1000 words

Here they are - the thousand words, I mean:



Yep, we are cat owners. I think what put us over the edge was an incident the other week, when Q saw me petting Hobie and came to see if he could piggy-back on it and pet Hobie too. Hobie will put up with being petted by them if Janneke or myself has him pretty well smothered in adult attention. But this time, as Q's hand approached, Hobie gave him a snarl, and Q collapsed against me and cried. Janneke and I looked at each other and pretty well decided, "They need a nice animal."

But Janneke doesn't want two dogs yet. So we compromised.

We didn't let the kids in on the idea until we were actually in the pet store in Pittsfield where the municipal animal shelter does adoptions on Saturdays. We had sold them on the story that we needed to get more food for Hobie (which was true), and that this was the reason we were in the store. And we just happened to wander back to the cat area and start pulling them out of the cages and playing with them in the little fenced-in area.

This cat really had no competition. She was friendly, if not desperate for attention, and active and playful, while just about all the others were sullen and preferred to hide under the bench. Never got a purr out of any of them but this one. We weren't in love, exactly - she was a long-haired cat, which we weren't crazy about, and our friends Brad and Betsy had just gotten a cat that was such a love-sponge that even our animal-love-starved kids eventually gave up on cuddling him and wandered off to do other things. That's really what we were looking for, and this one wasn't it.

But there was something we liked a lot - she seemed so wholesome and confident, and absolutely beautiful. I loved her little black ear tufts. And so we filled out the forms and by the time we got home, we had a message saying we had been approved.

I went on line last night to do some investigating about what to do with long-haired cats, whether one can effectively trim them, etc. And knowing that this was a semi-long-haired cat, I did an image search for such a thing, and came up with this:



And, I mean, whoah. That's the same cat. Here's another picture of ours - her eyes look a little glazed in this one, so I didn't want it to be your first impression, but it is more detailed, and the resemblance gets harder and harder to deny:



And the image was from a website that sells Maine Coon cats.

So I read about them, and found out that they're huuuuuge. The longest cat ever measured, apparently, was a Maine coon. And they're above-average in intelligence, and they're affectionate, but not clingy (bingo). And they are rumored to have bobcat somewhere in their genes - hence the ear-tufts. (Not sure I buy that.) But, I thought, why would this cat have no other bidders on it, if it's obviously of some fancy breed? Why would a breed kitten wind up being given away at the animal shelter?

Some of these questions were answered today when I went in to pick up the little gal. For starters, she had only just had her fixing surgery on the 22nd, so this was her first foray into being adoptable. And she wasn't found on the street - she was brought to the shelter by someone who had received her as a gift, and had turned out to be allergic. I asked, "Is she a Maine Coon?"

The woman at the shelter said, "Well, maybe she has some in her."

And then she picked her up and remarked, "Well, for 3 months old, she is pretty darn big. And she's really long."

I nodded. "I heard last night that the longest cat every measured was a Maine coon."

So I have no papers, but I'm just about sure: That's what we have. Here's what they look like when they get big:



I can't wait. But of course I can - she's been perfect so far. We bought her a cat tower, to which she took immediately. She's had two naps there so far today. She's used her litterbox and eaten out of her cat dish, and gets on perfectly well with Hobie, who pretty much ignores her. And right now she's on the floor with Q, frolicking. She is just great.

OOPS! - I forgot to tell you her name! Janneke came up with it. She's sunny and happy, and has lots of different colors. So that can only lead to...

"Skittles."

Bienvenida!

Snow Day Video

Howdy, fearless defenders of the faith! I bestow unto you herewith a moving daguerrotype depicting the way in which we here in the wilds of Western Massachusetts survive in the deepest and darkest of winters. Behold!, we are brave and strong:

Birthday Boy Video!

Here it is! It's been a very productive couple of days, video-wise. So enjoy the fruits of my labors. And the fruit of my loins.

Adventures in Moving Pictures

So our friend Brad, the choir director at Williams, is starting a very nifty project, and, inspired by the emails we used to get as supporters of Barack Obama, in which there would be a video of the higher-ups in the campaign, he decided to make a video that he could embed in an email and send out to potential donors. He asked me to help him, and we brainstormed, shot script ideas back and forth, did some practice runs, and then sat down and filmed the $@!@#$(*^ thing. Brad then edited it together, and the result is linked below for your perusal. And i think it came out absolutely fabulous. Once the rubber hit the road, I ran the camera and flipped the cue cards, while Brad made the magic happen. Check it out, it's way cool:



My vacation started early on Friday. Snow day! Even though the snow didn't actually start falling until nearly noon, our beloved and exceedingly wise superintendent pulled the trigger and took no chances, forcing us to stay home for all of Friday. It was grand.

Today was grand too, though I did not get out and hunt. I'm feeling a little sickly again - nasal stuff this time. Not sure what to think. So I stayed in and rested. The snow has been glorious - we did quite a bit of video shooting yesterday and today, so hopefully I'll be able to get that up on here before too long. Been clearing some old projects out of the way - the video for Quinn's birthday, and another that's basically odds and ends from the summer that don't coalesce by themselves into a form that makes for a compelling narrative, but which I've concocted into a stew that might still be satisfying.

There - I did it! Here's Part 1:



And here's Part 2:



Q had his friend O over today, and they spent 90% of their time outside building a snow fort. There was this whole narrative going on of how they would defend themselves against "bullies" (I'm picturing thickset kids from 1935 with plugs of tabacky and slouch caps, slingshots poking out of their back pockets, the whole nine yards). It was cold out, too - never got above 19 degrees today. But through the miracle of snow pants, they were able to stay out the whole time. T went out for a good amount of the day as well, and they played with her beautifully - Y'know, he was here for hours, had lunch with us, and never, not once, was there a squabble, not only between O and Q, but among the three of them. They never got impatient with her, she never felt ignored...What a successful interaction.

O's Dad came and took him skiing at 4:30 or so, and we settled in for some video-watchin' (the video I may or may not get up tonight) and shower-takin' before supper, since after supper we were scheduled to go to our friend Ed's house, because Ed got tenure! (As did Nicole across the street - one of Rafi and Luca's moms!) He had us over for desserts and "grapa", an Italian licqueure (the computer tells me that's spelled wrong, but I forge bravely ahead, since most of the letters there look like they shouldn't be there, but I know that they're not all wrong, and so I'm paralyzed). It was very nice - the kids all sat and watched "The Wizard of Oz", thus enabling Janneke to keep the promise she had made T - that they would watch it tonight on TV, as it was to be broadcast.

T made Christmas cookies with Janneke today, and that's also in the video pipeline...Y'know, I should probably get my act together and start cooking up these videos rather than sit here and describe them to you. I got this one up - I'm on vacation, I can do the others too. Shouldn't take too long, provided I don't do any household chores. (Don't tell Janneke.)

Upstate Theatricality

Hey, folks - It's really late, but I haven't given you the latest for a good little while, so I'll just shoot you some highlights quick before I hit the hay:

I was home sick two days last week with a stomach thing, and now T appears to be coming down with it. More on that later. Had an ultrasound done, I did, and an x-ray on the abdomen, and there were no knitting needles or staplers lodged down there. Other than that, I don't think we determined much.

Ain't seen hide nor hair neither of buck nor doe up yonder on Ragged Mountain. And that, again, is more than enough of that.

Hobie is ever more palsied and rickety. He still enjoys life, but the decline is becoming precipitous. More and more eye goo, deafness now that is all but total, a tendency to wander over to you and lean heavily, asking for attention like an old drunk hitting up a barely-recognized former gradeschool classmate for a drink...He followed me downstairs this morning for some reason, and I had to go back down and carry him up. Can't do hardwood stairs - his feet don't get enough purchase, and the slipperiness is more information than his brain can process. Stiff in the hips, paler and paler, shedding more and more...He's still nice to have around, but I suspect it won't be long. (Now watch him show up in Q's high school graduation photos.)

T has taken to preparing breakfast in the morning for whichever parent she can. I was home sick on Thursday and so was the recipient of a tray with any number of plastic food items on it. She doesn't ask permission, doesn't ask what you want - she just walks in, carefully balancing her brimming tray, and announces it to you. It is the warmest and most delightful thing anyone has ever experienced, ever.

Q spends probably a total of at least an hour of each home day at the piano - APART FROM practice time with Mami. And he isn't just hammering out "Crazy Frog" as fast as he can (though he does do that) - he's going ahead in his books and checking out what next week's lesson will bring, he's refining his attention to subtleties in the pieces he's working on how, he's inventing minor-key versions of songs he learned to play weeks ago, alternating between those and the major versions he's learned...It's fascinating to listen to. I'm scared to mess it up so I don't say much, but Janneke and I will just look at each other and smile when he heads that way. Best pile of money we ever spent.

