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prev home archive next Momentary Thought I've got "Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel" stuck in my head. "Your kiss! (mwah!) Filled with tenderness..." High/Low High: Lots of fan mail and mission responses in my in-box! Plus, Dawn is still alive. Low: Meetings that run until 6:30 this evening, when I wanted to get a work-out in after work. I knew I should have gotten up at 5:00 this morning when the alarm went off. It never fails, when I sleep in I find that my best-laid plans to work out in the evening get screwed up. Current Obsession - Calvin's grandparents, who are ailing. - Cleaning out the garage (it *will* happen this weekend!). - Learning to calculate compound interest (finals next week!). Grin Source Thinking about Calvin, and the time that he decided to be adventurous at the ATM. Instead of selecting "English" to conduct his transactions, he selected "French". It still spit out American money, though. Storyteller Bio Dramatis Personnae Who I Read Recipes |
I had a surreal experience at AcronymCo yesterday. I was tapping away at my computer, working on a presentation. I heard the doppler effect of a fluttering noise coming from overhead. I looked up and saw nothing. I dismissed it and continued working. Then I heard it again, a bit louder. I stood up and looked around, and saw nothing. I continued working, but with an eye toward the ceiling. All of a sudden, three feet above my head, a sparrow darts by, flapping like mad. I yelped out a "Holy shit!", and heard a few titters from the folks seated around me. I stood up and looked over my cubicle wall, and saw several other people prairie-dogging as well. We watched as this little bird made its mad way around the circumference of the office area. It was clearly panicked and disoriented, narrowly missing telecom poles and building columns as it sped around. I called the building maintenance department, and they dispatched a couple of guys with a butterfly net. I saw them walk up and down the isles, looking for the now-mysteriously-disappeared bird. And I got a call this morning that they were closing the request because they couldn't find it. I hope it's okay. Poor little guy. It brought a bit of Wild Kingdom to this dreary place. ******************** I used to catch all manner of little creatures, growing up in Maine. There were lots of times that a bird would slam itself into the picture window at my grandmother's, and lie stunned. I would go and retreive it (before the cat could), bring it inside and put it in a box. Sometimes it would recover quickly - too soon to anticipate. It would go zooming around the living room and have to be caught again, my grandmother all the while hollering "Catch that damn bird before it poops on my curtains!" Sometimes it would take its sleepy time to recover, and at the first signs of stirrings I would take it outside and watch over it until it could fly away. Other times it would be too injured to recover, and it would become still and cold. Or, as sometimes happens, it would be so fearful after being captured that it would panic itself to death. So I would take it and bury it in the compost pile, safe from the dog (who was fascinated by dead things - blech). Baby raccoons came our way, and squirrels, and chipmunks (my favorites). A woman who lived down the street worked with the State Wildlife department to reintroduce baby animals into the wild, who had lost their parents. At one point she was feeding deer (and that one backfired because they became tamed, so they went to the Game Farm the next town over), raccoons, skunks (they stayed out in the barn), and even a baby porcupine. Really, you have no idea (or maybe you do, how do I know?) how adorable a baby porcupine is. Not very cuddly, but very cute. She also had a Belgian mare who gave birth to a gangly colt. Then, of course, my next-door neighbors had a farm. Baby piggies, baby chicks, baby bunnies, kittens, and calfs were common. I myself had a dog, a cat, and various horses. Always an animal-oriented life, and continuing the tradition with the current inhabitants of Animal Planet. My fondest dream would be to own a large farmhouse, situated on a good amount of acreage possessed of trees, fields, and a healthy stream. I would be able to see my horses grazing in rolling green fields from my bedroom window, and be out in the barn in the early morning, smelling hay and shavings and leather, and feeling the world wake up. The dogs would follow me around and revel in the ability to *run*. Apple trees would grow behind the house, oak trees and lilac bushes in front, and I'd finally learn how to garden. I'd grow flowers along the walkway, and vegetables outside the kitchen door, and my own herbs. I'd live on a dirt road off of a dirt road off of a dirt road. The nearest neighbor would be a ten minute walk away, at the very least. Fresh air, all the time in the world to enjoy it, peace, and birdsong. In other words, home. For now, I go from a home whose neighbors are conversation-distance away and a backyard boxed in with cement blocks, to employment confined to a 6x9 cubicle, and back again. Smog all year round, crowds and asphalt and a 45 minute drive to get to any rural area. Sub-par produce and fast food galore. And very little time to explore the many beautiful things about Arizona. But I realize that now is the time of my life to live this way, buckle in, make money and educate myself. I work for the day when I can leave this type of life behind, and get back to my roots. I want to show Calvin the quality of life we could have, away from all this craziness. It doesn't have to necessarily be back east, it can even be in northern Arizona, which reminds me very much of back home. As long as we can somehow get out of the city. Ah, well, as Calvin and I are fond of saying, "Someday, just not today." |
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Your Mission, should you choose to accept it...
The birdie story being mine, what's the most bizarre thing that's ever happened at your place of employment?
Results From Yesterday's Mission Just a handful of days left to participate in The If... Project! (Oh, and Storyteller, too - hint hint.) Got a couple of responses about the used bookstore mission: Esperanca of Hope Wavers writes: "My God, I love hanging around those places and they do inevitably yield lovely treasures. Last week I came across these three books for a mere $18! The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro A Backward Glance – Edith Wharton Amrita – Banana Yoshimoto I devoured the first two with frightening speed and they’ve wormed their way into my re-read list. Amrita has been on my re-read list for over a year and I’m happy to own a copy to read it again at my leisure. Yesterday, I picked Jose Saragamo’s ‘Baltasar and Blimunda’ at another used bookstore. But my most memorable purchase was ‘The Diary of Anais Nin – 1931-34’. What made me squeal with delight (besides the fact I encountered this jewel) were the surprises lurking inside the pages -- cuttings of reviews from NY Times from two decades ago!!" That's way cool. I once discovered a postcard from a man in Germany to a woman in the US, in a used book I picked up at the VNSA booksale. It was dated 1912. Jo of Regular Jo writes: "...I've found so many books browsing through those boxes - the final part of a ten-book-series I'd been looking for for *ages*, one of the classics of Finnish literature in six beautifully bound parts...all for practically nothing. We have enough books to last us until we retire, but I think I'll have to go on Saturday and see if I can find anything anyway. (I know this wasn't *really* the mission, but I wanted to tell you about my previous experiences with used books, and thank you for reminding me :)) I've always wanted to own a used bookstore too. Only thing is all the owners of used bookstores in Uppsala are real weirdos and I'm scared I'll turn into them. Eeek." Thanks for your responses, guys! |