decided to restock the shelves. We haven't had a delivery for two weeks so there was no stock to put on the shelves. There was literally nothing to do and - as the old saying goes - the devil makes work for idle thumbs.
Ten minutes later, I was lying on the floor, with Rose perched on my knees and a fluffy purple fish (called Phillip, store mascot) on her head. She was talking to Jerry - CLASSIC - on the phone. He told me to vacuum the carpet. There isn't a carpet in the store, except for the two squares of gummy green felt behind the till. So I vacuumed that. Ten minutes later, I stapled a bow to Phillip, tied him to a broom, and made him swim back and forth in front of the CCTV camera mounted to the ceiling. Meanwhile, Rose was watching me on the video monitor, drawing a green afro on the screen where my head was. We were both wearing hats that I had made out of the tissue used for wrapping the wine bottles. Yuko was sitting on a chair, staring blankly at the wall. After making Phillip swim for a bit on tape, I had a thought.
"Rose?"
"Yes?"
"Does anyone ever watch the CCTV camera tape back?"
"Nah. Well, only if the till is down, money's missing from the safe, or a load of stock has been lost."
"Oh, ok."
I returned to making the fish swim.
Three hours after that:
"My till is down twelve quid."
"And there's forty quid missing from the safe."
"Oh."
This was worrying. Every single penny in the shop needs to be accounted for, and here we were missing loads of money. The thing about the safe was that you never go into there unless you have a good reason - such as taking individual bags of change, or stealing to pay for your mother's kidney dialysis. I went in there only once to get change, and neither of us had mothers who needed dialysis, so there was no explanation for the missing forty quid. Meanwhile, I was running around the stockroom in a panic about the loss of £12 from my till. THERE WAS NO EXPLANATION. Or was there? Yes there was. It was because the till drawer kept sticking so I had to scan stuff through twice. Rose sorted it out for me because she is a hero and I will marry her one day. But what about the missing safe money? SAFE. Neither of us had any explanation or even knew why it was gone. To be fair, it had probably been missing for days and so we decided that the best thing to do would be to blame is on Yuko, who was going back to Japan anyway in a few days. NO NOT REALLY. I think Rose left a note for Jerry (tee-hee) and then we went home.
On the drive home I nearly ran over Rose's cat.
Hmm.
I'm not sure what the point of that story was. There was no real drama, no real intrigue (the worst case situation would be me having to pay £12 to cover the loss), and the resolution was pretty much "I asked Rose and she figured it out for me." It wasn't exciting or funny or gave any insight whatsoever into the human condition. Oh well. Maybe, then, it is a good metaphor for life itself? Who knows? Not me. I do worry that, by selling alcohols and poisons, I am simply now a proponent of the vicious circle of addiction and death that so many people find themselves trapped in; I mean, as I make a living from them, should I now be anti the anti-cigarette movement? Should I paint out the 'Please drink responsibly' sign on posters for booze? Am I selling my soul to cigarette and alcohol companies for £5.50 an hour? I don't know. As the scottish man Thomas Carlyle would have said, I am now a part of the machine. My job is to keep everything lubricated by making the cogs happy and oiled with nicotine and vodka.
That is a sobering thought.
GET IT, SOBERING THOUGHT? I SAID THAT ABOUT EIGHT TIMES LAST NIGHT. IT IS FUNNY BECAUSE I WORK IN A SHOP THAT SELLS DRINK THAT MAKES YOU THE OPPOSITE OF SOBER. lol
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Look out, all you animals!
It's that time again when I receive my yearly email alerting me and other non-hunters of how effing scary the woods around these parts are about to become: It's HUNTING SEASON. The craziest part is the list of the animals that these hunters target:
SQUIRRELS- Oct. 6-12 ; Oct. 13-Nov. 24; Dec. 10-22 and Dec. 26-Feb. 9
RUFFED GROUSE: Oct. 13-Nov. 24 ;Dec. 10-22 and Dec. 26-Jan. 26
RABBITS Oct. 20-Nov. 24, Dec. 10-22 and Dec. 26-Feb. 9
PHEASANT: Oct. 6-12 ;Oct. 20- Nov. 24; Dec. 10-22 and Dec. 26-Feb. 9
BOBWHITE QUAIL: Oct. 20-Nov. 24
HARES (SNOWSHOE RABBITS) Dec. 26-Jan. 1
WOODCHUCKS (GROUNDHOGS): No closed season, with a few exceptions
CROWS: July 1-Nov. 24 and Dec. 28-April 6, on Friday, Saturday and Sunday only..