Though the Dyson Ball vacuum cleaner is at the top of the list too. It is just brilliant. Spending the big bucks on a vacuum cleaner is so worth it. (Though the Rainbow was just waaay too much.)

Spent the afternoon today on a field trip to Schenectady, NY, where we watched a community theater production of a locally written and produced play called "The Land of the Night Before". I'm sure the theater group has a website somewhere - it was at the Proctor's complex, which has a giant theater (that was holding a performance of The Nutcracker today at the same time as our play, and which attracted a whole separate class of people, from what we could see - we had kind of had enough of that show last year, and so vowed to do a different sort of Christmas outing this year) and a smaller theater space a couple of doors down. They seem to dominate much of the old downtown in Schenectady. (I just revel in the fact that I can spell that. "Schenectady". Though I'm still not too clear on "Poughkeepsie".)

It was very "Waiting for Guffman" - original songs, local folks with well-hidden dreams of making it big, a cast of fifty-year-olds and seventh graders, hand-painted scenery, a spotlight that you could hear every time it fired up - I think they were actually shoveling coal into it. Not a big-budget production.

But over a hundred people, probably, clapping and laughing, and probably forty involved in the production. There was a lot to make fun of - and Janneke and I were sneaking sidelong glances at each other all afternoon. The plot was that there's this place where they're perpetually locked in "The Night Before..." - and nobody there knows what comes the next day, because the next day never comes. And some magical travelers come through and are perplexed by the situation - gifts that never ever get opened, trees that are circularly decorated and undecorated all day long - and you're sure, of course, that these travelers will show the people that the true joy of "The Holiday" ("Christmas" is never mentioned, which reeeeeally grated on us after not very long at all) is in its oh-so-ephemeral, and therefore, glorious, completion.

But no, in the end the travelers decide that the townspeople are better off being perpetually blue-balled by Christmas (sorry - "The Holiday That Shall Not Be Named"), and they all sing happily about how great it is never to achieve fulfillment. Which is just very, very weird. (Janneke was the first to connect "The Holiday" and "It" as something that good kids can play around with, and maybe even come close to, but can never actually do.)

But I can't bring myself to make too much fun of it, because we had this overwhelming impression throughout, for so many reasons, that the world is a far, far better place for having seen this production. The writers, the producers, the directors, the musicians, the actors, the stage hands, the volunteer ushers - Everyone was so tickled to be living their lives in this very full way, producing something that is new and is theirs, and which never would have been had they not come together as a community and done it. It was very appropriate to be in upstate New York and feel such a Bedford Falls-type event coming into being. I could almost see Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver sneaking into the chorus on a couple of numbers.

We had a lot of other things in common with "It's A Wonderful Life" too. T had taken her dramamine before the trip, and when the play started, and when its quality became pretty apparent, T started to complain about being sick. We assumed this was her being dramatic about her medicine, which she does a lot, as an excuse to not have to stay in the theater and be bored. So we told her we weren't going to leave, that she could lie down in our laps if she wanted but she wasn't getting out. "Am I gonna throw up?", she'd ask, with that strange belief that we would know, and that strange belief that whatever vaguely travel-related activity she partakes in might somehow result in vomit. Last time I'd heard it was when we got pulled over for a burnt-out tail light on the way to a movie. "No, T," we said, "you are not going to throw up. You're not sick, you just want to move, but you can't right now. Settle down and watch the play, please."

Then she threw up. So both T and Zuzu had holiday heaves. I caught some in my hands, Janneke some more in hers, and I carried her (T, not Janneke) to the bathroom and cleaned us both up. (I just now wonder how Janneke managed to clean herself off - she stayed behind with Q, who, by now, has seen T vomit so many times that he hardly even blinks. Just lifts his hands to protect his eyes and keeps watching. But, hey, I shouldn't worry about how or if she managed to clean up. This is Janneke. She probably has a firehose and an autoclave in her purse - I'm sure she did just fine.) Then T and I went down to the lobby and hung out on a big comfy couch, waiting for intermission and talking about penguins. She felt a lot better, and was able to go in and see the second half of the show, where the giant snowman was finally vanquished and Yule, the magical stranger, overcame his self-doubt and realized with triumphant zeal that he should give up on this whole idea of helping people to actually experience their lives and pretty much just leave well enough alone. Huzzah!

Home to Chinese food, piano lessons, bedtime stories and bedtime. Which I am soon to experience.

Adjustments Have Been Made

So Wednesday morning I went out and scoped out my deer stand. I knew about the isolated apple tree, and brought with me a couple of blaze-orange items to hang in it and then back away to see what my best shooting lanes might be. But as I approached the tree, I came across very fresh deer tracks in the snow. I followed them, and they appeared to skirt the clearing heading south in what may actually be a regular route for them. So I now had two potential shooting lanes to scope.

I dropped my blaze-orange hat on the trail, and then went and hung the vests I'd brought (and dropped my gloves there in various spots for good measure), and then paced back to see just how I might be able to position myself.

I found the base of a tree that would break up or disguise my mass to deer approaching either along the path where the tracks were, or approaching the apple tree from the south, and which allowed very open shooting in either direction. The apple tree at 12:00, the path at 9:00. Great spot.

I then spent an hour or more scoping out my approach, making sure I'd be able to find it in the dark. And when occasionally I ran across a squirrel, I'd do my best to try to bring him down. And I am man enough to admit that they all got away from me.

Now, I shoot a .22 for squirrel, so when they're way up there in the tree, there's some skill involved. No scope - just me and the open sights. And they maneuvered well enough to never allow me a very open shot, and all got away clean, either by scampering to other trees that had holes in them, or, in one instance, by deciding that the treetop was no safe place and blazing down the trunk - even as I ran toward it to try to scare them back up - and then high-tailing it cross-country to where it doubtless knew there to be a rabbit hole. Because it dived under a brush pile, and no amount of stomping would dislodge it.

What I needed, was a dog. And as soon as I have one - one that is not old and deaf - I think I will teach it to chase squirrels. Because had I had a dog - a bull terrier, say - eagerly awaiting the squirrel at the bottom of the tree, he'd have stayed up. And I'd be frying him right about now.

So the land where I'm going to hunt is public, and there is the danger that some other yahoo will have scoped out the same spot, and will be sitting there - or maddeningly near - tomorrow morning. All I can do is get there earlier than they're willing to. The sun comes up around 6:00, so if I'm there by 5:00, I have to imagine that would make me the champion. But we'll see. I have all my gear already laid out in the front room - I'll probably sleep on the couch tonight so as not to bother Janneke.

And that is much more than enough about that.

T and Janneke are off watching a puppet show in Albany with T's friend Conor and his mother, Denise. Leaving me and Q here for the afternoon. Q's settled in to watch the Giants and the Redskins, and I'm doing this until my school website is up and running. I hope it comes up before too long - I have a standard sub document that I alter for any given day that I'm going to be out, and if I can get to the website, I can access it. If not, no - and I'll have to do the whole thing from scratch. Bla.

On the squirrel front, we've taken Auntie Jayne's advice and purchased a squirrel-proof feeder. The Yankee Dipper, I believe - curved little perches with a spring that will hold up the weight of a bird up to a cardinal, but buckle under anything heavier. And today we saw a squirrel try it, and by crackee, that thing works - plunk!, right to the ground. Here's some evidence:



What did I do with the old, non-squirrel-proof feeders? Take a gander:




Squirrels can't get up the aluminum siding, and can't scamper down from the roof. (He said, arrogantly.) And here, it's visible from the vantage point of the couch, looking out through the patio door. Nice. And the other one:



I resurrected from the pile at the side of the house the pole with the inverted-cone-shaped squirrel baffle that the previous owners left us, and hung from its top the suet, and bolted the other feeder to the flat platform on top.

See how the squirrels stare longingly from the closest possible leaping point, which is still just slightly too far away:



I have no sympathy whatsoever.

There's other news, but I'm about to get set composing from scratch a new doc for my sub tomorrow. (Bleah.) Still no response from the Lenox server. Man, I tell you, the timing of that couldn't have been worse. It was working yesterday! They had warned us that it might be down for a while during the vacation - but to wait until Sunday to have it go down?! Grr...

Rugged Individualism

So Janneke went to Philadelphia and spent several days at a conference. She did all kinds of professional stuff, including facilitating panels and...Hey, you know what? If you want to know so much about it, go and ask her, fer chrissakes.

Because back at the ranch was where the rubber hit the road. Back where no one reimburses us for our travel, where there's no complementary cocktails and no Christmas room at the B&B. Back where two kids have hungry mouths that need to be fed, there's a pile of laundry sky-high, outdone only by the tower of dishes and the dog that's clamoring to be walked at the end of a long, hard day in the salt mines of public education. Back in the real America.

