a little vacation...and PRX, Public Radio Exchange

While listening to NPR, I learned that there had been 32 hundred and 68 dollars contributed to the anti-gun (not the correct name, but you know what I mean) lobby and something like 13 million, it could have been billion for all I know, contributed to the NRA lobbyist.      It's hard to say anything, in the face of that, about the 20 children and six teachers... sad, sad, sad...


 I can't say that I've been accomplishing much, but I've been working hard...

and wanted a little vacation at the Museum of Science. I'd joined because of the Pompeii show, to see it twice, and because the museum is so expensive for one visit, it's worth getting a membership... I was so involved with the project on Thoroughbred breeding this summer, that I did basically nothing else but fuss over that.,,forgetting all about museums and movies and other such entertainment that humans enjoy.

And now I'm doing bits and pieces of whatever, so a vacation is imaginable. However, the mammoth show just didn't help me feel any better physically or mentally. I liked seeing the mock image of Lyuba, the baby mammoth found in Siberia, I think, by a herder, the frozen creature, named for his wife... National Geographic had an issue about her, but I hadn't remember, or perhaps hadn't known that detail of the naming...         So, there was a bit about her, a reproduction of nomadic herder coming across body that wasn't a deer, that had a trunk, a frozen creature which had been petrified by the bacteria of the swamp into which it had fallen,  inspected sufficiently to discover that she wasn't old enough to eat grass, but had lived on pollen and mother's milk...

I can't name the ages, paleolithic, etc., and being confronted with more information that I know nothing about didn't sit well with my mood. Usually I'm cheered by a realizing all that I've missed learning, but I was too tired to enjoy that at all. And it hardly mattered to me, given the mood I was in, that pygmy elephants had come into existence on islands because there was so little food.

I was going to give up and go home to lie down, but then I looked down a different stairway and saw the sculpture

that this little boy is looking at. It's quite huge, a perpetual motion of balls rolling across and down and banging into this or that which got them moving again. Fascinating. The upper section has larger black balls which make more noise, but I got a stiff neck trying to make sense of that, so I settled for looking at the two brothers, one of which appeared quite a while after this fellow had stood transfixed at all the pool-table-size-balls that were conveyed up, slowly, one at a time, to the point where they could start sliding down the wire pathways....and finally end up in that metal bowl shape object  that he's peering into.  

After this I found a volunteer with a skink clutching onto his leather glove...   He was explaining the tongue of a snake, forked so that it can receive smells from different directions, compared to the fleshy tongue of the skink...      

In back of him was a fine room with a hodgepodge of skulls, shells and taxidermied animals...very interesting. It would be wonderful to sit there and draw...

It would be wonderful to sit anywhere and draw...

My favorite new thing is to wake up in the middle of the night and listen to the radio, this strange program that features a mix of story-telling styles. I have yet to look up blank on blank and the other organizations featured on WGBH at that strange hour. Fabulous.

P.S. And to my amazement, I learned about musk oxen on the Seward Peninsula in Alaska, relatively small animals, maybe 600 pounds, with eight inches (could this be possible?) of  heavy, thick interior fur warmer than lambs wool and long silky outer coat that drags on the ground which is shed every year. This was told as if the fellow was actually watching a small herd, but obviously he wasn't and broadcast on Northern Encounters from KCAW in Sitka. Before that I heard Mountain Voices, the last bit of a woman talking about her job checking hunting licenses in a reservations. Her voice woke me up, so I had the pleasure of hearing about musk oxen and learning about a psychiatrist, Albert Bendura, who helps people overcome phobias to snakes, guided master! and learned that the basis of good story telling is anticipation mingled with uncertainty. I hate rules, but I didn't mind at least hearing that one...on PRX, Public Radio Exchange.   Hurry toward this station.

Late Monday Afternoon and into Evening

 This is the tenth cat that's come to the back porch, been fed and eventually placed. Of course, that sentence implies that this one has been placed, found a home, that someone has answered the ad on Craig's list and taken the cat into a good home. That doesn't happen to be true.

K. has done all of this with remarkable skill and good luck until this cat wandered by and she fed her, took her in, made a place in the basement, provided food and rest in so she could bulk up and clean herself up, before the usual process of listing her.

But she noticed that it seems to have a discharge, looked it up on google and found -- infection of the uterus. Damn. A big snag in an otherwise somewhat difficult, but not impossible venture. So, I drove her to the vet I used, having myself just spent $300 to get Bogie's teeth cleaned and 2 pulled so he can return to being a therapy dog, a job he's lagged on for the last few years...

Money has been racing out of my pockets so when the vet said that this foundling cat, maybe a year old, needed an immediate, as in immediate, the next morning, operation that would cost between 3-500 $ minimum...not counting whatever else, I was extremely unhappy and K. was beside herself. This is much, much, much too much money for a rescued cat that would be going to another home.