STARLINGS AND ENGLISH SPARROWS: No closed season,with a few exceptions
WILD TURKEY Oct. 27-Nov 17 (not everywhere in the state)
SPRING GOBBLERS April 19, 2008;April 26-May 26, 2008.
BLACK BEAR Nov. 14-15 ; Nov. 19-21; Nov. 26-Dec. 1; Nov. 28-Dec. 1.
ELK (Antlered or Antlerless): Sept. 3-29; Nov. 5-10
DEER: Sept. 15-28; Oct 13-20; Sept 29 – Nov 10; Nov. 12-24; Nov 26-Dec 8;Dec.10-22; Dec. 26-Jan 26
COYOTES: No closed season
RACCOON & FOXES: Oct. 20-Feb. 16
OPOSSUM, SKUNKS & WEASELS: No closed season, except Sundays and prior to noon during the spring gobbler season
BOBCAT Oct. 20-Feb. 16
People here in PA will apparently kill ANYTHING! I mean, crows? Possums? Starlings!? Is this for sport, or do people just hope that pesky skunk or starling is messing up the yard ONLY during those open-season dates?
The email goes on: "As you see, there are MANY hunting seasons. Since brown hair might look like a groundhog to a hunter who is 200 yards away, we suggest that you always wear a Blaze Orange cap and vest whenever you’re out there. It’s not being paranoid, it’s just common sense."
Oh. My. God. I don't OWN any "blaze orange" clothing or caps, people. All I can do is make like Denethor, son of Ecthelion, and yell, "FLEE! FLEE FOR YOUR LIVES!"
SQUIRRELS- Oct. 6-12 ; Oct. 13-Nov. 24; Dec. 10-22 and Dec. 26-Feb. 9
RUFFED GROUSE: Oct. 13-Nov. 24 ;Dec. 10-22 and Dec. 26-Jan. 26
RABBITS Oct. 20-Nov. 24, Dec. 10-22 and Dec. 26-Feb. 9
PHEASANT: Oct. 6-12 ;Oct. 20- Nov. 24; Dec. 10-22 and Dec. 26-Feb. 9
BOBWHITE QUAIL: Oct. 20-Nov. 24
HARES (SNOWSHOE RABBITS) Dec. 26-Jan. 1
WOODCHUCKS (GROUNDHOGS): No closed season, with a few exceptions
CROWS: July 1-Nov. 24 and Dec. 28-April 6, on Friday, Saturday and Sunday only..
STARLINGS AND ENGLISH SPARROWS: No closed season,with a few exceptions
WILD TURKEY Oct. 27-Nov 17 (not everywhere in the state)
SPRING GOBBLERS April 19, 2008;April 26-May 26, 2008.
BLACK BEAR Nov. 14-15 ; Nov. 19-21; Nov. 26-Dec. 1; Nov. 28-Dec. 1.
ELK (Antlered or Antlerless): Sept. 3-29; Nov. 5-10
DEER: Sept. 15-28; Oct 13-20; Sept 29 – Nov 10; Nov. 12-24; Nov 26-Dec 8;Dec.10-22; Dec. 26-Jan 26
COYOTES: No closed season
RACCOON & FOXES: Oct. 20-Feb. 16
OPOSSUM, SKUNKS & WEASELS: No closed season, except Sundays and prior to noon during the spring gobbler season
BOBCAT Oct. 20-Feb. 16
People here in PA will apparently kill ANYTHING! I mean, crows? Possums? Starlings!? Is this for sport, or do people just hope that pesky skunk or starling is messing up the yard ONLY during those open-season dates?