Ronadh was instrumental in my foray into single parenthood. She let me dump - er, drop off the kids at her house around 6:45 Friday morning, which allowed me to get to work on time for a day of restraint training. Kid rasslin', as I like to put it. (I get re-certified every year. It's usually the same stuff - what you're allowed to do, legally, to keep students from injuring themselves or each other in case of a melee or some such. This year, the bureaucrats down in Boston finally saw reason and reinstated the throat punch.) Of course, I work at a district so bucolic that one of my students, when told why I wouldn't be in the classroom Friday, asked, without irony, "Why would you need that in a high school?"

At the end of the workday I came home, grabbed the kids, and headed south again to have pizza and movie night the way Papi does it - in style. (Which is to say: the way we do it when no one in the house knows how to actually make a pizza.) We went to eat at Pizzatella and watch "Bolt" on the day of its global release at the Berkshire Mall. After a quick stop at the side of the road at the suggestion of one of Massachusetts' finest. (I had a tail light out, apparently - T cried as we sat and waited, afraid we'd miss the movie; when I assured her, after being told what the issue was and while we waited for him to run our plates, that we weren't being ticketed, that this would take five minutes tops, she kept crying, but changed the reason: "I don't want to waste our time!") The kids were spectacularly well-behaved, and a grand time was had by all. Except for when T dropped her little blue plastic mouse, which she had purchased with the tickets that the "Squash-a-Spider" machine had spit out following her very good run. I had to jog back out to the concession stand and ask for a flashlight so I could crawl around in the stale butter and juju-bees until I found the worthless little trinket, which she had infused with a great deal of love over the previous hour and a half. Still, it wasn't so bad - I came out the other end looking like a hero.

When we came out, there were scads of teenagers lined up waiting to get in and see "Twilight". Among them were many of my students, in a huge group, all of them female, and they squealed with delight upon seeing...Q and T. They got a good look at Q, but T buried her face in my shoulder the whole time we were near them. It was nice to see them outside a school context - I remember seeing my teachers in shorts and tee-shirts at different points when I was young, and it was a very healthy adjustment for me to see them as actual people. Though it did kind of remove some of their magic.

Saturday morning, we loaded into car and went to Caretaker Farm, Stop & Shop, Wild oats, and the hardware store - because there has been rodent trouble of late.

All revolving around the birdfeeders. The larger rodent issue is the squirrels that continually eat the birdseed out of the feeders. Readers of my facebook page will know that I want to get a slingshot and shoot chickpeas at them to dissuade them - the tennis balls we lob from the deck just haven't been accurate or effective. I think they find them entertaining, honestly. But until I can manage a foray out of state, the slingshot purchase will have to wait. Because, as Dave, of Dave's Sporting Goods, said to me over the phone on Thursday: "Not in the State of Massachusetts. I can sell you a .44 Magnum, but I can't sell you a slingshot." First the throat punch, now this.

Until my contraband Wrist Rocket is in place, I've had to come up with an alternate plan, and have taken to sneaking out our back door with a hatchet in my hand. Why a hatchet? You certainly don't think I plan to harm them! These are town squirrels - killing one would be like killing the pigeons that eat out of your hand at the park, or the revered and holy cows that wander the streets of Des Moines. No, no. I don't try to kill them. Instead I creep as close as I can before one of them sees me, then charge the rest of the way, and as they scramble up the chain-link fence around the yard I underhand flip the hatchet in their direction. What are the odds I'll ever hit one? It clatters and bangs against the fence and scares them to absolute death - they sprint across the neighbor's yard for a good fifty yards before taking to a tree again. It's been very effective.

Today, when I charged, three of the four there gathered beat it in short order - but a fourth, the most daring, still clung to the sunflower seed feeder. He was turned in such a way that he couldn't see me - I could see his back side hanging off to the right, but his head was behind the feeder. And he waited there, not sure what to do or what the threat was. This is a very stupid squirrel, who probably deserved, in a Darwinian way, to be cloven in two there as he hung suspended between the feeder and the ground.

And keep in mind, I eat squirrels.

I barreled down on him, hatchet in hand, not believing how close he was going to let me get, wondering, in that split second, whether anyone had before stalked and hand-killed a wild - Spoiled, sure, but still technically wild - squirrel. So I raised my hatchet -

...and I poked him in the behind with it.

Hard, I must say. I was running, after all. He (she?) flew spraddle-legged and panicked off the feeder and crashed through the fence. I could actually feel the squirm and spasm of his (her?) terror through the handle of the hatchet - a live and wriggling jolt straight from (ah, screw it) its heinie to my hand.

And after that little incident, which took place this morning around 11:00, I did not see a single squirrel back there all day.

But I still want a slingshot.

The other rodent-related birdseed caper, which was the reason for the stop at the hardware store, is a chipmunk that had burrowed into the garage through a gap in the lowest...I don't know, "rung", I guess, of siding at the back of the house, and could regularly be seen scrambling off the shelf where I keep the bird seed, across the floor, and back under the woodpile when I'd go into the garage. I was concerned about how he might be getting in, so I moved the whole woodpile last week and found the entry point. I then took some nails and closed off the hole forever - and in subsequent days, Janneke observed him from the patio door, running back and forth, trying to jump up toward his former point of entry.

This little sunflower addict must have been waiting at the door when I charged out after the squirrels, leaving it banging open behind me, because even after closing off his entry point, I kept seeing him in there.

This was bad. He had no way out now - if he got in while I chased squirrels (or when the garage door was left open), he'd be trapped, and would probably have to try to chew his way out. If we leave the doors open in hope that he'll get out, how do we know for sure we're not just letting him in again? He's cute and all, I said to Janneke, but he's got to go.

So I took advantage of Janneke's absence this weekend and purchased a rat trap.

And I will simply say this: They are highly effective.

And I bravely stood up to all these rodential challenges without a helpmeet, with wailing, clinging brats impeding my every move with their endless tooth-brushings and behind-wipings and in-tuckings. Q made things easier by going away Saturday night for a sleepover birthday party, which left T and me to go out and have a night on the town.

T picked the restaurant in the car on the way back from dropping Q off, hollering it in wide-eyed glee as soon as I solicited ideas.

"COYOTE FLACO!"

Run by Ecuadorians, it's Williamstown's only Mexican restaurant. And as anyone who knows me well can attest, I could eat mexican food every day until I die and would never complain. T had crispy tacos and avocados (her own and mine), and I had a plate of enchiladas. And we shared the utter bliss of a cold, sparkling bottle of Mexican soda, made with actual, honest-to-Go sugar. The Mexicans, being a fine and wise people, simply refuse to drink anything with corn syrup in it. Try it some time - go get a Mexican soda from your local Mexican grocer's, and keep in mind as you try it that it isn't just different. It's better.

That was last night. Today we had pancakes, and then T did a lot of self-directed play while I took the underwear off the lampshades and mopped up the tequila and otherwise removed evidence in anticipation of Janneke's return this afternoon. We picked up Q around 10:30, and had leftover pancakes for lunch - in the afternoon, T's pal Hazel came over, and between that and the Fox Soccer Channel (Q's new favorite pastime), I was free to continue wiping up the bloodstains.

(Of which, all kidding and hyperbole aside, there actually was one this weekend. Like I said: Highly effective.)

The evening's fun came when I realized that, when I had cracked open the well holding the failed tail light, and had discovered that by simply twisting it, I could, as if by magic, re-activate the offending bulb, I had simply walked away, happy with myself - and left the lights on. So I had to jump start the Prius - a car with a thousand-pound battery in it. The irony! But it didn't take long, and it allowed me to erase my image as forgetful buffoon with still another in a long series of images of steely-eyed manliness - this time, automotive, rather than man-versus-nature. Either one works.

And that's it, in a nutshell. Janneke came home and the rest is history. So I'll sign off, having brought you up to speed, and having made Williamstown safe again for sunflower seeds. Take care, be in touch, and, as always: Don't tell Janneke.

Correspondence

A few documents that have passed through the ranch of late, verbatim:

Front side of crumpled paper found at the bottom of Q's backpack:

"Q

"Donna

"Letter"

Other side, originally folded in:

"Q

"I know you are a smart child in the school. I think you are very asome."

And another, this time a letter addressed to Miss T Johnstadt, and accompanied by a roll of stickers, three State quarters, and a crisp dollar bill:

"Dear Granddaughter;

"Just a note to go along with the important stuff in the envelope.

"Blue is laying here guarding me. He is a killer dog. He kills things he doesn't like. Its a good thing he likes you & Q. He doesn't like rats & mice and skunks, and racoons, woodchucks, snakes, moles and some other tings. I think he likes you best.

"I love you too.

