Forecast: Light Furries Expected

1/11/11

Walking home from work, expecting a blizzard tomorrow. I begin thinking about how I should have begun thinking about what to do with my car this morning. But it’s not morning. It’s night. And now I have, due to my tendency to hyper-prepare, (which of course always leads to a general lack of preparation) failed to not only make a decision on what to do with my vehicle, but how to actually retrieve my cat from my parents house an hour away. The two items were to be, I believed, destined to be linked.

This has become an imperative in my mind mainly because I hate to be bored. And a snow day with out a cat is like a sky that never has any clouds…pretty but boring.
Oh and imperative also because my cat has apparently turned my parents’ house into a gigantic toilet. Time to retrieve kitty.

But because of the aforementioned lack of preparation, neither moving my car nor getting my cat seemed to be in the cards. Which has me stressed out to the point that I stop myself on my walk home, breath in the ice in the air, imagine myself as a sheep herder on top of the Swiss Alps (as I often do walking around Slumerville) and ask the universe for some help.

“Uni” I say. “ Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh.” Which is my way of actively disguising I mean labeling the decision to do nothing, as a choice.

So nothing I do.

And as I reconstitute my canter, and begin to plan which books to read and which type of potstickers to thaw out, and if I have enough soy sauce to disguise their freezer burn, I reach my front door.

My neighbor is standing on my front deck, with her cat. We have no relationship.

“Hi Kathy” (but I know her name).

“Hi…I’ve forgotten your name” (This is because when she met me, and I introduced myself, I was busy breaking into my house with a knife I found in the street – my assumption is that she has repressed the experience and therefore forgotten my name).

“Jen. That’s ok, I forget everyone’s name and occasionally my birthday, which makes me 29. I like your kitty!”

“Jen. This is not my kitty. He followed me all the way home and he’s starving, and he’s got a collar, and there’s a blizzard coming, and I have a dog. Can you take this kitty?”

Normally I would have said no. Because I have a poop-machine, I mean cat.
But since the universe was nice enough to send this kitty with a translator, I accepted.

My blizzard has started with a furry.

A little baby begins to smile

Vera has a keen interest in anything that floats above her. My guess is she sees angels smiling at her and she loves it...
Or it's the flying giraffes.


Find my new post at: www.jengalante.blogspot.com

A Walk in Walden

I'm embarrassingly under-read when it comes to come to Henry David Thoreau. Although, it seems much of what I read I want to remember so I can offer sage advice to people who will then think I think more than I do.
Such as:
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

And:
Grow wild only in accordance with thy Nature.

That one I didn't have to google...which may be to say it is not correct, but still something I do think about from time to time.

And:
If I were a creature of Nature, I would choose to be the bear. They get to walk around and eat blueberries all day.

That one was actually straight from Pete Dervan's mouth and was in fact the quote of the day...and he did have some stiff competition in Thoreau.

P.S.
If you do go to Walden, watch out for the Chipmunks. I'll say no more.

PPS
Except this:
Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.

PPPS.
What are we good for?

~HDT



Find my new post at: www.jengalante.blogspot.com

San Die(gnomies)...listen with volume on

Here are the memories :)

San Diego Zoo, a little Frank

Frank is 2 years old...and he likes looking at people.

The Olympics of Chaos

Dad: Is that Carrot Top?
Me: Nope.
Mom and Auntie Re-Re (in unison): Une! Duex! Trois! Quatre! Cinq! Si...
Me: Stop it.
The dynamic duo: Sept! Huit! Neuf! D...
Me: Stop.
Rozsencrantz and...etc: Ferme la fenetre! Je M'appelle!!
Dad: So that's not Carrot Top.
Me: Nope. That's a Shaun White he's a Snow Boarder.
Mom (flying solo now) A skate boarder?! they have that in the Olympics?
Me: Nope.
Auntie Re-Re (just improvising like a pro): Carrie Underwood!
My sister: What's mom asking?
Me: Nothing.
Dad: What's a skate board again?
Tricia (just not picking up on the technique): What's dad asking? Is he asking if there is skate boarding in the Olympics?
Me (looking for a nail...to hammer into the coffin that is this conversation): Nope--he's asking what a skate board actually is.
Tricia: That's what I thought, I was shooting for the stars.
Gellie the cat (towards Tricia--no further explanation can be provided) KHHHEEEEEEH! KEH!
Me: Can you just mute the TV?
Tricia: It's already on mute.

Gold Medal: Dad, perfect 10 on timing and substance with the skateboard interjection and for the irony that he knows Carrot Top, but not skateboard...not even humanly possible. I'm rating that up there with the Nadia Komenich 10's by the way.
Silver Medal: Gellie! 8.97 for creativity, enthusiasm and landing the double.
Bronze Medal: Mom and Auntie Re-Re--8.3 for spontaneous outbreak of Catholic School education. As masterful as Torville and Dean's Bolero.

Cadabra

Sometimes, when I'm falling asleep, something odd will abruptly enter my head...in transulscent neon outline form, and linger there, until I realise it.
I'll capture it and think--funny...why?