The email goes on: "As you see, there are MANY hunting seasons. Since brown hair might look like a groundhog to a hunter who is 200 yards away, we suggest that you always wear a Blaze Orange cap and vest whenever you’re out there. It’s not being paranoid, it’s just common sense."
Oh. My. God. I don't OWN any "blaze orange" clothing or caps, people. All I can do is make like Denethor, son of Ecthelion, and yell, "FLEE! FLEE FOR YOUR LIVES!"
Monday, September 3, 2007
Wine in the fountain and blood on the walls
No, that is not the title of the latest song by some sort of new-fangled 'emo-rock' ("eck") band like 'My Chemical Romance' or 'Panic! At the Disco' or 'Take That'. No, those are amongst the things that I had to clear up in the aftermath of MY NINETEENTH BIRTHDAY PARTY! Woo. And this is what I am going to talk about in this blog post and we will forget that I only wrote two posts last month...
I decided that it was necessary to have a birthday party for several reasons. The first is that Nineteen is a shite age. I was thinking about this the other day and I realised that for every teenage year, I have a mental image that personifies that age. So thirteen is a boy in a baseball cap and a scummy screen-printed Offspring tshirt, fourteen is a girl wearing lots of layers and possibly cut-off tights, fifteen is a slightly burly chap, sixteen is a wiry but cool-looking kid in a ruffled school uniform, seventeen is a high-school jock making out with Leigh Cabot from the book version of 'Christine', and eighteen is a man with stubble driving around in a car. Those images are OK. They are kind of cool in a wry way. You know what I have for nineteen? A wiry, gangly, nerdish looking Jewish student (I don't know why the jewish is important, but it just seems to be) with whispy hair, big silly glasses, a grubby linen shirt five sizes too big for him, clutching a camera and running around New York saying 'GOLLY'. I'm thinking a stretched Woody Allen, or maybe sort of like Will Ferrier on crack. That isn't meant to be a cuss at Will Ferrier, by the way - I, like the rest of the world, have nothing against him - but every time I see a picture of him on Facebook, I think to myself 'Holy shit, that boy personifies my already existing image of what Nineteen is".
Where was I? Oh yeah, the lameo student. Basically, nineteen is not a cool age. You've pretty much finished puberty (unless you are a eunuch, or possibly Daniel Bedingfield); all of the cool allowances have been given to you. SIXTEEN: SEX. SEVENTEEN: CARS. EIGHTEEN: ALCOHOL. NINETEEN... THE ABILITY TO GET MARRIED WITHOUT YOUR PARENT'S CONSENT IN NEBRASKA! FUCK YOU, SYSTEM! I'd say that Ninteen is the first age at which birthdays become less about getting awesomely excited about presents and stuff, and more about being depressed because death is another year closer. This put me in the mood for a bloody good party.
The second reason was that, at the end of the summer, the social group that I have known and loved and grown up with will be officially SHATTERED into a thousand fragments as we all go off to our respective universities to study our various courses, such as English at Oxford, or one of those mickey-mouse courses like Outdoor Adventure and Philosophy at one of those mickey-mouse universities like West Sussex or Durham. The thought that I might never see some of my fondest friends ever again... people like *looks at Facebook* "Jonathan Doyle", "Emily Brighton" or "Elena Lynch"... a mental scan of their names comes up with a blank but apparently they were all at my party so we must be friends... the idea that I will never see some of these people again is enough to PUT ME OVER THE EDGE. So I threw a big party and decided to invite all of my friends. Well, most of them. I also had to invite the people who are only friends due to habit, and then I had to invite the members of the various clique just so that I had collected 'em all, and then I invited this one guy who I actually forgot had existed throughout Summer. All of this was done on Facebook, and being the responsible person I am I said "If anyone wants a plus one, just ask me and it will be OK". Naturally all of the people who I only invited out of a desire to make a set complete wanted plus ones; and at one point a plus one wanted a plus one, at which point my unified view of the universe collapsed around my ears and I burst into bitter, self-pitying tears before cutting myself with a broken bit of glass for three and a half hours. Then I said "NO". Actually I don't even think I said no; I think that the plus one who wanted a plus one broke up with her boyfriend or something so didn't even come to the party at all! So really, the joke is on her. Sucker.