"Grandpa John"

In case you don't know about Blue, here's a picture, which I believe I posted here previously:



Yesterday evening after supper, Q climbed into my lap where I sat at the table and asked me to tickle him. I asked if he thought he could keep his arms raised while I did so. He said, "What will you give me?" I said, "If you can keep your arms up while I tickle you for one minute, I'll give you five dollars."

He thought about it, twitching spasmodically as he did so, and finally agreed. A couple of false starts later, he thrust both high in the air and, wild-eyed, began pre-emptively howling.

I tickled that boy pretty darn mercilessly as I slowly counted to sixty, and by God if he didn't keep his arms up the entire time. Wriggling, squealing, laughing screaming, wailing, writhing - and I never let up, even though I was laughing so hard myself that my stomach muscles still hurt today. I don't think I've ever laughed that solidly, for that extended a period, for decades. Janneke and T looked on in horror from the opposite end of the table, also laughing but also sympathetically suffering.

If that boy ever ends up a POW, he's going to pull a John McCain and spit in their eye as they string him up.

Except when he comes back, he won't turn into a jackass.

Halloween Interpretive Dance

Really - I ain't kiddin'. This is what T and Q concocted off the cuff the other day, inspired by the season (which was still to arrive, as you can see by the distinctly non-rotten pumpkins that still adorn the floor). Q began playing the tune you hear, something of his own invention, and T grabbed the prop you'll see and away she went. They had gone through one iteration of it before Janneke alerted me to things and I scrambled to the front room with the camera.



In other news, tonight's supper was a particularly delicious and narratively interesting one, for the main dish consisted of two pheasants, prepared by Janneke and shot by me. (In reverse order.) Matt B, father of Alex, Q's best friend, had invited me to go out pheasant hunting, and he and his father and his father's dog and I drove to Hatfield, MA on Saturday morning to do just that. And I have to say, it is a way of hunting that I could definitely get used to.

Things to love about it: The dog is a thing of utter beauty. So well trained, so obedient, so dedicated and energetic, literally trembling with anticipation - but never, ever barking. If ever she got so far out ahead of us that she might spook a bird that would be too distant to shoot, Matt's dad would say, in a hardly-even-raised voice, "Gretchen, you're too far." And she would stop and wait. To watch her "get birdy", as Matt put it, and to stalk in after her and suddenly hear and feel the bird go up and draw on it and fire - What a thrill. The first bird we ("we" - Gretchen, I should say) found was a rooster, and the boys sent me in after it, as I was the guest. All day long they worked like crazy to get me as much shooting as they could, since this was my first time. And I actually saw it on the ground before it took off. Once it did fly, my first shot went wild, but the second, I feel confident, was pretty accurate. Of course, so were Matt's and his Dad's, so there's no telling who got it. But that was the first.

We kicked up another one in that field, but were unable to down it - I hadn't even gotten a look at it. And then were on to another, where Gretchen found and Matt jumped a hen out of the hedgerow between picked-over potato fields. (Hatfield has got to have the absolute best agricultural land on God's green earth. No stones, flat as a pancake, well-drained, and black as tar. Gorgeous. I think I grew an inch just from walking on it.) It was a hen, and it rose up and fluttered straight for me. Boom, and down it went, which brought cheers form both my partners. I have to say, I felt like I was ten years old, grinning ear to ear. I could definitely get used to that.

Things not to like: The birds are all raised and seeded to be shot, either by the state or by the town. Doesn't quite feel totally fair - but then again, without Gretchen, and without the hours of training (she goes out every, single, day to practice), we'd never have known they were there. So it's not as if there's no skill involved. And you do have to shoot a bird as it quickly flies away from you. That ain't easy.

So that was Saturday - I came home not only with both the day's birds, plucked and ready to cook, but with a recipe book. And today, Janneke prepared them. They were delicious.

And it's Janneke's birthday! We went out to the Blue Benn in Bennington to celebrate - it's one of those pre-fab diners from the 50's that you could get by mail and set up as an instant business. There's another one still standing in Adams, and this one in Bennington. Big fun, followed by a jaunt over to the big municipal park in Bennington with the gimungous wooden castles for the kids to climb in. Janneke and I groused loudly to a man who didn't pick up after his dog. His cleverest retort: "Shut up!"

We had a lot of interesting talk with the kids about the whole incident afterward...Home to leaf-raking, birdfeeder-filling, laundry-doing, kid-tickling and other domestic tasks. I even managed to follow the Packers online as they failed to win the game with a 52-yard field goal and lost their third or fourth by three points or less. It's starting to get to me- I'll have to swear off them. I mean, I didn't even see the game, and I'm spittin' mad about it.

Professional development day tomorrow, followed by a day off Tuesday. Updates as time allows!

Q Gives Us All the Vapors

It’s currently 8:00 by the clock on the wall, but our bodies think it’s 9:00. T this morning, while we (she, Q and I) sat snuggled up on the recliner, watching “The Aristocats” (they watched – I snoozed), suddenly announced, from where she lay, extended out on the footrest atop my shins, chin in hands: “Es diferente hoy. Yo no se que es, pero es diferente.” We had said nothing to them about the change of time, but she could feel it.

And sure enough, around 7:00, her body, knowing full well that it was really 8:00, gave out. She finished her dessert and crawled into Mami’s lap, where she lasted hardly any time at all. We changed her into he pajamas and dumped her into her bed half an hour later.

It was a pretty lazy Sunday, all in all – though Janneke, who flies about doing laundry and cooking on Sundays, would probably clobber me if she heard me say that. We awoke and set about walking the dog, reading the paper, eating breakfast, etc. With all her busywork interspersed in there. She sneaked off to our bedroom during “The Aristocats” and, later on, during the Packer game (miraculously broadcast in the Land of the Clam-Eaters), to read and otherwise prepare for her precious Job. The only work I did was to rake the front lawn, which went from 10:30 to noon or so, and then to do some odd laundry-folding as I shrieked at the screen, and then walked away grumpy at 4:15 or so, having watched the Packers give away the game. It was really not a very positive experience, and all in all I’m pretty glad that circumstances prevent me from watching them more often. I get very little positive out of it, even if they win. And if they lose, my day’s just shot.

But less so nowadays, because T and Q are such great distractions. T wanted to go to the “eyeball park” in town – that’s where the great steel eyes with glowering blue lights inside them inhabit the strange moguls in front of several of the College’s dorms. I had promised her we’d go there and play, and so we trooped over and spent probably twenty minutes climbing and otherwise possessing them. Then she got tired of it, and we trooped home.

Janneke was downstairs on the treadmill, watching TV with Q in tow, so I sent T down there and in the gloaming loaded all the neighbors’ leaves, which they had raked into piles, onto my tarp and trooped them back to my leaf pile. Come spring, those leaves will all compost down into the best fertilizer a lawn could ask for. Who’ll be the sucker THEN!?! And then I came in and we all sat down to supper.

That was today. The story of yesterday was soccer.

Q’s last game, against Pittsfield. A friend of his who moved to Pittsfield a couple of years ago was on the team, and her mother, who used to be a daycare teacher to both our kids, was there to watch, so that was nice. But the game itself was all business. Q and the boys had their work cut out for them – this was the team they had beaten 3-2 in Pittsfield, and they had been doing some growing in the interim by the look of things.

The Pittsfield boys were fast, skilled, and tenacious. Williamstown had two platoons working again – one group of five would leave the field entirely and be replaced by the other. And neither team really did better than the other – Q and his friend Alex, along with Crow, with whom Q had hooked up productively in Great Barrington last week, were the main offensive players on the second squad, and got some good penetration, but just couldn’t turn anything into goals. And Pittsfield kept getting behind our defenders. It was a surprise – usually these guys stay with whoever they’re up against and don’t let them get past, but these little curly-headed jukers were giving our boys fits. And before you knew it, it was 1-0. And then it was 2-0…and then it was 3-0. Williamstown got some good things going, but just couldn’t close the deal. If I recall correctly, the half ended and Williamstown still hadn’t gotten on the board. It could have been a lot worse, but Jay, Williamstown’s goalie, plays with the instincts and timing of a thirty-year-old and single-handedly anticipated, charged, and thwarted probably four other scoring chances. We had a bad feeling over on the parents’ sideline.

The second half, Alex took over. He scrambled and squabbled and fought his way through the defense, followed by Q, for one of the most tenacious and gritty goals of the year to get Williamstown out of shut-out territory, and then his shift ended. Brady and Sammy D came on with the other squad, and Brady’s persistent attacking down the right-hand side, which had always ended up in him being forced into the corner or losing the ball, finally paid off in a lovely goal – 3-2. And then Sammy D, who can almost never be shut out in a game, came through on the same shift, fighting his way through traffic on the left side and putting one past the keeper. 3-3.