The vet said she'll die, that we might as well have her put to sleep, no, euthanized, for $130.

And we took her away, quarreling about money, in general, on the way back. The cat was remarkably passive during all of this, undoubtedly because she's really sick...maybe because she has a particularly nice nature.

Fortunately, K. put up a request on Craig's list for advice about less expensive ways of having a cat with this particular and difficult problem spayed...  And fortunately, another client had been in the vet's office at the same time, a woman fostering a ragdoll cat which weighs only 7 pounds, but looks like a small dog with all that fur...and she had offered advice about the organization she's connected with. And three or four people from Craig's list with suggestions, names of vets and numbers. Can you imagine that anyone would be looking on Craig's list at 6 on a Monday evening, just waiting to give out helpful information?

So, with all that help, and endless phone calls and e-mails, this cat has an appointment with THE SAME VET on Friday morning, tomorrow, at 7 am, but now with a voucher and K's cash, only $120, and will have the operation and be thoroughly checked out, given antibiotics, put on a website by the organization sponsoring this and on Craig's list by K. and should find a home in 2 weeks...

I'm very taken with this cat who has a black, or dark gray, chin...and wouldn't mind keeping it, but that would be the route to further insanity.

Right after that, with the quarrel still on my lips, I took the two cakes I'd made during the day, the weakness of using mixes ... four boxes... (but i backed bread that day, so I guess that redeems me, somewhat..a whole day of cooking...quite unusual) to be decorated by Isa and Sofia and Elaine... Maureen came along and helped prevent me from taking over because I dearly, dearly love icing cakes in this way. "Why don't we let the girl's do this?" That was the plan and basically that worked, though the mom did help a bit...   Oh, nothing better than butter cream icing globbed on in festive patches. They were to be a surprise for our marvelous Chelsea Community Garden coordinator whose two terms are over.            I washed bowls to keep my hands off the decorating.    And was quite pleased with having thought of this project and having introduced Elaine, who teaches young children, to this new game....and her girls  made wonderful designs...  


 But my sciatic nerve didn't like something or other. it's taken to protesting recently, especially if i take a walk and then sit in the car to drive home. Whooie... the pain. My body was unhappy when I got home.

So, Sherlock has taking to lolling in the doorway of my workroom, trapping Bogie in it when it's time to go to bed. He was a perfectly excellent kitten, one that K. rescued when the mother dropped three off on the porch next door and those folks didn't want them. But, Tulip took to playing with him and so he's gotten a fierce delight in attacking, especially surprise attacks.    Bogie just hates that and quivers with insult and distress. He just can't muster the will to protest effectively and I often chase Sherlock with a spray bottle, which seems to have done no good...since he gets such pleasure out of his strategies.

So, anyway, I've turned off the light, gotten Bogie safely out of that room and onto the bed, when I go back into the dark room and fall over Sherlock....

End of day. End of story. Except that I took a tylenol and went uncomfortably to bed.

Run to the Roundhouse, Nellie should be up by December 19th.....         I am NOT to be trusted with any details, truly, since I can't remember numbers, never check whether anythings correct, don't seem to have the space in my mind to pay attention and am notorious for slippages, but I will try to put the correct address up as soon as it's gone into space!!!!!!!!! very exciting.

the dentist, Jay Z, James and Run-to

This is Sherlock in a box. He loves boxes. Any box will do. And patrols high surfaces, wondering what he can knock to the floor (and break.)

For years I have dreaded going to the dentist...top of my list of hates -- dentists.

But I needed a new dentist because having my problems fixed in the fancy-pants office in Brookline was going to cost an absolute fortune and, in despair, I asked a friend and she suggested her dentist who had gone into practice with a younger man who was taking over...   So, with heavy heart, I went to see him, the younger fellow...a pleasant enough visit that just entailed talking. But, but BUT, I had to have a tooth pulled. Now the former dentist was sending me to a pulling-specialist, but the new dentist said he though he could pull it in the office. (And he takes my insurance.)

So, having taken my quarter of a Valium, and with a stone-cold heart, I went to have it pulled...expecting to leave an hour or more later, exhausted with nervousness. Ten minutes. Nothing more than a tylenol needed afterward. A miracle. And he was calm, quiet and gently talkative about what was coming next for the whole ten minutes. How was this possible?

(He even offered me the tooth to take home. Regretfully, I said no, because I could have added it to all my daughter's baby teeth that I have saved and the fantastic tooth from a dog my father kept when he was a boy.)

Well, I needed a lot more work done, but to my amazement, didn't need the Valium any longer...I now don't assume that I'll die from the injection. And I don't hate going to the dentist.

