Nor, in fact, does it run in families. Two nights ago, my dad wondered aloud if poor Ted Kennedy's brain tumour was what had caused him in recent months to endorse Barack Obama. Then, being a sensical man, he ducked. Because he knew something was going to come flying at him from my end of the table.
Yesterday, on my way to the local hippie-crunch food store for more organic kale and carrots to juice (seriously), I saw a bumper sticker: I MISS RONALD REAGAN.
Is it wrong that my first instinct was to roll down the window and yell, "Hinckley didn't!" ?
19 May 2008
Jonas Einstein, 1997-2008
You fought a good fight, Mr. Man, and in the end I'm sorry I wasn't home to tell you it was okay to go. You were a friend and a companion to me, and to my beloved husband, in some very dark times. Like the Native American legends of Coyote, you were also a jester, often a klutz, and occasionally too dumb to be believed (like all those times you fell into the bathwater with me because you slipped on my washcloth). You drove me crazy by shitting in the bathtub whenever my parents or my in-laws came over, your unerring ability to search and destroy freshly clean laundry (pictured here refusing to give Asia her sweatshirt back), and let's not even mention that time you looked squarely at us to make sure we were watching, and then peed into my new leather briefcase, all over my journal.In the last month, you'd made it pretty clear that the end of our time together was approaching. You did this in various ways, not limited to chronic constipation, refusal of all food except liverwurst and cooked bacon, severe dehydration requiring daily fluid replacement, utter incontinence, inability to jump onto furniture or ultimately even climb stairs, and a seizure brought on by low blood sugar. Still, each time I brought you to the vet for what I thought was a date with euthanasia, you perked up and pulled another life out of your furry bag of tricks--Coyote strikes again. This morning, you reached in and found that bag finally empty.
You will be sorely missed, little dude. Thanks for taking care of us all these years. I can only hope we returned the favour when it was most needed.
16 May 2008
Random Thought #482 (from the Insomnia Files)
One of the most annoying things about living in the country (one of the few, in fact) is that animals having sex in the middle of the night? Really, really loud. And not even vaguely erotic.
09 May 2008
She-Ra, Princess of Stupid (and her cat, Mega-Paw)
This time last week Jonas, the oldest of my three cats, was receiving his second enema (the details of which are just about as horrifying as you're imagining right now, for both the recipient and the administrator) and about to begin a course of subcutaneous fluids to attempt to forestall permanent kidney failure.
Without going into too many of the gory details, suffice it to say that it wasn't a good week for either of us. Jo spent two days too weak to do anything but sleep--unable to walk, eat, drink, or protest when forced to suffer the various indignities of kitty rehydration, which sadly included peeing on himself where he lay. Hey, I said I wouldn't go into too many of the details. I didn't say I wouldn't mention any of them. My dad and I discussed possible locations of interment relative to our groundwater source, and I went so far as to get the shovel out of the barn.
Then, mysteriously, Saturday evening at 6:00 he staggered upright and lurched across the kitchen--straight through his unused food dish, scattering kibble everywhere--to a patch of sunlight near where my dad was cooking. Sunday morning he started to eat. And, true to his normal self, hasn't really stopped since.
Yesterday morning, right after my alarm went off, he looked at me next to him on the bed and promptly fell over into a seizure. Yipes. Off to the vet we went (again) for more violations from behind (him, not me). He stayed the afternoon this time, and came home with a diagnosis of vastly improved kidney function but mysteriously low blood sugar. Since it's really hard to feed a cat jelly beans, he's got a dextrose solution made for cattle that now goes into his drip line in the evening. He's also got a bizarre blue IV catheter port on one of his front paws and a whopping edema in the other paw, making it look like a Muppet paw or something. Thus, his superhero immortal nickname: Mega-Paw.
A moment ago, I just switched out a fresh bag of Ringer's and managed not to contaminate anything, explode a bag of sticky fluids all over myself, or stab myself with an errant needle. As I've not worked at a vet's office since early 2001, I was quite proud of myself, and as victory surged through me, I shot both arms up in the air and hooted, "I have the power of Greyskull!"
My dad, walking through the kitchen at this particular moment and unfamiliar with pop culture cartoon series of the mid-eighties, is now under the impression that I have the power of numbskull, and isn't sure I should be advertising it quite so proudly.
Without going into too many of the gory details, suffice it to say that it wasn't a good week for either of us. Jo spent two days too weak to do anything but sleep--unable to walk, eat, drink, or protest when forced to suffer the various indignities of kitty rehydration, which sadly included peeing on himself where he lay. Hey, I said I wouldn't go into too many of the details. I didn't say I wouldn't mention any of them. My dad and I discussed possible locations of interment relative to our groundwater source, and I went so far as to get the shovel out of the barn.