Q’s squad took the field again to end the game, and before too long those gnat-like Pittsfield attackers had gotten just past Q, and then just past Jacob, and then just past Jay for another score. 4-3 now, and time was winding down – this had already felt like a really long half, and it looked to end the year on a downer for the boys. I had been exhorting Q to hustle throughout – even Janneke had gotten into the act. Maybe because this was the last game, maybe because she didn’t want him to end on one of his stand-and-look performances. He’d had some good runs at different points, but overall it was not much of a hustle day. He’d nearly put two crosses over for goals, but they were both the sort of play where he seems like he’s half-paying attention until the ball is right at his feet and then lamely pokes at it. Same situation, week 3, he’d have been firing it through the back of the net. But in this back half of the season, you were lucky if he managed to stop fiddling with his shirt long enough to notice the ball. It looked bad.

But others were seeing something I wasn’t. His sheer speed had a lot of people seeing him as our only hope, as the one kid Pittsfield couldn’t stop in this, what hadе to be the last minute. 'Give it to Q!', screamed Crow's mom. 'It's up to you, Q!' screamed somebody else. 'Man,' I thought to myself. 'That's not who I think should be taking over right now.'

Pittsfield mounted an attack that got all the way to Jay, and Jay boomed a punt down the right-hand side, where Q was playing. He came under the punt and looked straight up at it. I was reminded of situations last week where the same thing would happen, and Q, afraid of being hit in the head, would get to the right spot but then duck out of the way and laugh, even as the other team charged toward the goal with the ball he could / should have controlled. I was fully expecting the same thing here.

No. Q let it strike the ground and then settled beneath it, and headed it down to himself on the bounce. Two Pittsfield defenders were right on him, and he sprinted past them down the right side, gaining maybe a few inches, half a step. And these guys were good – forget about angling toward the goal. They were charging to put themselves between him and the center – he was not going to turn the corner. He was rapidly sprinting himself out of having an angle on the goal at all – it was now or never.

Two defenders draped on him and moving to cut him off, Q launched himself forward, laying out feet-first as the ball skittered ahead, left leg curling beneath him, right leg arcing as far ahead as he could send it. He slid to the ground and connected with the ball right in the sweet spot in one unbelievably graceful and powerful stroke.

Past the stabbing cleats of the foremost defender. Past the fingertips of the diving goalie. Across the face of the goal. Just inside the far post.

It was, from start to finish, a thing of absolute beauty, which I did not film. I would love to be able to share it with you, but I had completely forgotten the camera in my pocket, and am kind of glad I did. Because I watched it with such intensity that I remember it vividly. It was just gorgeous.

He jumped to his feet and raced back toward midfield, fists curled upward, elbows locked to his sides, high-stepping and screaming primally as his teammates chased after him and the sideline went wild. Williamstown was smelling blood – in the next few seconds, they mounted another charge, and had the game gone on, I think they probably would have gotten a couple more across. But as soon as Pittsfield managed to clear the ball to midfield, the whistle blew. And all the parents, from both towns, looked up at each other and laughed and shook our heads and said 'Thank goodness.' Because those are a couple of good, good teams, and neither deserved to lose. It was a privelege to watch and I am still not completely recovered. I was wrong about Q's heart and about his drive, at least at the end. And I am glad to have been so.

I don't know whose idea it was, but the jubilant Williamstown Strikers, next I looked up, were all shirtless, waving their jerseys around their heads in whirling circles of purple as they ran in and around and among each other, howling. I know in my bones that never in my life did I experience a sporting day like that one. It warms me up just to think about it.

Today I was saying to Q that Alex, for example, is like a wolverine. Aggressive always, scrappy, fighting through the tackles, always charging everyone else's shot hoping for a rebound, scrambling and never giving up. And Q is like a deer – seemingly effortless, graceful, but suddenly and shockingly powerful and fast, with one move flowing seamlessly into another. They compliment each other beautifully. It was so fitting that the 4 goals scored were by Brady, Sammy, Q and Alex – those were the four top scorers on the year. What a fantastic season they had, and what a fabulous job their coaches did.

«Estoy contenta de que la temporada de Q se termino,» said T this morning. «Porque cuando la gente grita, me hace doler las orejas.» ('I'm glad Q's soccer season is over. Because when people scream, it hurts my ears.')

Same for my blood pressure.

Going bird hunting for the first time in my life next week - let's see if I get hooked on it the way Alex's Dad, who's taking me, has been. His father has a German shorthaired pointer that they use, and boy, it might be a lot of fun. Still...if I had my druthers, I'd go shoot some more squirrels. Them's good eatin' - and weren't released into the woods from a pheasant farm twelve hours before I shot them. Not sure how to think about this...Matt (Alex's Dad) brought three shotguns over to the house for me to try out Saturday night (they came for dinner), and man, they are some beautiful guns. And he's an enormously generous guy to be bringing me along on this - sounds like a bunch of very serious bird hunters we'll be going with. I'm excited - a little afraid to be laughed at, should I miss my first flying target ever, but pretty confident. I am not a bad shot.

Just ask the squirrels.

October 25: The Movie

So last week, when Q played his game, I got a lot of footage, and without really knowing how good it was, I decided to also film the kids carving pumpkins. And when I had all that filmed, I thought, "I should just make a movie about the whole damn day." So I kept filming, and here it is. Probably only diehard fans of Q and T will stick it out through the whole thing. But maybe not - the music is interesting. It's all from the CD that we listened to in the car to and from Great Barrington - an hour ride in each direction, so we got to know it pretty well. The whole video is too long to fit as just one, so I've broken it into two. Here's part one:



And here's part two:

Quick Sketch

Q and T were watching "The Santa Claus 2" this past Sunday morning. (Sundays, T picks a DVD to watch, and despite the presence in the house of the only-recently-screened "Free Willy", she went with this old standby.) There came a part where Tim Allen begins to woo the (female) principal of his son's school, and T called out, "Oh, I love this part!"

Q's voice was filled with righteous indignation. "I HATE this part!"

"But, Q! This is the part where they fall in love!"

"I KNOW!", he cried, even louder. "That's why I hate it!"


"But, Q: Some day, you will have a wife!"

A pause of a couple of seconds, and a low rumble from Q:

"Maybe."

The Threadless Narrative

Can't find a unifying principle for the weekend's news tonight, somehow. So here it goes anyway - a disjointed list of Things That Happened. Hopefully you'll find your own way through it, because as a guide, I'm pretty useless at the moment...

Friday night, we had pizza, as we usually do, but not at home in front of a family classic movie. No, we went down the street to the Cozy Corner, our local watering hole, and sat in a booth in the bar (roughly the size of our living room) and had one large and one small pizza between the four of us. ("Among", Ronadh. I know.) It felt like being at Cheers - Ronadh stopped in to pick up a pizza and stood at the half-door that leads out to the parking lot, where people who have called in their orders come to pick up - Janneke saw her over my shoulder, and then I trooped over with T, who insisted on getting a hug. And then Rafi the Gorgeous, our neighbor across the street, came in with his Mom Paige and her sister, and they stopped at our booth and chatted a bit with us. And then we ate the pizza. It was a great, affordable little adventure in a gloriously smokeless bar - same place where we had drinks before we were seated when my Dad and my sister came out for Christmas a couple of years ago. Anyway, upon completing our pizza, we split up - Janneke took T to go see The Cat's Pajamas, a kiddie-music group that had played here last year, and Q and I went to Paresky to play pool. Q wasn't into seeing the music, and he's gotten more and more into playing pool at the Youth Center. So he chose that over going out to see a movie or to bowl.

He beat me three times. I scratched on the 8-ball once, accidentally sank it another time, and the third time...well, he just won. BUT: I had agreed on a rule that I get one shot per turn, whether I make it or not, and was also allowing Q, if he made a particularly good slow, careful, accurate shot, and then scratched, to keep his turn going with the cue ball placed at the pocked where it had fallen. So there were some handicaps at work. But he did improve a lot over the course of the evening, sinking three in a row at one point. A techno band whose shows are accompanied by projections of avant-garde animation was setting up shop in the auditorium next to the pool table as we played, and we bailed just as their show was beginning. Probably best for us and them. Observation: Of the 60 or so students we saw troop down to see the show, it seemed that probably a majority were Chinese. As in, from China (or Taiwan or Singapore), speaking to each other in Chinese as they played ping-pong and waited for the show to start. Techno and animation in combination must be big in China.

After pool started to get old, we went home and watched Sports Center until the girls came home. And when they did, we got the whole story:

The band had been performing a story about "Don Gato", who had leapt to the top of a building to eat a snack, but had then fallen and hurt himself. The puppet they were using to illustrate the story had fallen to the stage with a whack, and T had fallen into a blubbering panic, thinking the pupped had "got dead". She locked eyes with one of the performers, who, after the song, interrupted the show for, Janneke says, probably five minutes so she could come down and show T the puppet and make sure she understood that Don Gato had survived his fall and come out wiser on the other side of it. They signed a poster for her at the end, and it's up now in T' room. I'd take a picture of the inscription, but T is in there sleeping. Bother.