So,as I sunk into my couch yesterday, enveloped in my down comforter...kitty machine purring...my eyes closed, and my mind, so happy to be resting, jumped to nothing, to nothing, to nothing.

...Standing in my doorway was the bluish outline of a very tall man. An archetypal renaissance magician, villian. Comic really. Standing silent, staring at me.
His cape hung straight down, his top hat alighted elegantly on his crown.
His mustache, long, heavy, black--curly-cued up on both ends--with an artistic goatee to match. Comic.

Odd.

The next day at work my boss call an impromptu meeting in the middle of the day.
As I returned from it, bundled up as the snow swirled about me, I alone walked past the pavillion outside the Charles Hotel, my head nuzzling into my layers of scarf.

As I passed, something drew my attention away from the icy pavement.
Up and back I looked...

And there he was. My comic magician, standing alone.
Staring again. He raised his hand to me.
He looked completely drawn from a different palette, an illustration from a fairy tale. Black sinister mustache...long cape about his shoulders, bright red pencil thin pants punctuating the grey day. A top hat, structured and perfect.
There he stood...the magician in my thoughts...staring at me happily, and waving.

Open Air

My days are open air...to where...to where...

Ranuncula, Ranuncula...

A happy and peaceful New Year everyone. Enjoy my Ranunculas...if ever there was a flower in need of another name...perhaps they were named after ballerina feet. Because, while ballerinas are the most delicate of creatures, their feet are their poor fractured Atlases, bearing the weight of their grace.

The things I see

I'm still amazed I happened upon this...I feel kind of lucky.

Lyrical Visual

“A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines.”
~ Someone, as repeated by Jen Galante

Ice Cream for None

Played chess with my dad today--which is the equivalent of playing chess with myself. Which is the equivalent of playing chess with a seven year old who thinks checkers is chess.

It goes like this:

Dad: I got your Queen

Me: No you don't, give it back.

Dad: Ok.

Four or five hours later...

Dad: Ok, I moved--take that!

Me: take that? Are you sure? You want me to take your Bishop?

Dad: What? Oh, no...no--thanks baby!

The dinosaurs return to earth, humans are mere metaphysical entities--we communicate by lightwaves

Me: I moved

Dad: What are the proper words.

Me: Check

Dad: Mate

Me: Right. Mate. Checkmate. Right?

A typical chess board after we have competed gene for gene: King & King.

Today was a huge win--I kept a Rook. One faithful, trembling Rook. Congratulations Rookie--you've gone from a promise of a thing to 2nd in command. Have fun with the World!

Pure desolation minus the tears and dead hair (due to the pulling of it out) left to regenerate another crop of warriors for our tortured battles.

What kind of King am I that I sacrifice all in my kingdom--including my Queen, but to defeat what I know will be merely 1 loan King.

"The King and I", said the Rook. "The Rook and I", said the King. And we cried.

The smart move: to have seen the field, and immediately have left, to find the nearest ice cream cone. That is a worthy conquest.

Notice Me.

It's amusing when a swan shows off, to upstage a sprinkling of fuzzy ducklings. It was a close contest...but the sun helped illuminate the answer.

Les Chaussures Rouge

Yesterday I was wearing red shoes. Red shoes seem to catch peoples' eyes. And these were my no apologies little red shoes--like pick red, add red to it, then times it by red--and make them patent leather, and point them, give 'em a little heel and there you go. It was my gesture, to the weather in New England for the past 2 weeks, as in my gesturing to the dreariness by putting on these little red shoes and flipping the weather the bird.

At work, my shoes attracted people like Superman to kryptonite. And I pondered--"I think the weather has greyed people out" and these shoes are like the red balloon in La Balloon Rouge. Which is a sad movie about a boy having a balloon for a friend and then it dies.

But as I was running from building to building for work, I stopped for a smart little pigeon... one of the hundreds of Cambridge pigeons that strut about our sidewalks waiting for the cool kids to walk by. I stopped because he looked sharper than the other pigeons and then realized that his legs were Joker face paint red. And I was happy. Because I was staring at his gams, the way people were staring at my feet all day, and I realized that he too was flipping this weather, the bird.

Sunday Morning Coming Down

There's something in a Sunday, that makes the body feel alone.

Listening to the echoing calls of the tweets hidden in the trees in my parents backyard, looking at the forsythia glowing like some wild tropical fish (I'm waiting for it to start waving about and shout nursery rhymes......"Excuse me, EXCUSE ME: Are you the singing bush?")

There is something in a Sunday that makes you feel alone, in a sense that if you were left with the birds and the morning light and the awakening chatter, that you'd be lovely and fine.

I woke up early, waiting for our new visiting deer to take his daily constitution.

I don't think he'll be here today, but you all will be happy to know that the two cats that planned an executed a sneak attack on said deer, are out and about chewing on grass and t!!! Jumping wildly in the air--I had no idea that Stella was attached to an invisible bungee cord. That was funny, she must have seen a bug .