As it was, when I was ambling through the crowd of blood-stained extras about forty minutes into the party, I realised that I only knew about 70% of the people. I was like WHO ARE YOU to one girl, and then she shot back WHO ARE YOU back and I thought to myself 'Hmm'. But then I realised that we were both covered in fake blood and thus we should just get on with everything. Oh yeah, the theme of the party was "Zombies and Cheerleaders". This was because I like zombies and because, in the words of my estimable companion Kit "Girls won't want to come all covered in blood". Naturally, all of the girls came slathered up in blood and gore, and most of the boys showed up wearing girl's clothes. This is the way that the universe works.
I think the last time I wrote a blog about a party, I gave up trying to write a coherent narrative and just started listing stuff that happened in no order. This was because it was easier to list than it was to string together smoothly and professionally. Of course, a year on from that, I have become a more accomplished writer, have gotten into Oxford and am more secure in my literary skills; therefore, I am going to do exactly the same thing, except this time I will use co-ordinating conjunctions (I learnt that term in English Language A Level!) to bridge the gap between the points:
Amy showed up carrying a bloodied baby doll; we then threw it onto the barbeque and its head melted a bit and went conical; then its body split open and beads came out so I drop kicked it across the lawn
and...
Kit showed up dressed in black face paint and an afro. When I first saw him, I said "Who is the black guy?" then I realised it was him and I nearly split open my liver laughing."I thought that dressing up as a zombie was boring so I decided to come as a black guy" he confided in me
and...
I was given a bottle of champagne. I popped it open outside and hit a girl in the back of the head. I then wandered around swigging from the bottle but then I lost it. Then I thought I found it again but it turned out to be white wine
but...
Cassie had a bottle of absinthe. She offered me some and I had a swig. I do not like absinthe, I realised as it trickled down the back of my throat. You know how when you sup a really strong alcohol it makes spit just spontaneously well up from different parts of your mouth? Well, that was still happening to me TEN MINUTES LATER
however...
Tom "LJ" Kempner showed up and gave me a Sean Young hip-flask which was well good. Then he drank a 2L bottle of Diamond White - the 7.5% Tramp Juice second only to Frosty Jacks (I should be an advertising executive) - and fell over. He locked himself in the toilet and fell over again. We phoned his mum and made her take him away, but he had lost his phone. "WHERE IS YOUR PHONE, LJ?" we asked. "In the middle" he said, so I kicked him and ran off.
but...
I had some red paint in my shed which I used for making zombie blood. My good friend Ogg told me to paint something "Really offensive" on his back. I was annoyed with him so I wrote "I LUV STEVE" and then ran off. THE JOKE IS THAT STEVE IS HIS EX-'GIRL'FRIEND AND THEY BOTH PRETEND THEY HATE EACH OTHER TO COVER THE UNDERLYING SEXUAL CHEMISTRY, AND SHE WAS AT THE PARTY TOO! Ah, jokes.
meanwhile...
Apparently there were about three massive arguments, breakups, breakdowns and fights. I didn't notice any of them as I was too busy not caring
however...
My friend Pete, who from this point on I will refer to as 'DJ Pete', said that I could borrow his speakers for the dance room. However when he showed up, drinking Argentinian herbal tea that looked an awful lot like drugs (and I should know, I saw some drugs at the Reading Festival), it turned out that he was a: An actual DJ and b: under the impression that the speakers were to be positioned OUTSIDE. So they were basically bigger than my head and - DJ Pete assured me - would kill small insects that flew in their vicinity. I was like COOL so we set them up. Nobody went in the dance room.