Q had a game on Saturday in Lenox, and he was very timid again. He managed to get two shots in, but neither went in - because in both cases, he seemed to remember that he was allowed to kick it a couple of seconds after he probably could have, and the resulting kick was weak, and he didn't follow up his miss. It's amazing to watch this transformation from an eager go-getting playmaker, one of the team's few most effective and aggressive players, to a kid who's reluctant even to break into a jog and seems most concerned about avoiding getting hurt. He did fall the other day, and then caught a hard shot in the same part of his back where he'd been hurt, and toughed it out and didn't come off the field ("I didn't let my team down," he said in the car afterward, to which I responded with a grim nod and a high-five), but over all he was just this somnolent shadow of his former self, which is what he's been for three or four weeks now. Strange. Thats where he is now, I guess - no sense fighting it. But it's just so curious. I could believe a timid player gradually growing into aggressiveness and enjoying the success, and then continuing the upward spiral, but this is an aggressive and successful player who seems to be shrinking more and more into his shell. Not sure what to make of it. Hopefully next year his confidence will have grown to match his talents. Anyway, they lost, 5-2. I think I made less of an ass of myself on the sidelines than at previous games, but who knows. Am I the problem? Should I stop going...? Though I don't think so - when I saw him at practice the other day, he didn't know I was there, and the coach took him aside specifically because of this problem. Weird. And occcupying much more of my mind than it ought to.

Saturday night we had dinner at the house of Denise and Peter, parents of one of T' best friends, and it was lovely. Lots of good food and chatting. And then Sunday we tried to get all the housework done that we hadn't been able to do on Saturday before I had to drive to Lenox to be interviewed by the committee that's re-certifying our school, and Janneke went to the harvest contra dance to celebrate the end of the growing season at Caretaker Farm. T danced like a madwoman, independent of us, going from partner to partner, remembering each of the steps in the dance, grinning like mad the whole time. She had selected a special dance dress (no photos, sorry), and was the belle of the ball, followed everywhere by a troop of adoring pals.

After having hiked to the top of Pine Cobble this afternoon with her friend Hazel and Hazel's parents. During which time Q had his friend Colton over for some football, bike riding, ping pong, Yugi-Oh and video games.

Man, there's just too much to keep up with. I gotta get myself to bed - Monday morning has come around again. I'm going to start agitating for a four-day work week...

Landslide

Is what we'd see if Q or T were ever to run for President. As evidence I submit Q's essay, with which he returned home from school today:

"Me for President

"I am thoughtful. I'd stop Hummers and give poor people money. I am adventurous because I like to find countries and stop wars that are happening. I'm creative. I'm creative because I will build a tree making machine. I'm very fair. Very very fair because if I were president, I would give half of my money to the poor. I'd think that I propably be ELECTED!"

Not sure what the actual assignment was, and I don't think I want to know. I'll just imagine him sitting at the computer on his own during his free time and banging that out because the spirit moved him.

T, meanwhile, is a little diplomat herself. As I was perched on the edge of the stairs behind our couch, stretching my calves (those of you who have been to our house will be able to picture this - those who haven't: What are you waiting for, exactly?), T and I had a chat, she standing just in front of the couch, waiting for story time to begin. As she looked at me, she said, "Papi, vos me haces pensar en Brad. Tu cara." (Dad, you remind me of Brad. Your face.)

I said, "Quien es mas guapo?" (Who's more handsome?)

T smiled and immediately said, "Vos!", nodding as if it were obvious.

I pushed it a little farther, not quite knowing why. "Y quien es mas feo, entonces?" (So, who's uglier, then?)

She messed up her face in an utterly inimitable Tie squirm, pulling her chin in and sending the midpoint of her eyebrows up to her hairline. "Yo no quiero decir eso!" (I don't want to say that!)

So there's your ticket. Q for President, T the running mate. She has more experience than Sara Palin, anyway.

3-Day Weekend Hijinks

Whoah - OK: T put on her "firebird princess" get-up that she wants to use as a costume for Halloween. It's some fall-colored chicken feathers arranged in festoons around the edges of a prancy-girl dance outfit that she got from Flavia, and it is soooome kinda cute. Pictures will have to wait until the big day. But, I mean, wow. Kee-yoo-uhtt. (Those of you not from Wisconsin may need to go find a Packer fan to translate that for you.)

Q was ratted out by Ronadh the other day. Ronadh had sorted out that Owen and Q, and a couple of co-conspirators, had been exploiting a loophole in the transfer system between school and their after-school commitment to spend some unsupervised time. So I had a talk with him yesterday, in a very calm and quiet way - I decided I actually kind of liked the grit shown by trying to put one over on us. A fairly harmless one, at that. So while I made it clear that we weren't pleased, I didn't exactly browbeat him.

We had Monday to spend together yesterday, by the way. T had daycare and Janneke went to work, so Q and I did a whole bunch of stuff. (Though my first activity of the day was to go running with Magnus. We ran 13 frickin' miles. he then went on to run 3 more, but I went home. Sixteen miles? That's just crazy. After I had some breakfast, I went to pick Q up from where he'd just had a sleepvoer birthday party at his friend Sean's house, and our day of daddy-son funhouse craziness began.) We then went apple picking (Macouns are absolutely the best apples ever conceived), watched Sports Center, threw the football, explored the woodsy area between our street and Sean's back yard (turns out you can walk there in five minutes without ever crossing a street), drove to North Adams and bought me some running shoes, and had lunch at McDonald's, before going to Paresky hall to play pool. It was just an absolute hoot.

We're on the very edge of possibilities with this computer. I've got too many movies on here, and I can't get them off - well, the main problem is that I have a half-hour-long movie project, which is an ungodly amount of gigabytes long, and leaves me without enough free space to turn it into a much-smaller movie so I can delete the project. So we're thinking about getting some more memory space, wondering what our options are. And long-term, I need to be able to burn DVDs so I can send these movies off to people. (Like my Dad, who would watch them on the tee-vee but won't on the computer.) So we have to lay out some more money. Which we love to do. I'm thinking I'd like to get a Mac Mini and set it up in the basement with the monitor we have from the old Dell desktop that melted down years ago.

Y'know how sick I am of hitting the mute button every damn time a Cyalis commercial comes on? I just don't need to think about an erection that lasts more than four hours. And neither do T or Q.

Almost as sick as I am of John McCain's flagrant racism. I'm having fun imagining Barack Obama meeting McCain post-election and saying, "I will never forget that, John. Never." And when Palin reaches out to shake his hand, Obama turns his back on her and walks away.

And then Palin and McCain notice a Barbie makeup kit, left behind by one of the Obama daughters on the floor. Palin reaches down and picks it up. "Aww," she says, "I used to have one of these!" She winks at McCain and opens it up.

Blinding light gushes out of it, and she and McCain melt like the Nazis at the end of "Raiders of the Lost Ark."

Lamest Post Ever

Or close to it, anyway. But I wanted you to know: I still care. Just not that much.

T is in the living room, doing some post-ballet-practice coloring. They give her a new letter and calendar for every month, and she has a binder where she keeps it all. She goes every Tuesday at 3:15 - too early for me to make it back, unfortunately. So Mami takes her, and I hear about it afterwards. I took her once, to the very first time, and wound up sitting on the sidelines with her on my lap, claiming shyness, for 98% of the lesson. She finally felt sufficiently confident to join them when they were saying goodbye. It was only a 30-minute lesson, but I have to say, that's longer than I prefer to be sitting in dirty socks on a folding chair at the edge of a dance floor.

The lessons are held at Pine Cobble School, a local private K-9 school where our friend Danny teaches. From what I understand, it's pretty pricey, but I'm not sure where the money goes. The facilities are a little bit run-down. But the teacher is enthusiastic, and the little helper girls are nice. T hasn't quite gotten the same rapport with them as she used to have with Carly, the girl who helped out at tumbling, but she enjoys the whole concept of dance more, I think. Always comes home chipper, anyway.

I am waiting out the few minutes I have before I go to drive Q from the Youth Center to soccer practice. Q had his debut as a pianist last night - they had "A Little Night Music" at the elementary school. It was a pretty informal soup-and-crackers get-together with students who play instruments performing for everyone in a somewhat free-flowing format. Q played "Bugle Boys" - Here's a link to video that Ronadh shot of it:

http://madmonster.williams.edu/misc/Q.MPEG

We were not exactly on the ball, multi-media wise. Probably at least partially due to the fact that I was sick all day yesterday. I bugged out on a faculty meeeting and came home to sleep before going to pick up T and go to Q's recital, then hit the hay minutes after putting them to bed. And had fevered dreams about those weird domesticated foxes. Anyone who's run into me in the last three days has been regaled with that whole business - so I'd just like to take this opportunity to say: I'm sorry. I swear, I do have other things to talk about.