So this was the scene a few days prior: Rhino (large orange tub of a cat-- rolls over upon seeing human bodies to unabashedly solicit belly rubs) and Stella (accidentally swallowed a tiny violin which she uses to communicate) teamed up while our Deerie was nibbling the forsythia branches.

Like two lionesses on the prowl (yes Rhino, that includes you, you beast), they crouched, and encroached--side by side, hiding themselves in what promises to be a lawn in the coming months. They get closer. They split, Rhino taking the flank side of Deerie, Stella the face.

They crouch and wriggle about, prepping to pounce. And BOOM. Deerie puts his foot down. Literally and right in front of Stella's face.

They fall in line, and settled in, like two little cotton balls into a teacup.

My dad sums it up like this:

"Our cats hunt Buck."

I sum it up as follows:

"Tricia's cats are scared of Does."

Here's to hoping the deer grows some antlers in the next few weeks.

Or our pride will have to keep to chasing bugs.

Tell me I'm cute...

Clifford Clarification:

My kitty's name is not actually Clifford--that was a Clifford the Big Red Dog reference, conjured up because of the humungous (is that really how you spell humungous) proportion of the paw in the picture below. However, if you have to explain it...it's not funny.

That was really Gellie's paw :)

Andrea--stay tuned to forward my website to everyone you know on Tuesday--there's no stopping it!

Look Away...really.

As we were walking towards Davis Square last night, me eating my green pepper, Pete carrying my computer, a kid--probably 11--whizzed by us on his skateboard. As we contemplated how we both wished we could also skateboard, as it would require much less use of our legs, this kid--now a good half block in front of us--fell off his skateboard...where he went I couldn't quite see, I think down hill. I gasped, at this, but as the kid had disappeared, people thought I was just choking on pepper juice. I put the pepper away.

We continued walking and the kid ended up appearing right next to me, all ruddily complected and such, so I asked him if he was OK after his spill. "Ya, ya I'm fine", and he slowed up a bit.

Pete nudged me and said "Jen, never ask a kid if they're OK."

I, realizing that my interpretation of Pete speak, and what Pete speak actually means are occasionally entirely different, yet still being slightly horrified at the suggestion nonetheless, replied "What."

And he told me this story:

He said, that when he was a kid, his mom had taken him and his sister to a wonderful ice cream shop in his town--one of those places that was packed until 10pm during the sweet summer nights. He was so excited to get a chocolate frappe with his burger. After they were situated at a crowded picnic table, he forwent the burger, jabbed the straw into his frappe and worked hard to get that first mouthful.

Deciding that using the straw was a tremendous amount of extra work, Pete took off its cover, held the frappe in both hands, lifted it above his head, flipped it upside down, opened up his mouth and...waited.

Sadly, the frappe was as thick as a sinkhole in the Everglades.

Being a robust, ruddily complected boy himself, Pete gave that frappe the squeeze it deserved...nothin'.

He looked up, into his glorious frappe, and saw it clinging to its container as if it knew its fate.

The frappe suddenly became conscious of its impending death, and attacked Pete all over his face.

This created quite a reaction amongst the table-sitters, his parents, the local news, probably God. Laughing, cleaning, wiping...stinging eyes filled with the delicious frappe that his mouth was so hoping to enjoy.

Pete just wished they would all go away.

And after he finished his story, I thought of a time something similar happened to me, but it didn't involve a frappe, and as it turns out I'm out of time and can't tell it. What a shame!

But it has led me to believe--and agree--that when a kid does something that looks dangerous and makes you gasp--that is definitely worthy of inquiry--be conscientious of his feelings, assume ignorance and just assume he's ok.

Quote of the Day

Jen to Pete: Sammy really likes you

Pete to Jen: I must smell like a mouse.

End of the work day brain mush.

It occured to me today that, while diar-ing, is something that I a. have never done and b. will never actually spell that way again--that this, in fact, is basically a diary!
So i might as well explain the exclamation point. Usage, at best, is ironic, as I'm actually never that excited when I use them--but I use them to push people into getting excited over that which is not exciting. Which, in turn, is funny. But probably not for long, so I'll keep them to a minimum.

Question of the day:
If a candy bar could taste exactly like a Snickers and a grilled cheese at the same time--would you eat it.
My guess is yes--because that, in essence, is a poor man's version of a cheeseburger and a milkshake, which is everyman's version of heaven.

Have i lost my audience. Mooooost likely, good thing I have my head to keep me company...'Lest I lose that-gasp!

So today it almost reached 38--and it reminded me of a time in high school that we had a guest speaker who had hiked Lewis & Clark's expedition, throughout the winter.
And when it finally hit 40, they hiked shirtless.
Today I will hike home shirtless...in my head...which will keep me company.

Until we meet again, and I introduce Sammy. My BIG cat.

Ooh! My Second Post

Check it out--Colors! And Pictures! 

Did I forget to mention that I have a cat? Her name is Clifford.