I suppose I could say that this is the numbing of age, but I'm sure it isn't. And sure that if I went to the other office again...(actually my long-time dentist is retired, he was a rather high strung man, a bit jangly by nature, but nice enough and familiar, and his replacement seemed more like a well-toned salesman .... ) I'm sure I'd be the same wreck.

(I do totally miss the hygenist there because I'd gone to her for so long and listened to stories of her children as they grew up...of her divorce, her father's death, a good marriage, sailing...but my new one lives close to friends and also has children she talks about...her father had 16 children ((two wives)) which is something to think about.)

 So, if anyone lives within driving distance (he's worth a long commute) of North Cambridge, please let me know and I'll give you his name and number and you will, most probably, I can't imagine you wouldn't be, be happy with this modest, quiet man...and his assistant is nice, too...    

I know that the photograph looks a bit odd, but he was working on a fairly deep filling and I had nothing, nada, not a twinge afterwards....no reaction to cold, to heat, no need for a tylenol...etc. etc....  I can't believe it..and I can't believe that I no longer put dentists in the category of the devil...

On to Jay Z/

K. came running upstairs the other night, "You must turn on Channel 14, 14, no, 14." I was reading Daniel Smith's book on hearing voices...the tv was on, but I wasn't listening, but, she said, E. is on channel 14...  She kept coming back up to check whether I was watching, waiting for E. to appear, because K. had seen the sneak preview on this entertainment show about Jay Z riding on the subway back to Brooklyn for his 8th concert and sitting down next to someone who didn't know who he was. Our friend, E.

Finally, the little bit was shown...Jay Z. walking into the station, hundreds of people taking photos of him, his getting into the car, sitting down next to a pleasant looking woman with gray hair pulled back, glasses, and starting a conversation. Now, E. is very attractive, with a fine profile and a lovely laugh, but she does have gray hair. She's not, not, not as old as I am, but she has gray hair....and didn't know who he was. He politely told her he was Jay and was heading to his concert and she congratulated him on taking the subway and so on......   And the wretched commentator talked about the 'old' lady who would call her grandson and in a creaking voice say, "I just met Jay somebody....."                  Anyway, I wouldn't have known Jay Z, either, though I do know L.L. Cool J and Ice T by sight and would like to sit down next to one of them.

So, now I'm to James who I hope will read this and contact me...please...I can't find his blog and can't connect to him via the MAC mail...the same way I couldn't contact the Cuban in London when I tried... but Run to the Roundhouse, Nellie, will be up soon...the memoir site that Susan Landry is creating and I'm participating in....  I had hoped that james would send a hometown riff...250 words strung in his inimitable way........   but don't know how to contact him.

We will be  looking for guest editors..and most definitely.for folks to respond to the Roundhouse topics...for the first issue it's hometown, any riff that this word sets off in your brain...  250 words max....submit to roundhouse@run-to-the-roundhouse-nellie.com   with your name as you wanted it printed, the city and state where  you live, contact info if you wish...                     Later topics will be on the site when it's up.

One foot in front of the other...

Now that the track is closed, Clemente calls me every morning from Ocalla...I say, "Hi Sweetie" to the phone at 7 or 8 and he's on the other end of the line saying, "I'm walking and talking" and lots of other things I can't understand even when he puts his teeth in...   His English isn't fabulous and the Spanish I tried to learn from him is non-existent, but it's a pleasant ritual...he calls me his white mother and says that he's 45, which is hardly true, and complains that someone hasn't arrived so he doesn't know what to do, no orders about what horses need to go to the machine and which are going to train...he's actually working in stalls, rather than just hotwalking horses...it was hard, I know, when he had to stop exercise riding in the last couple of years, and harder, I'm sure, when he could no longer be a jockey, but this might be an improvement because he's actually pushing a wheelbarrow and cleaning stalls...making more than he did up here, per week, which was $5 a horse he walked, however many horses he walked in a morning, 5 or 6...   anyway, it's as if the circus has left down and left me without the sense I have somewhere interesting to go... until April of May...

Winter is hard, getting dark early, cold in here..I need to put plastic up on the windows...  I'm not fighting a big depression, but a little down that's coped with by putting one foot in front of another and doing work...today was editing a video of a woman who grew up here in Chelsea, remembers all the fun they had playing games on the streets like China and three outs, burning effigies of Hitler and Mussolini in the park after carrying down Broadway, the main street in this little city...   she laughs a lot and wants to go to Boston Commons, sit on the bench, put up a sign, 'Let's talk', since she loves to talk.

I love to listen...

Susan is working incredibly hard to prepare for the debut of Run to the Roundhouse, Nellie...

I'm still going to quilting, still resisting working with small squares, too much work...I hate sewing...but it's interesting listening to the stories these even older women tell...