Like how cute my kids are. Nobody ever gets sick of that! Here's a picture I took tonight - Q and I were on the couch at bedtime, and I was massaging his calf, which was sore for some reason:



Or how nice our family is. I accidentally uploaded this one while trying to upload the one above, and thought to myself: "The world must know...!"



So there you have it. Lamest blog post ever. Hey, like I always say about this rag: It's worth every penny.

Docility in Man and Beast

Hola - Just a few things quickly, and then it's back to correcting:

T was walking the neighborhood with Mami today and they noticed how many houses have decorations up for Halloween. T did not like being outdone, and so she came home and immediately set about rectifying the situation, drawing witches and pumpkins and walking out onto the porch to hang them on the posts. She is very dedicated to image maintenance.

Q had two scooer games this weekend, and had streaks of wild action in both, but was mostly a little catatonic. Alex B's mom noticed the same thing both games. They won Saturday and lost today, to the big evil team they had tied a few weeks back. Q had a BRILLIANT run today, frighteningly controlled and showing a touch on the ball that is beyond his years. At another point, a So. Berkshire player started to make a long run toward the goal - and Q ran him down from the opposite side of the field, covering almost the whole length of the pitch, and took it away from him JUST as he was about to shoot. Brilliant plays. But much of the rest of the game, he stood around and watched things happen, yipped and jumped out of the way of players rather than trying to challenge them. Can't force him into it, I guess - he has to grow into it.

We all sat down after supper and found a program on the Discovery Channel about the evolution of the dog from the wolf, something Q and I had talked about at length before, and so we all settle in to watch it. T zonked out after a few minutes, but Q was hyper-attentive throughout. Brilliant show - they outlined an experiment at a fox fur farm in the soviet union, where a manager tried to make them more docile by simple inserting a gloved hand into each adult fox's cage, and if the fox cowered, attacked, or otherwise showed aggressiveness, it was not allowed to breed. And in ten years' time, the foxes had changed color, going to black and white rather than grey; they had gotten blotches of white over their eyes and on their bodies; their ears had lopped over; they began to bark - They turned into a tame animal! Not a dog, of course, but PRACTICALLY a dog! I was fascinated. As was Q. We both want one of them as a pet now - they showed them at that same fox farm now, being petted by school children. They have completely lost their fear of people.

T loved Mami's pound cake tonight, which made mami very happy indeed...And that's the news. Updates as time allows...

Soccer and Other Things

Except that there are not other things in this post. They will have to wait - I just spent an hour on the phone with my sister. Cost me nothing, but kept this from being written for a good while. (Damn you, Skype! Damn you and your free, irresistible Jetson-like wiles...!!)

Two games this weekend, one yesterday and one today, both in Williamstown at the elementary school. Yesterday's first: When we arrived for warmups, the Southern Berkshire team was jogging around the field in a tight crowd, seeming to surround the Williamstown Strikers as they stretched. Even as I approached the field form the parking lot a good 100 yards away, I could tell they were big kids. And the word on the street was that there was not a single third grader on the squad. All of them at least 9, some of them 10, and all of them huge. Their coach stalked back and forth with his arms crossed, watching them jog. He seemed very serious indeed.

As I unfolded our chairs on the sidelines, I chatted with the mother of Jay, the Strikers' main goalie, who'd been there a while. And she said that while they were stretching, the So Berkshire coach had paced back and forth in front of his team slowly, demanding silence as he tried to focus them for the match. One quote she overheard: "The first time you're out of position, I'll warn you. The second time, you'll sit, and it will be for a good little while." We looked sidelong at each other and raised our eyebrows. This might be an intense day.

But I argued for optimism. "They're bigger," I said, "but I know for a fact they aren't faster. There's just no way." Q, Alex, Brady and Sam D have to be the top 4 runners in their grade, and they're probably faster than the entire grade above them. I was nervous for the boys, but I had a good feeling.

By virtue of their having been standing together near midfield when the ref called for the captains, Q and Alex were appointed to represent the strikers and marched to the center. The Southern Berkshire captains were a head taller, and both dark of hair and curly, looking down at Q and Alex, both short-haired blondies. This was the way the game would be, it seemed: Size, strength, experience, versus Williamstown's yellow-headed Tasmanian Devil-style swarmers. The coin was tossed, and Williamstown would take the first possession.

The game opened up with a very quick goal - by the Strikers. Sammy D charged through their entire collective defense for a solo run and beat the keeper squarely on the very first possession. Jubilation on the part of the Strikers, some of whom had been feeling a bit intimidated before the game. And one of whom, Q, remained so even after the quick goal. He wasn't himself - a lot of standing around and looking, a lot of shirt-holding (his own) and grimacing in a withdrawn sort of hunker - he watched players take the ball right past him, watched his teammates launch attacks and not think to go with them...Coach Foehl would cry, "Q! You are a forward!", as Q stood motionless near his own net and folded his shirt edge into itself over and over, seemingly deaf. It was very frustrating to watch, and I found myself trying to shake him out of it verbally. Never a good move - I come off as loud and pushy, and Q never reacts well to it. But it was like a compulsive need to scratch an itch - despite knowing it will only make things worse, I could not stop myself. "Q! Despertate!" ("Wake up!") "Q! Sos el DEFENSOR ahora! Paralo!" ("You're the DEFENDER now! Stop him!) Etc. Janneke tried to shush me, and I managed to keep more of a lid on it than at previous games, but I was absolutely squirming. He was stuck in second gear; he just wasn't himself, and his team needed him.

To complete their image as the heavies, Southern berkshire's coach loudly complained to a ref about a call in the first half. Having already warned the Baddies (probably not their nickname) about playing the ball rather than the man, about knocking people over on purpose, and having reminded one of their players about this not twenty seconds previous, she called one of them for sending Eli sprawling, and awarded a free kick to the Strikers. Which caused their coach to throw his hands in the air and shout, "HE GOT THE BALL!!!" And the ref, a former student of mine at BArT, held up one finger to him and said "Whoah. Stop." He continued, and she marched over and told him (as she recounted to us at halftime) that she would red card him if this continued. He got quieter and quieter as the reality of what it would be like to be known as "the guy who got red-carded at a 3rd-and-fourth-grade soccer game" ("by a girl" probably figuring in as well) became clearer and clearer.

But even without the rough stuff, So. Berkshire is formidable and skilled. Very soon it was 1-1, and then 2-1, So Berkshire taking the lead. Q was subbed out and spoken to by the coaches. "Q," as they told me later they'd said, "we do notice when you aren't playing like yourself. You're not running like we know you can run! Come on, pal! We need you!" And after that pep talk and a bit of time to blow, he went back in.

He was probably in for a minute before Sam D stole the ball from an oncoming So. Berkshire player deep in the Strikers' end, and looked for a place to send it. Q threw up his arm and called for the ball, and Sam sent it right to his foot.

Honestly, I think that at that moment, instinct took over and simply banished his jitters to the back of his mind, because he settled the ball and turned and accelerated to the goal like the Q I've seen so many times, racing past two defenders, never letting the ball get out beyond his grasp, and firing it into the upper right corner for a goal. He charged across the goal and back up the right side of the field, fists clenched and snarling, shouting primally and looking victorious, furiously satisfied, and vindicated. I was on my knees in front of my lawn chair, both fists in the air, roaring along with the other parents, who were, pretty much to a man, not embarrassing themselves to nearly the same extent.

It was a great, great goal. All speed and skill and quick reactions, ended with a calm and surgical strike right where it needed to be. But the sad thing is that I don't believe that he, as he charged and cheered and gnashed his winner's teeth, was happy.

The rest of the game he was again fairly zombie-like, with occasional bursts of attentiveness and speed. And he did contribute some very solid stuff, helping make it so that, after falling behind 2-5, Williamstown rallied and tied it, and the game ended. A huge victory, really, which should bolster the kids' confidence for the rubber match (next week already), and if their fastest player is on his game, they might actually march down there and come out with a win.

Q seemed happy afterwards, but I suspect he was mostly glad it was over. He loves to win, and to be able to say that he's on an undefeated team, but the actual business of being important, of walking under the weight of that responsibility, of taking on the knowledge that if they're going to win, it's partly up to him, of looking the opposing team in the eye (well, the chest) and not flinching - that's something he's not quite as ready for as some of his teammates. He's as talented as just about any of them, but confidence-wise, he's just not there yet.

I vowed not to call out to him at today's game, and even bought myself gum (which I ordinarily never chew) as a physical reminder at all times to be aware of my mouth. But he was zombie-like again to start, and while I was more successful in restraining myself today than I was yesterday, I still said a few too many things...Not shouting at him, not berating him, just reminding. But I must stop - it isn't my job. It's the coaches' job, and they actually stand a chance of making him hear them. I stand none.