Unimpressive Photographic Summing-Up of the Soirée:
I decided that it was necessary to have a birthday party for several reasons. The first is that Nineteen is a shite age. I was thinking about this the other day and I realised that for every teenage year, I have a mental image that personifies that age. So thirteen is a boy in a baseball cap and a scummy screen-printed Offspring tshirt, fourteen is a girl wearing lots of layers and possibly cut-off tights, fifteen is a slightly burly chap, sixteen is a wiry but cool-looking kid in a ruffled school uniform, seventeen is a high-school jock making out with Leigh Cabot from the book version of 'Christine', and eighteen is a man with stubble driving around in a car. Those images are OK. They are kind of cool in a wry way. You know what I have for nineteen? A wiry, gangly, nerdish looking Jewish student (I don't know why the jewish is important, but it just seems to be) with whispy hair, big silly glasses, a grubby linen shirt five sizes too big for him, clutching a camera and running around New York saying 'GOLLY'. I'm thinking a stretched Woody Allen, or maybe sort of like Will Ferrier on crack. That isn't meant to be a cuss at Will Ferrier, by the way - I, like the rest of the world, have nothing against him - but every time I see a picture of him on Facebook, I think to myself 'Holy shit, that boy personifies my already existing image of what Nineteen is".
Where was I? Oh yeah, the lameo student. Basically, nineteen is not a cool age. You've pretty much finished puberty (unless you are a eunuch, or possibly Daniel Bedingfield); all of the cool allowances have been given to you. SIXTEEN: SEX. SEVENTEEN: CARS. EIGHTEEN: ALCOHOL. NINETEEN... THE ABILITY TO GET MARRIED WITHOUT YOUR PARENT'S CONSENT IN NEBRASKA! FUCK YOU, SYSTEM! I'd say that Ninteen is the first age at which birthdays become less about getting awesomely excited about presents and stuff, and more about being depressed because death is another year closer. This put me in the mood for a bloody good party.
The second reason was that, at the end of the summer, the social group that I have known and loved and grown up with will be officially SHATTERED into a thousand fragments as we all go off to our respective universities to study our various courses, such as English at Oxford, or one of those mickey-mouse courses like Outdoor Adventure and Philosophy at one of those mickey-mouse universities like West Sussex or Durham. The thought that I might never see some of my fondest friends ever again... people like *looks at Facebook* "Jonathan Doyle", "Emily Brighton" or "Elena Lynch"... a mental scan of their names comes up with a blank but apparently they were all at my party so we must be friends... the idea that I will never see some of these people again is enough to PUT ME OVER THE EDGE. So I threw a big party and decided to invite all of my friends. Well, most of them. I also had to invite the people who are only friends due to habit, and then I had to invite the members of the various clique just so that I had collected 'em all, and then I invited this one guy who I actually forgot had existed throughout Summer. All of this was done on Facebook, and being the responsible person I am I said "If anyone wants a plus one, just ask me and it will be OK". Naturally all of the people who I only invited out of a desire to make a set complete wanted plus ones; and at one point a plus one wanted a plus one, at which point my unified view of the universe collapsed around my ears and I burst into bitter, self-pitying tears before cutting myself with a broken bit of glass for three and a half hours. Then I said "NO". Actually I don't even think I said no; I think that the plus one who wanted a plus one broke up with her boyfriend or something so didn't even come to the party at all! So really, the joke is on her. Sucker.
As it was, when I was ambling through the crowd of blood-stained extras about forty minutes into the party, I realised that I only knew about 70% of the people. I was like WHO ARE YOU to one girl, and then she shot back WHO ARE YOU back and I thought to myself 'Hmm'. But then I realised that we were both covered in fake blood and thus we should just get on with everything. Oh yeah, the theme of the party was "Zombies and Cheerleaders". This was because I like zombies and because, in the words of my estimable companion Kit "Girls won't want to come all covered in blood". Naturally, all of the girls came slathered up in blood and gore, and most of the boys showed up wearing girl's clothes. This is the way that the universe works.
I think the last time I wrote a blog about a party, I gave up trying to write a coherent narrative and just started listing stuff that happened in no order. This was because it was easier to list than it was to string together smoothly and professionally. Of course, a year on from that, I have become a more accomplished writer, have gotten into Oxford and am more secure in my literary skills; therefore, I am going to do exactly the same thing, except this time I will use co-ordinating conjunctions (I learnt that term in English Language A Level!) to bridge the gap between the points:
and...
and...
but...
however...
but...
meanwhile...
however...