Then, mysteriously, Saturday evening at 6:00 he staggered upright and lurched across the kitchen--straight through his unused food dish, scattering kibble everywhere--to a patch of sunlight near where my dad was cooking. Sunday morning he started to eat. And, true to his normal self, hasn't really stopped since.
Yesterday morning, right after my alarm went off, he looked at me next to him on the bed and promptly fell over into a seizure. Yipes. Off to the vet we went (again) for more violations from behind (him, not me). He stayed the afternoon this time, and came home with a diagnosis of vastly improved kidney function but mysteriously low blood sugar. Since it's really hard to feed a cat jelly beans, he's got a dextrose solution made for cattle that now goes into his drip line in the evening. He's also got a bizarre blue IV catheter port on one of his front paws and a whopping edema in the other paw, making it look like a Muppet paw or something. Thus, his superhero immortal nickname: Mega-Paw.
A moment ago, I just switched out a fresh bag of Ringer's and managed not to contaminate anything, explode a bag of sticky fluids all over myself, or stab myself with an errant needle. As I've not worked at a vet's office since early 2001, I was quite proud of myself, and as victory surged through me, I shot both arms up in the air and hooted, "I have the power of Greyskull!"
My dad, walking through the kitchen at this particular moment and unfamiliar with pop culture cartoon series of the mid-eighties, is now under the impression that I have the power of numbskull, and isn't sure I should be advertising it quite so proudly.
19 April 2008
What a Crock
My poor mom thinks she's losing her mind. Any other time we might agree with her--she's a very good candidate--but this time, there's a reason.All morning I have been struggling to retain my composure. This is quite a feat for me. I do not have the world's best poker face. I love being in on a secret, and letting people know that I'm in on it. Fortunately, my mom is (as mentioned above) often oblivious to the subtext in interactions. so I'm working this to my advantage.
Several weeks ago, my mom fell in love with a red kitchen compost crock. At the time, it wasn't an immediate issue, because our interim container is safely out on the screen porch. It is, in fact, the old diaper pail, which actually functions quite well when you think about it. The problem is it's on the screen porch, which shortly will become the primary gathering place for meals and other times. There won't be enough room for a diaper pail, let alone the inconvenience of a day's worth of decaying vegetation at someone's feet while they're eating.
This morning, my mom decided she was going to order said compost crock, and began to tear the kitchen apart for the catalogue. It has been driving her practically batshit that she can't find it. She's been down to the cellar recycling pile, she's been through each catalogue three times, to make sure it's not in there. She's on the verge of a major obsession.
My dad and I are watching this with a great deal of sidelong amusement and exploding-cheek faces over her crouched figure on the floor. Because the catalogue has been up on my desk for three weeks; about ten minutes after my mom announced that she liked the red one best, I emailed my sister and offered to split the price for Mother's Day.
I really don't know how much more of this frantic catalogue-digging I can handle before I have pity on my poor mom. One thing's for certain: if she doesn't get sidetracked by something soon, when she opens her gift a few Sundays from now, it will be rendered utterly useless immediately, from her cracking it over the top of my stubborn head.
17 April 2008
Brave and Crazy (and I Ain't Tellin Who Is Who)
If one of you is a cat, and the other of you is a person, there are certain rules.
One of these rules is, no matter how much you wish it to be otherwise, the one of you who is a person must, before retiring to another room for even just a moment, place some sort of protective covering over the bacon bits on the sideboard next to the spinach salad. Because if you do not do this, the one of you who is a cat will shortly be discovered (by someone else, in this case) with his entire head brazenly in the salad bowl. You must either learn to "cover up, buttercup," or learn to go without bacon bits in your spinach salad.
This is just the way it is. No amount of yelling, scolding, training, or flat-out cussing is ever going to make it any different.
One of these rules is, no matter how much you wish it to be otherwise, the one of you who is a person must, before retiring to another room for even just a moment, place some sort of protective covering over the bacon bits on the sideboard next to the spinach salad. Because if you do not do this, the one of you who is a cat will shortly be discovered (by someone else, in this case) with his entire head brazenly in the salad bowl. You must either learn to "cover up, buttercup," or learn to go without bacon bits in your spinach salad.
This is just the way it is. No amount of yelling, scolding, training, or flat-out cussing is ever going to make it any different.
06 April 2008
Overexposure
I went long on this because I really got stuck. Not because I couldn't come up with a response--no, quite the opposite. I got stuck because I had too many responses crowding the door to my brain, each trying to get through first and be picked up and held. As a result, this might end up being one of those "all over the damn place" posts.
My problem remains that two of the three men dearest to me in the world are professional photographers--my father, a fine art photographer after twenty-five years in the judicial branch, and my dearest friend and mentor, a photojournalist and filmmaker. One thing this means is that what gets saved from our house fire is not photographs but a metal case containing binders crammed with negative sleeves. That's just the way it is. The cats have legs, they can get out on their own.