Q scored the Strikers' second goal, another breakaway where the hapless defenders dropped farther and farther behind him as he ran and left him all alone with the goalie, who really stood no chance. And despite some more extended bouts of standing around, he snapped completely into "athlete" mode for the last fifteen minutes or so of the game, which had turned into a bit of a laugher, and must have fired four more shots on goal. None went in, unfortunately, one careening off the crossbar and a couple of others either going into the goalie or wide, but he was dominating that end of the field, making clever plays. (Two come to mind: A beautiful cross to the center when he got clogged up on the left side after a long run, which rolled to a tantalizing stop exactly where Q's teammates should have been before the keeper picked it up because no one had gone with him to support him. And, secondly: After sending a shot wide and bringing about a goal kick, Q, who had noticed that the keeper almost always kicked it straight ahead on goal kicks, hid behind the ref and streaked out to intercept the pass just as the keeper kicked it). He was simply, easily outrunning absolutely everybody down there, and seemingly never tiring out. So it was an improvement over yesterday.

But what kills me is how he could absolutely dominate like that all the time, but for a desire to do so, and a bone-level belief, not only that he can, but that he should.

"That's who he is right now," Janneke reminds me gently. "He feels it sometimes, and sometimes he doesn't. And that's OK."

Why is she so much smarter than I am...?

T Strokes a Wild Animal Under Parental Supervision

Hello, and welcome to a quick weekend update. I write now because later in the day, i will have no time - there will be correcting to be done, as well as a Packer game to watch. And Q has a soccer game in Lee today (50 minutes away) at 4:00, so that will effectively kill our mid-to-late afternoon. And so it's probably now or never.

And we have breaking news! Yesterday, as I mowed the front lawn, Janneke came running from the back yard to tell me that some kind of hawk had bashed itself against our picture window. "Can't be a hawk," I said, and moved to the back yard.

I was right, turns out. It wasn't a hawk. It was a falcon. Here's what he looked like at first:





I sat down in the grass next to him, and took some pictures, of course, but also took care to shade his eyes, since he didn't seem like he could close them. He was breathing, and moving his beak somewhat, and slowly folding his wings - actually, the wings were probably just collapsing back into the folded position because of gravity. He was out just about as cold as a bird can be. After a couple of minutes, he started to come around more and more, to blink more regularly, and to raise his head and look around groggily. I knew from my days watching ER that the ability to move the head meant his neck wasn't broken, which was good. Here's a closeup:



T came and sat with me and sat on my lap, and we used our time as his human shade trees to talk about him - how his talons are for grasping birds, and his beak is sharp and hooked so he can tear the meat off them once he's killed them. She noticed his stripes, the gentle stripe along his eyebrow...Then it ocurred to me that while he was zonked, we could consult every possible angle in my bird book and determine what it was. I sent T in to ask Mami to send it out with her, while I kept guard against the sun and against the neighbor's cat.

T trooped back out with the book, and we determined that it was a merlin, or pigeon-hawk. Their range doesn't appear to include New England at all, but in the accompanying paragraph it said "Northern New England, rarely". So we were allowed.

After a bit more, we rolled him over onto his stomach - seemed like an easier position from which to stand up, which, given the way he was following my hand with his eyes, he was going to want to do soon. He didn't resist or panic - just accepted the whole business with admirable poise. T got to stroke his tail feathers, and I dared to venture a little farther north and feel the top of his head. Nice and hard, no blood - he seemed fine, just stunned. Probably five more minutes, and then he stood:



Utterly gorgeous. He was still following my hand when I moved it in front of him, but still seemed just shy of sufficiently present to realize that this was not a circumstance in which, evolutionarily, it would be advantageous for him to be. As it turned out in the end, Hobie hurried things along. He was snuffing and sniffing ever closer to the bird, and I tried to call him off, but realized for the thousandth time that he is almost completely deaf. My last shout as he approached the bird, coupled with my lunge to try to shove him back, snapped the bird his senses, and he leapt up and flew quite skillfully over our woodpile, across the fence, and around toward the trees at the back or our neighbor's yard, where he tried to land, but didn't quite make it and fluttered to the ground. And so our chapter in his adventure ended.

It occurs to me now that he was still in danger back there from cats, but fear not: around supper time, we saw him perched on the neighbor's fence, probably still nursing a headache and recovering his strength. Mark Brandriss, our friend from up the road, told us that in his 35 years or so of avid bird watching, he's seen one merlin. So we feel pretty lucky.

Though the lucky stuff waited until after noon to happen. I went squirrel hunting again Saturday morning, and spent almost four hours in the woods and saw absolutely nothing. It's public land near Williamstown, open to hunting, but I swear, that entire mountain (which I summitted) has not a single oak tree. At the top I did find a lot of berry bushes, and accompanying bear scat, but that was the end of my excitement. Pretty good exercise, though.

And of course there's this picture to share with you:



Why? I don't know - taunting you, I guess. Because we get to look at that every day. (Unfortunately, some times, like when she's in a panic for the tenth time because the scary part of "The Neverending Story" is coming, we also get to listen.)

The Rodent Slayer

Just have to tell you this quick:

Q and I went on his first hunt last Saturday. We drove to Adams, where I went deer hunting last year, and pulled out Dad's .22 rifle that he bought when he was in grade school 70 years ago. With hooded sweatshirts to ward off the mosquitoes, we marched into the woods to hunt squirrels, for which the season had opened on September 8th.

I had already briefed Q on how it works: walk a ways, stop, listen. Since there are still so many leaves on the trees, they'd be harder to see, and we would certianly hear them before we could see them. Especially on a day like Saturday - cool, with wet branches, but no rain. Just some fog. Every time they moved, they set the rain to falling from the branches.

We walked for probably ten minutes before we heard our first one, and split up to try to come at it from two sides. Q was very excited about our hand gestures back and forth - we tried to maintain a pretty silent presence, so as not to spook the little critters unnecessarily. And it worked - we trooped right up under the tree where the squirrel was doing its business, and I began to maneuver for a shot.

Q watched for the squirrel and alerted me every time he caught a glimpse; I followed his lead and eventually got a decent look. Probably forty feet up, straight above us, more or less - he stopped moving, and I fired on him, center mass.

He dropped to earth as limp and as dead as could be. As he fell, Q said "Whoa!", and I couldn't help but release a "Ha! Viste eso?" Both were still echoing in the air when the squirrel landed against the tree, caught in the light brambles there.

We examined it. I had caught it right in the belly, and it had exited high out its back. I imagine the sudden drop in blood pressure had done it in. Q was most fascinated by how soft its paws were - they have knobby ridges on the undersides of their paws, tough and soft at the same time, each one protruding outward and riding underneath the curving claw above it. It surprised me - seemed almost like the pad would prevent the claw from catching on the bark. We talked about that a while.

"I feel bad for him," Q said. I looked over at him, and he was still smiling, hands on his knees, content in the ambiguity. Caught himself on the fence between pride and celebration, and the empathy and respect he's always felt for animals. A poignant moment best not marred by any paternal yammering. So I let the emotions ring and hang in the air, and didn't interrupt.

After a few seconds, he said, "Podemos ver adentro?"

So the cleaning began. I really only split it up the middle and removed the organs, which we inspected. Intestines, stomach, heart, lungs, etc. Left the skin on to keep the meat clean, slipped it into the bag I wore across my hips, and on we went, chuckling with our success, listening for more.

Probably half an hour later, we were standing under where we had recently heard movement, and the wait was getting long. I said to Q, "Well, he's not moving. But we know he's here - we heard him. So before we move on, I'm going to see if I can provoke him. I'm going to make a sound like a squirrel, and if this is his territory, he won't like it. Let's see if I can fool him." And I made taut smooching sounds, long and high, in my best imitation of a squirrel call.

A red squirrel immediately sprinted straight down the trunk of a pine tree not twenty feet away from us, claws rattling on the bark as he came. He got four feet off the ground and leapt for us, landing on a downed branch, teeth bared and tail bristling - which was when he realized what he was looking at. I didn't see his facial expression - he turned too fast for that, floundering not to lose his balance, and sprang back to the trunk to race back up as fast as he had come down. Q and I laughed and laughed. Not willing to shoot squirrels quite that small, and unaware of its legality in any case, we spared him and turned back to the woods to look for other prey, Q firmly convinced that I am a forest Jedi.

Saw two more, but never got a good shot. And then we went home. Where we skinned and boiled our prize, and roasted him on the grill beside sausages that very same evening. Absolutely delicious.

I will be doing that again, friends. With a little bit of luck, it will be with Q. But failing that, I'm going out myself. I haven't felt this refreshed and grounded in a long time.

Other updates as events dictate...