Unimpressive Photographic Summing-Up of the Soirée:
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Around the backyard today
I've been reviewing algebra and geometry and studying calculus all weekend, so I figured I deserved a break this morning. It's been a long time since we took a walk around the backyard, so here's a sampling of what's outside this afternoon. First off, the sky is a beautiful blue, not a cloud in the sky.
There's a cool breeze going, a hint of the autumn weather to come.
The morning glories are in full glory, even at about noon, and the bees are just lovin' it:
This guy must've been just drunk with nectar and pollen, because when he'd pull out of the flowers
he'd kinda just tumble down and then recover and go to the next flower.
I sat down behind the firepit, hoping to use it as camouflage, and waited to get some bird pics. I did get one of Mary's faves, a female cardinal:
But she was too jittery to come to the feeder; she'll come back later and bring the hubby, I'm sure. I saw Hubby yesterday, and he looked a little worse for the wear what with the molting and all. She may have told him to just stay home!
Most of the time, I watched this:
Not a lot of action, though there were a lot of house finches tittering in the trees. Laughing at my lack of a tan, maybe? I did get this shot of a very handsome Mr. House Finch, perched right up at the top of one of the pines:
and a female who came down and hit the feeder for a while.
Every time I see finches now, I think of this:
It's kinda hard to take a picture of oneself like this!
The pears should be ready soon; they still feel kinda hard right now.
Being outside inspired me to have one of my favorite lunches:
My own home-grown tomatoes and basil, dishes of olive oil with fresh-ground pepper and balsamic vinegar for dipping, some Carr's Rosemary Crackers, some mozzarella, some artichoke-and-garlic hummus, and a sprinkling of kosher sea salt. YUM!
I put out suet cakes for the first time since taking them down about two months ago--back then, the grackles and red-winged blackbirds were hogging them up at an alarming rate, so I just stopped putting any suet out there. Now, though, I think it's safe to put it out again. I'm hoping to see some downy woodies, white-breasted nuthatches, and other visitors from last year. I now have two of the little cages out there on the tamarack tree, near the big feeder. Once the tamarack sheds its needles (weird but normal), I'll be able to get some good shots of birdies as we move into the fall and winter.
Niblet says hello, and don't forget to pick some dandelions for him!
There's a cool breeze going, a hint of the autumn weather to come.
The morning glories are in full glory, even at about noon, and the bees are just lovin' it:
This guy must've been just drunk with nectar and pollen, because when he'd pull out of the flowers
he'd kinda just tumble down and then recover and go to the next flower.I sat down behind the firepit, hoping to use it as camouflage, and waited to get some bird pics. I did get one of Mary's faves, a female cardinal:
But she was too jittery to come to the feeder; she'll come back later and bring the hubby, I'm sure. I saw Hubby yesterday, and he looked a little worse for the wear what with the molting and all. She may have told him to just stay home!
Most of the time, I watched this:
Not a lot of action, though there were a lot of house finches tittering in the trees. Laughing at my lack of a tan, maybe? I did get this shot of a very handsome Mr. House Finch, perched right up at the top of one of the pines:
and a female who came down and hit the feeder for a while.
Every time I see finches now, I think of this:
It's kinda hard to take a picture of oneself like this!
The pears should be ready soon; they still feel kinda hard right now.
Being outside inspired me to have one of my favorite lunches:
My own home-grown tomatoes and basil, dishes of olive oil with fresh-ground pepper and balsamic vinegar for dipping, some Carr's Rosemary Crackers, some mozzarella, some artichoke-and-garlic hummus, and a sprinkling of kosher sea salt. YUM!
I put out suet cakes for the first time since taking them down about two months ago--back then, the grackles and red-winged blackbirds were hogging them up at an alarming rate, so I just stopped putting any suet out there. Now, though, I think it's safe to put it out again. I'm hoping to see some downy woodies, white-breasted nuthatches, and other visitors from last year. I now have two of the little cages out there on the tamarack tree, near the big feeder. Once the tamarack sheds its needles (weird but normal), I'll be able to get some good shots of birdies as we move into the fall and winter.
Niblet says hello, and don't forget to pick some dandelions for him!
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