Another thing it means is that often, the memories I have of people and events are dictated from a different perspective. We don't pose for photographs in my family. We go about our daily business, assured in the knowledge that we will one day find it magically recreated in the tiny squares of a contact sheet and wonder aloud why we didn't see the long snout of the 75mm lens crawling up into our faces at the time.
A third thing it means is that watching TV is a bitch. My dad will see things going on in the corner of the frame that those of us without secret x-ray vision would never notice. Robin has been known to yell "Focus!" at a perfectly normal screen, or criticize its headroom. Good God, man, it's baseball. Let the rest of us watch the World Series in peace, will ya? Not even CSI is safe. The other night, as Catherine Willows was documenting a crime scene, my dad winced as the flash went off three times in rapid succession: "That's the trouble with digital. People take three shots when all they need is one." Um, yeah dad, but this is about documenting evidence, not making things look pretty. It's not like it's going anywhere. The victim isn't going to get up any time soon and blow the composition.
I can't even call them digital cameras without getting yelled at. My dad refers to them--not arbitrarily--as computers with lenses. He's right, of course. That's really what they are. A digital image is not a photograph, since etymologically speaking a photograph is a picture made with light. There's no light involved in creating a digital image, just pixels. Nevertheless, this frequently causes another chorus of, "Yeah, whatever dad."
And don't even get him started on film vs. digital. He's got several dozen valid points, among them clarity, depth, control of your input (ever seen a digital camera with a "manual" shutter setting?) But sometimes digital is just so damned convenient. You can go to Africa and not have to check $2000 worth of overage in luggage. You can carry 14 gigs of memory a lot more easily than 60 rolls of film. (I know this. I've packed 60 rolls of film. They end up everywhere. In his shoes. In the first aid kit. Shirt pockets. Tucked between his shaving kit and his toothbrush. In his underwear, though not usually while he's wearing it.) But on the other hand, so many people go digital because they think you don't have to think. You just shoot. Manipulate later. It's art, some of it, but is it photography? How do you explain depth of field to someone who's never had to calculate it because the computer does it for them? How do you explain the tension of waiting for a shot, your fingers itching for the shutter but your brain overriding them because your eye knows the moment is not yet come? The magic of standing in a darkened closet, waiting for the image to swim up through the bath in pieces toward you?
My problem remains that two of the three men dearest to me in the world are professional photographers--my father, a fine art photographer after twenty-five years in the judicial branch, and my dearest friend and mentor, a photojournalist and filmmaker. One thing this means is that what gets saved from our house fire is not photographs but a metal case containing binders crammed with negative sleeves. That's just the way it is. The cats have legs, they can get out on their own.
Another thing it means is that often, the memories I have of people and events are dictated from a different perspective. We don't pose for photographs in my family. We go about our daily business, assured in the knowledge that we will one day find it magically recreated in the tiny squares of a contact sheet and wonder aloud why we didn't see the long snout of the 75mm lens crawling up into our faces at the time.
A third thing it means is that watching TV is a bitch. My dad will see things going on in the corner of the frame that those of us without secret x-ray vision would never notice. Robin has been known to yell "Focus!" at a perfectly normal screen, or criticize its headroom. Good God, man, it's baseball. Let the rest of us watch the World Series in peace, will ya? Not even CSI is safe. The other night, as Catherine Willows was documenting a crime scene, my dad winced as the flash went off three times in rapid succession: "That's the trouble with digital. People take three shots when all they need is one." Um, yeah dad, but this is about documenting evidence, not making things look pretty. It's not like it's going anywhere. The victim isn't going to get up any time soon and blow the composition.
I can't even call them digital cameras without getting yelled at. My dad refers to them--not arbitrarily--as computers with lenses. He's right, of course. That's really what they are. A digital image is not a photograph, since etymologically speaking a photograph is a picture made with light. There's no light involved in creating a digital image, just pixels. Nevertheless, this frequently causes another chorus of, "Yeah, whatever dad."
And don't even get him started on film vs. digital. He's got several dozen valid points, among them clarity, depth, control of your input (ever seen a digital camera with a "manual" shutter setting?) But sometimes digital is just so damned convenient. You can go to Africa and not have to check $2000 worth of overage in luggage. You can carry 14 gigs of memory a lot more easily than 60 rolls of film. (I know this. I've packed 60 rolls of film. They end up everywhere. In his shoes. In the first aid kit. Shirt pockets. Tucked between his shaving kit and his toothbrush. In his underwear, though not usually while he's wearing it.) But on the other hand, so many people go digital because they think you don't have to think. You just shoot. Manipulate later. It's art, some of it, but is it photography? How do you explain depth of field to someone who's never had to calculate it because the computer does it for them? How do you explain the tension of waiting for a shot, your fingers itching for the shutter but your brain overriding them because your eye knows the moment is not yet come? The magic of standing in a darkened closet, waiting for the image to swim up through the bath in pieces toward you?
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